I am an avid follower and a huge fan of Formula 1 racing.
Though there are many versions of auto racing like production car racing, GT
championships, stock racing like NASCAR which is a rage in the US, with all due
respect to all these, F1 has always taken the cake away for me with its
impeccable attention to technological and mechanical detail, the endurance and
skill of the driver, the pit team strategy and the sheer thrill of watching
those mean machines streak across the track. Trust me, if you are an F1 fan you
should watch a race in person and take in the sounds, smell and sights of the
F1 cars when they scream past you making the hair on your neck stand and giving
you goose-bumps.
This would make you wonder about the title of this write-up.
If it was framed as a question, it would be rhetorical and the answer would be
a big fat “No”. Therefore, this is intended only as a satirical take on the
traffic situation at Hyderabad or any Indian city for that matter. As they say
“If you learn to drive in India, you can drive anywhere else in the world.”
Whether you will be trusted to do so is an entirely different story.
Now what is so special about a Hyderabadi driver?
Let us begin at the starting grid of the F1 race. The F1
drivers neatly assemble in a grid at the starting point and streak away when
all the starting lights illuminate and blink off. Well the Hyderabadi driver is
different. Traffic line, zebra crossing, lane discipline etc do not form part
of his vocabulary. If he was made to line up on an F1 track, he and the other
members of his breed will crowd at the start line like hungry spectators in a
gladiator match ready to jump into the ring. You as a spectator need to be
careful, as you may find him with his vehicle right inside the viewing paddock
if the grid line is ‘full’. Further, the lights do not decide when he vrooms
off; he decides when the lights should blink off!
If you thought Seb or Hami (for the benefit of the
uninitiated, those are the nicknames of Vettel and Hamilton) follow some of the
best driving lines around the track then you have got it wrong. The Hyderabadi
driver flows like water in a brook or a gust of wind in a valley, following the
path of least resistance. If he sees an inch of space then doubt you not, he
will stuff his vehicle into it. If the vehicle in the front slows down, he will
inevitably barge into the adjacent lane without any warning. It doesn’t matter
whether his grandpa is in his death throes in that adjacent lane; he WILL run him
over!
Then there is the time penalty or drive thru’ penalty that an
F1 driver has to contend with if he joins the main race by driving over the pit
lane line. But the Hyderabadi driver gives a plug nickel’s worth to such meaningless
rules when he joins the main road traffic from a by lane or street. He will
take such a nonchalant turn onto the main road and such a wide one when he is
at it, as if he was taxiing a 747 instead of his car that he will either grind
the whole traffic to a halt or get mowed down by a truck driven by “another”
Hyderabadi driver as his fate deems fit; and all this without even a single
glance at the oncoming traffic. If you ask him how brash his ignorance of basic
traffic rules is he would just say “Traffic rules ki maaki kirkiri” which
roughly translates to “Traffic rules’ mother’s (kirkiri doesn’t have any
specific meaning and is used to represent something utterly irritating)”. The
traffic cops hovering at the junctions will generally not mess with the
Hyderabadi driver in spite of this disruption as his wrangling skills generally
supersede that of the cop.
There is also the matter of overtaking other vehicles on the
road. Formula 1 drivers have state-of-the-art technology to assist them
overtake other drivers on the track, like for example, DRS or Drag Reduction
System where the rear wing on his car is moveable to reduce drag or KERS which
stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System where the energy on braking is stored
and later converted to kinetic energy to give that extra thrust during
overtaking. The Hyderabadi driver does not need such pitiful technology to
overtake. In fact he would consider them as an insult to his driving skills. He
will come by your side and slowly start edging towards you. That is the sign
that he wants to overtake you and such manoeuvre maybe done at varying speeds
depending upon your luck and how much paan the Hyderabadi driver had that
morning. If you slow down, you will get home in one piece. If you do not,
hallelujah!
Moving over to pit stops, the F1 drivers need to change their
tyres atleast twice or as many as 3-4 times in a race and they have a fully
equipped pit team to assist them in this job. But our Hyderabadi driver will
simply get Rahim bhai from Ministry Road (that is where many car accessory
showrooms and repair shops operate at Hyd) to patch up his tyres. That way he
saves on the cost of the expensive and absolutely useless pit crew and their
paraphernalia! What a waste of money right?
Finally, coming to the end of the race, Seb and Hami would be
really happy to pass the guy with the Chequered Flag before anybody else does, thus signifying the end of the race. Well, our Hyderabadi driver would spit on
the chequered flag and the guy holding it because nobody tells him when the
race is over. He decides when the race is over! You may as well put a guy with
a Shawarma stand in his stead.
In conclusion, I bet you would agree with me when I say
the talented Seb and Hami and the Formula1 championship with its entire technology
and glam quotient come nowhere close to the Hyderabadi driver and his Formula less maaki
kirkiri!!!
