driven

Some people might hear that we have drivers to take us to and from work here in India and imagine that we cruise along gently in our plush BMW, sipping champagne out of delicate crystal flutes as we relax and enjoy the scenery while saying things like "Home, Ahmed!" and giggling hysterically.

Yeah, right. OK, see those tall skinny beige buildings with the little blue-green pointy tops? That's our apartment complex as seen from my office window. It's about 3 miles away.



Last night it took us an hour and ten minutes to get home. Our route involved dirt road "shortcuts" through slums, massive potholes, teeming pedestrians, wandering dogs and cattle and goats and chickens and small children, piles of rubble to be maneuvered around or over, a complete absence of road rules, approximately 185,000 swarming auto-rickshaws, a huge rickety bus that took about 8 minutes of maneuvering to get around the corner from one narrow alley to another (while we were trapped, gridlocked among about 50 other vehicles), open cooking fires inches from the car, daredevil motorcyclists, vehicles and people passing within millimeters of the moving car, and non-stop honking. Oh, the honking. I am not exaggerating for comic effect. IT IS LITERALLY NON-STOP.

And last night was only a little worse than usual. Seriously.

P.S. And it's also definitely not a BMW we're driven in. And usually at least one of us has to sit sideways on a fold-down seat in the cargo area.