Evenly odd

I had forgotten how intrusive the folks of my homeland India can be. Incidentally, if one were to mark the levels of inquisitiveness amongst my country’s people, the ones living in Delhi would top the list. Here, there is no concept of personal space or individual privacy. Such an idea simply does not exist because everyone is busy minding everyone’s business. 

Following the instructions on a map or a GPS is wasted in this place because the best guides in town are the ordinary people themselves. One can also drive up to a traffic cop, take the car dangerously close to the little triangle on which he stands, hang your head out of the window, and ask him for directions. The row of vehicles that are stuck in a disorderly queue because of your idiotic action, blow their horns incessantly, but generally, that does not bother anybody. 

On my recent visit to the city, I landed towards the tail end of the odd-even formula that had been introduced in Delhi. To combat the rising levels of pollution in this over-crowded metropolis, the local government had formulated an innovative scheme. Private vehicles were allowed to run on the streets on alternate days depending on whether their licence plates ended in an even or odd number. 

This method, more commonly known as road-space rationing, was followed in various forms across the world. But some experts lamented that its implementation proved to be a major challenge because roughly two million vehicles had to be kept off the roads every day. The model was already in force in Beijing, which Delhi surpassed last year to be ranked as the world’s most polluted city, according to a WHO report.

“An absolutely foolish plan, this one. Trying to enforce it in a city where no one is ready to follow basic traffic rules is bound to fail,” predicted a septuagenarian with a shrug. We were standing on the porch of a hotel, waiting for our respective rental cars to arrive. I did not know the grey haired gentleman from Adam, but that did not stop him from giving me a piece of his mind. I nodded distractedly and stepped aside in a move that I had perfected in my youth, to escape unwarranted lectures from unknown people. I was not as nimble on my feet as I once was and therefore managed to catch another bit of vituperative jargon that he hurled in my direction.  

For the next two days I heard all kinds of strangers give me their points of view on the traffic snarl or the lack of it. On January 15, the trial run concluded and Delhi, which is a city that hates following any rules, heaved a collective sigh of relief. 

Personally I saw fewer cars on the road and the driving distance from one place to another was reduced to a remarkable extent. The traffic marshals fined the lawbreakers left, right and centre, which made a whole lot of people explode with extreme road rage. 

“Why are you driving an odd-numbered car on the even day?” I asked my friend. 

“I’m a woman,” she told me. 

“So what?” I queried. 

“We are exempted from the rule,” she enlightened. 

“In this age of gender equality, that’s pretty odd,” I remarked. 

“I’m not complaining,” she smirked. 

“But you are a fierce feminist,” I said.

“Even so,” she replied. 

“Oddly even?” I teased. 

“Evenly odd,” she grinned.