I would think we’re all more than adeqately familiar with the long list of clichés about roads in India — they’re chaotic, people honk a lot, there’s no clear lane structure, there are all these ultracheap, Ipod-sized cars… and yeah, there’s the occasional animal. Just in case you’ve forgotten some of them, here are the clichés again for you:
Amid a cacophony of horns, a blood-red sport utility vehicle weaved between cars, passing Mr. Sharma within a razor’s edge on the right. A school bus snuggled close up on his left. No one seemed to care about traffic lanes. Cars bounced in and out of crater-size potholes.
[…] Sharing the road with him were a bicyclist with three cooking-gas cylinders strapped to the back of his bike, a pushcart vendor plying guavas, a cycle rickshaw loaded with a photocopy machine (rickshaws often being the preferred mode of delivery for modern appliances).
There were also a great many pedestrians, either leaping into traffic in the absence of crosswalks or marching in thick rows on the sides of the road in the absence of sidewalks. At one point, a car careered down the wrong side of the road. Then a three-wheeled scooter-rickshaw came straight at Mr. Sharma, only to duck swiftly down a side street. At least this morning there was no elephant chewing bamboo in the fast lane, as there sometimes is. (link)
I have no problem if a reporter goes to Delhi, notices that the traffic is intense, and writes about it; some clichés, admittedly, are based in truth. (The article, incidentally, is by Somini Sengupta, with contributions from Hari Kumar and Seher Mahmood.) What I do have a problem are silly non-observations, like “At least there was no elephant chewing bamboo in the fast lane, as there sometimes is.” In fact, you didn’t see any elephants, did you? Why report on what you didn’t see?
Though I must admit I am no expert either, I have never seen an elephant on the road in central Delhi… Cows and goats, yes. But an elephant, no — it seems like an exceptional rather than an ordinary occurrence.
I think someone is pulling Somini’s leg.
and to think of it Somini will be NY times’ asia bureau chif, this is appaling
Somini Sengupta is an exoticizing moron, we’ve seen such crass reporting form her in the past too. This news is everywhere – yahoo, the economist, CSM, Reuters, FT, NPR but people stuck to what’s relevant – an inexpensive car. Only this beeyatch from the NYT could think of headlining elephants and not the car. Plus, while one may see an occasional elephant (once a year maybe??) , she makes it sound like it was interesting that she actually did not see the elephant if one goes by the headline, which is anything but the case.
On a completely unrelated note, Amardeep – did we stop doing the Indian After Gandhi thing?
Heh heh Somini Sengupta the outsourcer. At the bottom of the page of the NYT article it says ‘Hari Kumar and Saher Mahmood contributed reporting.’
Rereading the excerpt, well, yes, the pointless wisecrack about elephants is annoying, but worse is how it is part and parcel of creating the impression of incompetence, that these are people who have no idea how to conduct themselves as drivers, pedestrians, passengers; that urban life is essentially chaotic. In contrast, I think it’s fairly orderly, just very crowded at certain times, in certain places.
Actually, at the TOP of the article it’s listed under the heading of “New Delhi Journal” — which indicates to me that it’s not a news piece per se, but perhaps a hybrid that incorporates musings appropriate for journals or travelogues.
103 · bulbul said
It’s not an uncommon practice at big-city newspapers and is quite common at magazines. What’s egregious is when they don’t acknowledge the other contributors. That’s what got Rick Bragg in trouble.
Here’s some more spot-on commentary on Ms. Sengupta’s undying prose.
Look, in today’s competitive consumerist world, whatever sells works. Exotica sells in India. How many millions of dollars are spent by foriegners touring India on that point alone? I say we need to milk this cash cow for all it’s worth.
India shining or India whining?
Exotic India – feel the colors, smell the agarbati.
While the overall tone of the article is somewhat offensive, at least the literal elephant in the road has now been set at rest, having been spotted in the photog.
But there are figurative elephants in the room too, that bother me, and some of which the article correctly points to. For example, this:
To call this tout an ‘independent broker’ intolerably corrupts euphemistic usage.
This kind of crass bending of the rules and petty bribery always always bothered me before, in the ‘old India’ of the 1970s and 1980s, and it bothers the hell out of me that it not only still exists but is flourishing in the ‘new India’.
Just because it is the NYT or SS who is writing this, doesn’t mean we should ignore these things.
108 · Horn OK Please said
That was a horrible film.
110 · Harbeer said
Dude, I really liked it! Although I generally thought most of Egoyan’s work till the late 90s was great (what can I say, misanthrope that I am, I’m a big fan of his explorations of dysfunctional relationships, and what is said and unsaid in those interactions), with the downhill trend beginning around Felicia’s Journey (although haven’t seen Ararat yet).
