"Look right, then left, then right again" was the advice I repeatedly received on crossing the street before coming here.
That turned out to be largely irrelevant as scooters, cars, oxen, and buses are liable to drive/walk in the wrong lane, directly bombarding oncoming vehicles and innocent pedestrians. In the United States, you cross the road when no one is coming. In India, there's someone coming, so it's more of a rough calculation of incoming vehicle speed, your adrenaline level, and number of body parts you're willing to go without. In other words, riding on a scooter as your host mother drives would be suicide. And since it's against the NSLI-Y rules, obviously no one does it. I certainly haven't.
The first time I was invited to pick up my host sister on a motorcycle I told my host mom that, no, I can't, yet there seemed to be some communication error between the rule setters and the host parents. We were later told by our Resident Director that if she never found out, well, there wouldn't be any issues. But I stood strong, never gave into temptation, and never got to have one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. I knew that if I did, I would have to write about it on my blog, and if the State Department read my blog, I'd be in trouble. So this my blog post about definitely not riding the motorcycle.
I never get to feel wind speeding through my helmet-less hypothetical hair, nor monsoon rains splattering my face and shirt. I never thought, "How are we going to fit a third person onto this scooter?" halfway through the trip, rather belatedly. Nor could I learn by watching families, speeding past us, stacked like the groceries they carried that there is always, always room for another person on a motorcycle. I was unable to discover my place in the puzzle of Pune traffic, which has its own hidden, calm logic that supports the lawless chaos at the surface. (On a separate occasion in a rickshaw, my driver snuck our fragile cart between two trucks with centimeters to spare. Lanes, you ask? Besides the point.)
Motorcycles are a different medium through which you communicate with the city, a completely separate approach than car, foot, or balcony view. In a way, you open yourself up to the pollution, the full 360 degree sights, the stares of strangers. There's no glass to roll up as a middle-class shield from the 8 year old beggar (or older but stunted) with a painted on mustache, doing a dance that would be so, so hysterical if it wasn't so sad. But you have your own privacy curtain: speed and mobility, which means no one can see that you don't belong as you clutch your host mother's shoulders to survive.
At least that's what I imagine, because I obviously wouldn't know.
