In India, traffic rules are more like guidelines...until they’re not

In India, the line 'Rules are meant to be broken' isn't just a counter-cultural philosophy, it's the default position. Nowhere is this more evident than on our roads. Take the sheer recklessness - passed off as ingenuity among jugaad devotees - of motorists and 2-wheel drivers who treat road dividers as suggestions, driving against the traffic as shortcuts. Car owners in the backseat also don't bat an eyelid if their chauffeurs brute-force their SUVs across rules and regulations that are there to actually make life on the road less chaotic.

Pedestrians aren't only victims, but perps too. Overbridges and subways? Too much effort. Why bother when you can scale a divider, instead. After all, shaving off a few seconds is worth the risk of accident, or worse. From the roads, this lack of civic sense - common sense, really - also seeps into other public spaces. Whether outside a ticket counter, a temple or getting off an aircraft, forming an orderly queue is an alien idea. Taking selfies in crowded, even hazardous, spots? No thought will be put into it regardless of the inconvenience caused to everyone else. Playing music loudly from phones in a metro is seen as a haq, not a nuisance.

And these are just forms of 'civic disobedience' in an 'external environs' form. Bad behaviour is abetted - from giving bribes to 'lubricate' a transaction to encouraging 'casual misogyny' - with the knowledge that it's wrong, but something only 'other people' mustn't do. As a result, a 'third world' mindset is perpetuated. While the government has much to blame for letting matters slide in implementing law, it won't pay to lay all blame at its door. Frankly, it's we, the people, who get the conditions we comply with. Or decide to consider pointless.