It’s 8:30am on Saturday, rush hour on the road from New Delhi to Agra. I’m in Faridabad right now, in traffic that can’t quite be called chaos because people have an intention and they are trying to get to work, but frenzied, and you sense there are no rules.

People have warned me about the traffic and the roads in India, especially this one, but I’m from Los Angeles, so how surprised could I be, right?

We just passed an open bed truck with at least a dozen day laborers—men and women—sitting in the sun. Hundreds, thousands of bicycles and mopeds weave through the lanes with overflowing buses, tuktuks (three wheeled miniature taxis), oxen with carts, Toyota’s and huge lorries (trucks). The road is paved, but lanes are non-existent. It is a bizarre notion that this clogged artery really delivers people and goods to their destinations.

It becomes wild, like the most fantastic gridlock nightmare an American urbanite can imagine. We were on a divided two-lane highway when suddenly we came to complete standstill. There was an army convoy on the opposite side of the road that had stopped the traffic flow. Why did it make our side cease to move? Bus and truck drivers decided our side—heading in the opposite direction—would actually move faster. So, they crossed over to our side of the road and took one lane—head-on. They created a lane going in the opposite direction! Motor scooters, bikes, tuktuks (we counted 12 people inside and one person on top) joined the trucks and buses in the parade. Going fast, too.

What did traffic on our side of the road do? No problem. We created an additional lane where people were walking, animals were moving, cars were parked! No one seemed the least surprised this was happening. The amazing thing is that the road wasn’t strewn with bodies. And in spite of it all, and all the horn-honking, I didn’t sense any road rage.

Charlene