Indians are habituated to the driving conditions and styles vis-?-vis traffic on Indian roads. But to a foreigner the is a maze of sorts. With my friend from overseas on his first day at a road side in Delhi I was taken aback by his astonishment at the nick necks of the traffic violations in the city. ?Look he has taken a wrong turn?there he's not wearing a helmet?and see he changed the lane without indicating?oops no road safety in Delhi traffic; and so on.?



He would ask,? if the traffic was bad only in Delhi? Is , Chennai traffic, or Kolkata traffic any better?

Out of fear, he wanted me to drive my car myself instead of leaving it to our driver. But I feared his incessant criticism about the driving skills of the drivers. I chose not to yield to his request and let my driver take the wheel.

Over a couple of days, I saw the change coming. From becoming fearful of the possibility of an accident and pointing at the incidents of usual traffic violations he grew indifferent and rather confident our driver's driving skills.

A few more days hence and he was enjoying the thrill of what he began to call the exciting road ride adventures. He would see with his wide open eyes the road traffic moving with critically narrow margins. The frequency with which our driver would change gears added to my foreign visitor's ring side view of the road adventures.

He was immensely respectful of my driver for his demonstrated skills on the roads and thanked him profusely for driving us around with safety.

That left me worrying as my driver was prone to going overboard in driving after a bouquet of accolades that he received from my friend. I will have to be careful with him for weeks to come, I was thinking.