Chachaji, #109: See the following –
Does Corruption Produce Unsafe Drivers?
MARIANNE BERTRAND University of Chicago – Graduate School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) SIMEON DJANKOV World Bank Group – Doing Business Team REMA HANNA New York University – Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN Harvard University – Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) April 2006
Abstract:
We follow 822 applicants through the process of obtaining a driver’s license in New Delhi, India. To understand how the bureaucracy responds to individual and social needs, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: bonus, lesson, and comparison groups. Participants in the bonus group were offered a financial reward if they could obtain their license fast; participants in the lesson group were offered free driving lessons. To gauge driving skills, we performed a surprise driving test after participants had obtained their licenses. Several interesting facts regarding corruption emerge. First, the bureaucracy responds to individual needs. Those who want their license faster (e.g., the bonus group), get it 40% faster and at a 20% higher rate. Second, the bureaucracy is insensitive to social needs. The bonus group does not learn to drive safely in order to obtain their license: in fact, 69% of them were rated as “failures” on the independent driving test. Those in the lesson group, despite superior driving skills, are only slightly more likely to obtain a license than the comparison group and far less likely (by 29 percentage points) than the bonus group. Detailed surveys allow us to document the mechanisms of corruption. We find that bureaucrats arbitrarily fail drivers at a high rate during the driving exam, irrespective of their ability to drive. To overcome this, individuals pay informal “agents” to bribe the bureaucrat and avoid taking the exam altogether. An audit study of agents further highlights the insensitivity of agents’ pricing to driving skills. Together, these results suggest that bureaucrats raise red tape to extract bribes and that this corruption undermines the very purpose of regulation.
Keralite, #112, thanks. I’m really staggered to learn the brazen extent to which this is going on.
I would have thought that, at worst, marginal drivers would fail at a slightly higher rate, but if the failure rate has no bearing on driving ability, and if the ‘agent fee’ is also independent of the driver’s skills, then the whole thing is just one huge bilking machine, and really scares me – both because of what it implies about police ethics, and its safety implications for pedestrians and other drivers on the road. If this is happening in New Delhi, one can only wonder what might be happening elsewhere.
On a related note, Blue Line buses in Delhi have been killing pedestrians, bystanders, and passengers at an alarming rate for the past several years. Just yesterday, there was news of a citizen-activist who secretly filmed the cops extorting bribes from the Blue Lines, and presented the evidence to courts in ‘Public Interest Litigation’. The bribes are for police to look the other way at Blue Line rash driving, which has killed so many. A former BJP Union Minister is taking up the issue with the National Human Rights Commission, believing it a human rights issue affecting the lives of millions of Delhi citizens.
111 · Rahul said
You sound like you know what you’re talking about and I’ve got it on my shelf so I’ll give it another gander but I’m a Cafe Flesh kinda guy. Absurd, sci-fi post-apocalyptic political porn–it’s even fun to say. (And that other great misanthrope, Jerry Stahl had a hand in it, too.)
It isnt an extraordinary event to see an elephant on the streets of any Indian metropolis (depending on which streets). But it certainly isnt a predictable event – and more to the point, unlike cows, elephants are never released to graze in the city (it would be havoc). You see them when they’re being led to or from an event.
In Delhi, for instance, it is against the law to stable elephants within city limits, so all elephants are stabled in Faridabad (to the South, across state lines in Uttar Pradesh). They are brought into the city for processions or special events, and I would bet money that Somini Sengupta has never seen an unattended elephant “chewing bamboo” (maybe it was on a picnic) in the fastlane.
Another NYtimes/IHT reporter whose South India coverage puts Somini to shame is Anand Giridhardas, in his article covering the same car has this gem “Gandhi engineering” — a mantra that combines irreverence toward established ways with a scarcity mentality that spurns superfluities”
who knew elephants could bring out the indian pride in all!
Is that a Somini I see? Surprisingly, Fuller did not spot any white elephants, which, as we all know, originated in SE Asia.
Rahul, agreed, my name calling was uncalled for. It was just a quick burst of emotions. I certainly agree that pointing out negative aspects is not wrong. I whole heartedly believe that accepting that there is something wrong is the first step towards improvement. And India needs a lot of people looking at the bad things and focus on improving. And that is happening now, more than ever before. However, when you read Somini’s articles, you always feel like she only focuses on the negative aspects refusing to see the positive leaps India is taking. If I were reading only her articles, I would feel like its a Banana republic out there and would never feel like visiting there, let alone living there. Don’t you think?
37 · Rahul said