"AND THE HORNS KEPT HONKING"

We left our hotel in Delhi at 7:00 PM for our scheduled 9:25 PM Jammu Mail train. This overnight train would take us to Pathankot, in the northern state of Punjab arriving at 7:15 AM the next morning. After that, we have a "short" two hour drive to our final destination: McLeodganj, at the base of the Himalayas.

We turned the corner after leaving the hotel and were met with all forms of transportation inching their way forward, attempting to get ahead of their neighbor. By all forms of transportation, I mean it: people on foot, bicycles, rickshaws (pedal powered vehicles hauling two people), scooters, tuk-tuks (scooters with a cab and room for driver plus three), taxis, cars and finally large trucks. All competed for the same road. And "the horns were honking"...

In Cincinnati, we would call this a volume problem: By General Electric going south on I-75, The Brent Spence Bridge at rush hour. Nothing at home competes with Old Delhi. There are few stop lights. There are no lane markers. If a car wanted to pass a line of stopped cars, they would simply use the other side of the road. Cars behind would follow, creating a pattern. Pretty soon the two way thoroughfare would turn into almost a one-way street. And "the horns keep honking"...


Our driver Ranvir was nonplussed. "This is Old Delhi", he explained. He knew we had time constraints but attempted not to let our worries drain into him. The train station was only six kilometers from our hotel but nothing was moving. Siena wears her emotions on her sleeve. She said "I hate this" and crawled into a ball in the back seat. I started to think of steps one, then two, then three if we miss our train. Traffic eases slightly and we feel relief only to be brought back to worry by another log jam. No signs indicated our progress. And "the horns keep honking"...


All at once, at 8:35, Ranvir points over a fence and says "the station is there". Relief. But it takes another fifteen minutes to get us to the gates of the station. The "horns, for us, finally stopped honking".