SILENCE OF THE HORN

SILENCE OF THE HORN- A MASTER CLASS IN ANGER MANAGEMENT

Dr. Reina Khadilkar

The current situation is well known to all of us.  From the third week of March the entire country was caged in their homes in the fight against the deadly Corona. Each day became more painful than the previous one as minutes and seconds passed by from behind the windows. The only thing that changed was the version of the lockdown from 1.0 to 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc. The frustration of breaking the routine, no social interaction, no travel to work and then the fear of the disease kept mounting. Then came the announcement of partial relaxation and a flood of humanity tumbled on to the roads in two, three and four wheelers. The silent roads of last seventy-two days were full again with vehicles. But this time it was a vengeful come-back. There was a complex sense of gay abandon and venting out of the deep anger at what was happening combined together that reflected in the way people were driving on the roads. One now had to be extra careful at intersections and keep a constant lookout for scooters and cars coming head-on from the wrong side.

The use of horn suddenly has thus gone up for alerting careless and carefree drivers.

Once again, my resolve for not honking is broken for now. 

But before all this began, before the Covid era, I had stopped the use of horn except in emergencies. This small change in my life changed quite a few things for me. I was inspired to do this by our friend, Sachitanand Joshi who is a techie turned teacher/environmental activist and an avid sportsman who has been following this no-honking rule for the last two years without a break. Talking to him about this was a revelation, not just for the sound pollution and the irritation of honking, but a massive change in personality and attitude towards lots of things that can spoil the mind and stress the body on a daily basis.

I wasn’t sure I could do this considering the driving habits of not just me but also hundreds of people pouring on to the roads every single morning. Just like any other metro city, Pune too is a victim of overcrowding and over populating of a limited space. People flock in droves to this metro to make a living. Those who have been here for decades have been a witness to the bloating and then bursting at seams of this once staid and peaceful city. The life and opportunities this beautiful metro-city offers and the IT boom saw a massive explosion in the population of Pune. From being a pensioner’s city and a cyclist’s heaven to a bustling, vivacious and overcrowded city, it has grown beyond its capacity bringing with its growth, the severe headaches and problems that come with exploding population.

Traffic is its numero-uno headache and every time some solution is sought, the population explodes, the infrastructure crumbles sending all the efforts done by authorities into a tizzy. The situation seems to remain more and more the same, however much the change may come in. The bottom line is that for the last one and half decade that I have been on the (in)famous Pune roads, I have faced the same difficulties on the road like everyone else who leaves home and hits the road.

Breaking signals, skipping lanes unannounced, wrong side driving, failing to give signals before turning, breaking suddenly or stopping suddenly in the bang center of the already congested road (as routinely done by public transport buses) are conducted with impunity. There is little morality or accountability and people nonchalantly break traffic laws. Triple seat driving on two-seater bikes  and sudden swerving from left to right without indication with mindless speed are by default on roads. Driving egos and road rage are dangerously high on hormones and rarely a day goes by when you don’t encounter aggressive overtaking all of a sudden as you are patiently cruising in your lane or happen to go ahead of a driver who prides on ruling the road.

All this drama in real life goes on amidst high decibels of the ubiquitous horn. The sole purpose of the horn here seems to be to force people away from the path of thrill-seekers, speedsters, egotistic drivers and those who are firm believers of the ability of the horn to create a miracle called empty road so that they can reach their destination in record time. Some use it to express anger for a sudden break from normal. Some use it to scare a novice driver and enjoy the fright delivered.

I have been a part of this system for so many years. I have felt the horn speak louder than a few angry words. When I use the horn or hear it from an irritated driver behind me, I have actually heard rude and rough words emanating from the horn on the way it is honked. I have used it umpteen times in the past, either to rush through or to express displeasure at breaking traffic laws.

Every time I have used the noise making machine, I saw that my pulse rate went up and there was a gentle throbbing in the head. I have felt a frown on the forehead and my head has crowded with whatever little expletives (mostly benign) I know.  I have felt the adrenaline surge for that moment affecting every cell in my body causing temporary changes that I know will eventually become permanent over a period of time.

 Every time I react to the situation on the road with my only weapon, the horn, I create a small rent in my heart, feeding it with the poison that will age it faster. The brain cells that get constantly hyperactivated will over a period of time die an unnatural death creating pockets of senile ageing in the already rapidly ageing brain. Every time the anger level rises or the feeling of competitive driving overtakes the calm mind, the heart bears the brunt.

With the daily commuting and the stress of it, I needed to seriously wake up to this situation before it consumed me. Thus, began the journey of silence on the roads. Initially it took some teeth gritting behind closed glass windows, sometimes knocking on the glass window in sheer frustration and sometimes a flash of self-directed anger before the calm set in.

Then, as the car interior fell silent, I could feel the frown ease out, the heart remained steady and the mind and the ears were filled with songs from the radio. Gradually it came to a state of un-mindfulness of egoistic travelers on the road, acceptance of someone driving in a speed not conducive to our way of thinking and empathizing with co-travelers, understanding the stress each one faces to reach their destination, yet remaining steady in our premise.

Just as the journey from anywhere to anywhere is a metaphor of life, driving without the negativity of horn has become the metaphor of living life itself. The unhealthy competitiveness, the ego of staying ahead, the mad rush to achieve goals, the impatience of a slow co-traveler, and above all the damaging anger of not getting to do what one wants to do irrespective of the world, all form the deep craters of negativity that push us into an unhealthy mind and body, eventually reducing the happiness and many a times, longevity of the one life we get.

A tiny change has been a master class in anger and stress management. It has also given me the happiness of contributing to keeping the sound pollution a tad less. It’s a beginning. The more people who join this movement, the happier we will be in our daily journey on the road and the great big journey called life.

I am sure in a few months, the catastrophe would have died down, the routine would be back and we will have found happiness in the silence of the horn.

Dr. Reina Khadilkar