Don't tell my Mom, but I have now ridden on the back of several Indian motorcycles. It is a truly terrifying experience. When I first arrived in India I imagined that although the traffic was terribly fierce, maybe it wasn't actually that dangerous. I had hoped that, although it felt like buses were driven with an alarming recklessness, that they were somehow guided to safety by a benevolent spirit. I've since learned that sadly, this isn't the case. India drives 1% of the world's cars and suffers 10% of its motor vehicle fatalities.
The worst part of the newspaper here is the daily list of fatal accidents. The descriptions tend to sound like "In an unfortunate incident between a bus and a cliff, 20 dead, 30 mortally wounded." I remind myself that the only thing worse would be if they didn't write about it.
So why would I keep getting on subcontinental motorcycles? Because they are driven by my friends, who take these risks every day, to get to work and see their families. In the US I live with a security that's hard to even imagine in India. Who would I be to refuse to live, even for a moment, in a world as unpredictable as the one a billion people inhabit here?
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