THE MIRACULOUS STREET CROSSING

Example of a crab walk....

 As previously mentioned--in a blog post quite awhile back now--one of the greatest hazards I experience in India is that of crossing the street. ANY street!  

The drivers in this country are crazy. Maybe they are that way everywhere... it is quite possible. What makes India unique, however, is that they don't seem to have any traffic laws! Or if they DO have them, there is rampant and flagrant disregard of such laws. 

The drivers of every sort of vehicle speed, honking incessantly as a warning for others to get out of their way. 

The volume of traffic is staggering...even in the semi-lock-down, which is still going on at the time of this writing. 

There appears to be no regard whatsoever for pedestrians, who clearly do NOT have the right-of-way, as they do have--or at least are SUPPOSED to have--in Western countries like the U.S.A.  I have already mentioned that I feel like I am taking my life into my hands every time I have to cross a street; many times, I pray as I make my mad dash from one side to the other! 

A new friend of mine here in Pune--Lippi--recently told me she was hit by a BICYCLE, no less, and suffered some damage to a vertebra in her spine. 

All of the above taken into account, it makes the incident I am about to share with you all the more astounding and unbelievable. 

I was out on one of my daily ramblings along the city streets a few days ago. I came to a major intersection, with the usual four-way traffic and the typically huge volume of cars, trucks, motorcycles and scooters.

At one corner of the intersection, an elderly woman in tattered clothes--just emerged from the stash of slum hovels located next to the Pune river--began to cross the street. There was something severely wrong with her: she was not able to walk, but rather ambulated by slowly scooting along on all fours, but belly up, in a manner that  is known as the "crab walk".  (If she hadn't been dirt poor, I am sure she would have been in a wheelchair...but strangely enough, I never see anyone out and about in wheelchairs, though surely such people and chairs must exist!) 

So there she was, doing her crab walk across the street, except...not quite. She couldn't quite manage to keep her butt off of the ground. So, her strange movements were an odd, modified version of the crab walk, sad and horrifying to witness. 

What made this state of affairs even more astounding was that she appeared completely impervious to the vehicles whizzing by all around her. Maybe she simply thought that, if she were to be hit by one, they would be doing her a favor! Maybe she was a little--or a lot!--crazy. Who knows what might have been going on in her brain. It may have been something as simple as, "I need to get from here to there, so I will just do it!" (As the Nike expression would extol). 

I was riveted to my spot on the opposite corner, gawking at this unbelievable scene unfolding before me. 

The woman very, very slowly scooted her way through the intersection. 

As low to the ground as she was, she could hardly have been visible to the majority of drivers. And yet... not a single vehicle hit her. Or even came CLOSE to hitting her! Sure, many had to swerve around her. Many had to slow--or come to a screeching halt--to wait for her to crab-walk on by. This whole process must have taken a good 5 minutes; during which time, the signal changed and the traffic flow switched directions multiple times! 

Incredibly, she reached the other side of the street--which she had crossed at a diagonal!!!--completely unscathed. 

How does one explain it? Dumb luck? Good karma? The adept driving skills of Indians (despite every appearance to the contrary?!) I do not know how to answer this and will never know. 

The significant fact was that she made it... and I was cheering her on the whole time. I inwardly rejoiced in her victory. Truly, it was nothing short of miraculous that she made it across alive and unharmed.

What can I say, but that this episode of daily life in India, as it were,  has now been added to my long list of experiences that cause me to love--and be endlessly amazed by-- this most wonderful and mystifying land!