Vehicle horns could power space travel
Intergalactic space travel and idlies
20th March
Times of India
Waltair Musings
!GQK comes
visiting
The other
day I met my old friend !GQK from the
galaxy next door. He took the wormhole
express from planet Gliese 581g and appeared in my guest room quite suddenly. He
was tired. He switched on his universal
translator and lamented “I traveled economy class; the universal cash crunch
is hitting all us researchers”. After he had got over his space-lag and got
used to our local gravity we went down to that vegetarian restaurant on VIP
Road. He has been visiting officially once every 10 Earth Years and the first
thing he does is enjoy some idly with several chutneys and sambar. Over
breakfast we discussed the purpose of his visit this time.
Research
“I am here
to study Vizag’s driving habits” he explained. “We at The Galactic Institute
have watched the huge increase in vehicular traffic in Vizag and my boss wanted
me to verify the reports that we have been getting on the driving habits of the
Vizag Earthlings.” Looking at the way he was walloping his 4th plate
of idlies, I suspected that he had just made an excuse to come here because of
his obsession with our ubiquitous tiffin - idly & sambar. Anyway, I settled down deeper into my sofa to
hear more.
Horn energy can fuel space travel
!GQK leaned forward and said in a his typical
academic tone “Reports indicate some peculiar habits of the human species here.
One of the most perplexing is the propensity of the Vizag driver to blow the
horn continuously for no apparent reason. Our researchers have observed, from
the space cam footage, that even a lonely bike or car on the NH 16 keeps
honking every few seconds”. We also note the peculiar habit of the earthling behind
our vehicle honking ceaselessly even
when the vehicle in the front has no way of going forward or to the side. We
are trying to analyse this behaviour.” He gestured to the waiter to get another
plate of idly, took a sip of water and continued “we have calculated that all
this honking produces enough energy to fuel intergalactic space travel” I sat
up incredulously. “Yes indeed” he continued with a small smile “Vizagites do
honk a lot”. We stopped talking for a moment as an APSRTC bus outside announced
its passing with a particularly deafening “air horn”.
Pedestrian are for running over
!GQK signalled to the waiter to bring
him a peserattu. I checked my wallet surreptitiously
to ensure I had enough money to pay the bill. “What other areas are you
researching?” I asked, to keep him talking in order to slow down his eating. “Yes” he resumed, “the other area is the
interaction between vehicles and pedestrians. In most other intelligent civilizations,
the vehicle stops and lets pedestrians cross the road. Our research shows that
in Vizag most drivers speed up and try their best to run over the poor earthling
crossing the street. It appears more true especially when they are on the zebra
stripes on the road which you Vizagites humorously call the ‘pedestrian
crossing’. It is also observed statistically that small children, elderly men
and women and infirm pedestrians are prone to being run over on the pedestrian
crossings. We interviewed a number of drivers and all agreed that the white
zebra crossings were a wonderful place where you are allowed to run over the human
pedestrians but obviously Zebras were not to be harmed”.
Roundabouts
I ordered
our coffees hoping to put an end to the breakfast session. !GQK wiped off his lips with
a tissue and, seeing how impressed I was with his study, restarted his
narration. “The other remarkable driver behaviour is at your roundabouts or
circles. In most civilizations, depending on which side of the road you drive,
you give way to the traffic on the left or on the right. We note that in Vizag,
vehicles negotiate these circles using a ritual of bully and bluster. The vehicles
at the roundabouts go into some sort of ceremony where all drivers nose into the
circle in a concerted manner intimidating each other till the timid ones gives
way. Bigger vehicles generally get past the circles quickly whereas smaller
vehicles take a long time to get through. We have fed this data into our
computers and are analysing if there is some sort of quantum mechanics at work
in this chaos; some way, where all drivers communicate with each other at a
subliminal level to negotiate these circles. If we are successful we will be
introducing the system in the wormhole space traffic intersection system”
Two Vizag intersections being researched
!GQK
was still talking rapidly. “There is plenty to be learned from Vizag’s
traffic management system. However despite our best efforts we have not been
able to figure out how traffic is managed in two very special intersections in
Vizag. One is at the Spencers Hypermarket Junction near the HPCL Bunk where
some sort of special algorithms are used by your administrators to create sublime
chaos. The other junction that has the intergalactic traffic management board
completely foxed is how vehicles come out of the Andhra University Engineering
College Gates near CMR Complex. I have taken videos of these locations and will
be submitting them to the institute to understand how the Earthlings manage to
drive in these two locations. “
!GQK finally seemed satiated.
He burped.
A single blue bubble floated out of his lips and drifted across the restaurant.
I raised my finger for the bill. A couple of cars outside honked angrily at
each other. “I could go on about our research and observations” said !GQK, “but I must send off my report to the
boss. Is your space email working?” We drove home; I honked a little more than
usual as I too wanted to contribute to intergalactic space travel.
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