Never Mind the Bullocks Read Free Page B

‘Speed Thrills But It Also Kills’. Speed Kills: the words burned with the power of a dozen stadium lights into my cortex as I contemplated how was I going to negotiate this traffic quagmire alone. I had already had a taste of suicidal trolley drivers and I had a throbbing leg as evidence. If a trolley could impart such a large bruise, I balked at the thought of what the blood-red lorry– momentarily sat beside us at a traffic light – would be capable of inflicting.
    Sitting behind Puran as he ploughed through the relentless throng, I wasn’t sure my nerves could take the quick-fire weaving of two-wheelers between cars that were moving at surprising speeds. Many of the motorbikes were loaded with entire families. Old men on rickety bicycles at the side of the road were overtaken within an inch of their lives by lumbering lorries farting clouds of black smoke. A very knackered-looking bullock pulled a cart piled with hay and topped with six lads taking in the view from the top of the unsecured load. How was it possible, I thought, that hundreds of people weren’t dying in this unholy mess every day?
    The simple answer to this is that they were. In India, a person dies in a road accident every five minutes. 2 That works out to around 288 deaths per day and over 110,000 per year, 3 the highest number of road fatalities for any country. I reflected that it was more than the entire population of my home island of Jersey being snuffed out annually by crashing lorries and colliding buses. How in the name of Dick Dastardly was I going to survive this?

    We pulled up outside the gates of Akhil’s apartment building in Breach Candy and I relaxed my grip on the edge of the seat. As we swung into the parking lot, I saw what at first glance looked like a giant lemon stationed under a tree. There she blew (instantaneously a she, a feminine adventurer and sprightly vessel, a she in the way boats and mares are, imbued with womanly dignity and prowess): my Nano, my trusty yellow steed. She was Silver to my Lone Ranger, K.I.T.T. to my Knight Rider, the Tardis to my Dr Who; she was to be my transport, homeand confidante for the next three months. I felt like a bride meeting my betrothed for the first time, and I’ll admit to a few tummy tingles as my eyes met her headlights.
    I stood back to inspect my Nano in the flesh. At first sight, she was funny looking, sort of awkward and boxy. Her front and back foreshortening made her seem as though someone had sliced off her bonnet and trunk. But what she lost in length, she made up for in height, and from a certain angle she almost looked as tall as she was long. Up close, the tyres appeared smaller even than in the photographs, as did the steering wheel, which you could almost substitute with a large button and not lose much in the way of design or engineering.
    Like the several online testimonies I’d read had said, the interior was indeed very spacious. There was legroom galore in the front and a fair amount in the back, with a high roof and wide-span windscreen adding to the sense that a cat could safely be swung without too much damage to either the car’s interior or the spinning moggie.
    In terms of the dashboard, a good salesman would exhort its simplicity and straightforwardness of purpose and design. To me, it looked more like I’d been given the factory demonstration model before anyone had thought to put dials on. There was a speedometer, a petrol gauge, an engine thermostat, an air-conditioning switch, two electric window buttons – and that was pretty much all. The radio and speakers I had secretly been hoping for were nowhere to be found, even after I obstinately performed three or four searches inside the doors and under the steering wheel. Neither was there a cigarette lighter/charging socket, an omission that was to be my undoing on several legs of the trip to come.
    I took a moment to contemplate the cheapest car in the world. Costs