It is a great leveller. It has the power to make every vehicle — no matter its size, the VIP quotient of its occupant or the nuisance value of its horn — painfully wait at its behest.
In Indian cities, railway level crossings at most places are a sore reminder of the deep-rooted inertia and lack of foresight of our city planners in implementing alternatives such as overbridges or underpasses.
Level crossings are a relic of an era when traffic volumes were one-tenth of what they are now. That was a time when every middle-class family’s ambition was “Hamara Bajaj” and very few actually got to ride one, as a waiting period of four or five years for the scooter was quite common and things like EMI were not even heard of.
The scene near level crossings is of utter chaos driven by the hurry of motorists, though a little patience and respect for order (something very foreign to our nature) will go a long way in making matters easier. As the gates tilt down to a close to the accompaniment of a buzzing sound, some bikers race to sneak through with the adeptness of movie stuntmen.
Once the gates are down, the dreary wait for the train to pass begins, and so does the crafty jugaad mentality of motorists. Like rats and cockroaches, those on two-wheelers manage to sneak past the waiting traffic, to be close to the gate so that they can scoot off the moment it opens. By the time the train arrives, the traffic build-up on both sides resembles rival armies arrayed in a battle formation, eagerly waiting for the war bugle to go off.
Once the gates are opened, all driving etiquette takes a back seat and Darwinian instincts take over. The size of the vehicle and number of wheels become crucial. Those steering burly six-wheeler trucks try to bully those behind the wheels of small cars. Luggage autorickshaws laden with steel rods intimidate two-wheeler riders by subjecting them to close shaves.
For all motorists in general, it’s a nerve-racking one-inch-at-a-time rite of passage as they have to maintain their cool amid high-decibel horns, heated exchanges and brinkmanship by fellow motorists. By the time the chaos gets over, it’s time to down the gates for the next train.
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