Intergalactic space travel and idilies – Times of India

!GQK comes visiting

The other day I met my old friend !GQK from the galaxy next door. He took the wormhole express from planet Gliese 581g and appeared in my guest room quite suddenly. He was tired. He switched on his universal translator and lamented "I travelled economy class; the universal cash crunch is hitting all us researchers". After he had got over his space-lag and got used to our local gravity we went down to that vegetarian restaurant on VIP Road. He has been visiting officially once every 10 Earth Years and the first thing he does is enjoy some idly with several chutneys and sambar. Over breakfast we discussed the purpose of his visit this time.

Research

"I am here to study Vizag's driving habits" he explained. "We at The Galactic Institute have watched the huge increase in vehicular traffic in Vizag and my boss wanted me to verify the reports that we have been getting on the driving habits of the Vizag Earthlings." Looking at the way he was walloping his 4th plate of idlies, I suspected that he had just made an excuse to come here because of his obsession with our ubiquitous tiffin - idly and sambar. Anyway, I settled down deeper into my sofa to hear more.

Horn energy can fuel space travel

!GQK leaned forward and said in a his typical academic tone, "Reports indicate some peculiar habits of the human species here. One of the most perplexing is the propensity of the Vizag driver to blow the horn continuously for no apparent reason. Our researchers have observed, from the space cam footage, that even a lonely bike or car on the NH 16 keeps honking every few seconds". We also note the peculiar habit of the earthling behind our vehicle honking ceaselessly even when the vehicle in the front has no way of going forward or to the side. We are trying to analyse this behaviour." He gestured to the waiter to get another plate of idly, took a sip of water and continued, "We have calculated that all this honking produces enough energy to fuel intergalactic space travel." I sat up incredulously. "Yes indeed" he continued with a small smile "Vizagites do honk a lot". We stopped talking for a moment as an APSRTC bus outside announced its passing with a particularly deafening "air horn".

Pedestrian are for running over

!GQK signalled to the waiter to bring him a peserattu. I checked my wallet surreptitiously to ensure I had enough money to pay the bill. "What other areas are you researching?" I asked, to keep him talking in order to slow down his eating. "Yes" he resumed, "the other area is the interaction between vehicles and pedestrians. In most other intelligent civilizations, the vehicle stops and lets pedestrians cross the road. Our research shows that in Vizag most drivers speed up and try their best to run over the poor earthling crossing the street. It appears more true especially when they are on the zebra stripes on the road which you Vizagites humorously call the 'pedestrian crossing'. It is also observed statistically that small children, elderly men and women and infirm pedestrians are prone to being run over on the pedestrian crossings. We interviewed a number of drivers and all agreed that the white zebra crossings were a wonderful place where you are allowed to run over the human pedestrians but obviously Zebras were not to be harmed".

Roundabouts

I ordered our coffees hoping to put an end to the breakfast session. !GQK wiped off his lips with a tissue and, seeing how impressed I was with his study, restarted his narration. "The other remarkable driver behaviour is at your roundabouts or circles. In most civilizations, depending on which side of the road you drive, you give way to the traffic on the left or on the right. We note that in Vizag, vehicles negotiate these circles using a ritual of bully and bluster. The vehicles at the roundabouts go into some sort of ceremony where all drivers nose into the circle in a concerted manner intimidating each other till the timid ones gives way. Bigger vehicles generally get past the circles quickly whereas smaller vehicles take a long time to get through. We have fed this data into our computers and are analysing if there is some sort of quantum mechanics at work in this chaos; some way, where all drivers communicate with each other at a subliminal level to negotiate these circles. If we are successful we will be introducing the system in the wormhole space traffic intersection system."

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Intergalactic space travel and idilies - Times of India