Deep realizes ‘now things are very different’ on Indian roads and …not so different:

I also realize that woman don’t wear helmets. So I ask my driver why that’s the case — he says, “oh the ladies were furious that their hair was being messed up. Woman have many rights you know. Men in the goverment also realized that so much of life’s beauty is gone if one can no longer see woman and their long flowing hair on the back of a motorcycle.” All I could think was, ok, here’s a country with an out of control infanticide rate driving a major gender imbalance, and the government decides to start favoring women by allowing them the option to die in statistically larger numbers.

Rahul has a take on Indian roads too, or on finding the right directions to the right roads:

So whenever I was struck somewhere I asked the local rickshaw puller, shop keeper and what I got was an instantaneous, almost reflex action pointing to some arbitrary direction, where on reaching I was again at the mercy of some hawker, walker or whatever, who again gave some weird directions like “Seedha jake right”, “Aage se left phir right phir left”, and so on till some geographically well versed bystander intercepted a rickshaw-puller who was sending us some 2-3 miles ahead , told us the right way to our destination, which was in the same lane which we were circumscribing.