Posts tagged mumbai

I guess everybody in their life has got lost in a new city or an unknown place while traveling and spend hours trying to find their way out. I recollect two such incident which happened with me, two different countries, two different cultures, one supposed to be the best in infrastructure and planning other which the world considers as the chaotic maze. Yeah I am talking about U.S. & India. But to my and your uttermost disbelief I would say that getting lost in India is much better than getting lost in U.S.

Now you must be thinking that getting lost in U.S.(or any developed nation) is easier and not be worried about as compared to getting lost in India because you have  GPS, proper maps, well marked roads,  road side assistance in case anything happens to your car etc. But what if you are traveling in some part of U.S. (or any developed nation) where there is no satellite connection or where you have no such maps. Yup this happened in our last trip of South Dakota (Mount Rushmore) when we got lost on your way to the camping site. Because it being a hill side the GPS connection didn’t work properly and as the map we had were pointing to the old roads directions which have been closed down for a while. On top of it we were in such a dense forest area that even the mobile connections were not working. We went in circles around that same place for 2-3 hours it was fast getting dark and to our utmost disappointment we could not even see a living creatures except bison roaming around so that we could ask them for our directions. Finally we came across one person who than told us how to get to our camping site. We were lucky this time as the person we talked knew the correct directions, because most of the time the people over here dont know the direction they are relying so heavily on their GPS maps that they dont tend to remember the directions any more. This was one of the worst experiences in U.S. trying to find away out after a long tiresome journey.

The other experience probably the nerve racking for most of them would be of getting lost in India and that too in a big city like Mumbai. Even though there are marked sign board on the roads but you will not be able to find them as some of them might have been broken or some of them would have been used by the road side vender as their display stand or it might have got hidden behind some or the other structure. The whole lot of chaotic traffic and the crowd adds to the horrendous scene when you step out on the roads of mumbai. The bus stands have only the bus numbers (you won’t find the complete schedule or pamphlets in the bus), the local trains have a naming conventions which sometimes even a IIM graduate student will not be able to decipher unless he has stayed and traveled mumbai local trains for a while and got used to it. Besides these whole lot of missing or lack of information you can still get around easily in mumbai, because you can stop and ask n number of people about how to get to a place. Mind you ‘N’ number of people and the best part is they will be able to help you gladly. The most important part is 80-90% of the time people will be able to guide you correctly. Even though I was new there I was still able to manage it pretty well on my first day in mumbai without knowing anyone, without any GPS or map or a mobile phone to call someone and ask for directions.

Now a days lot of GPS maps and devices have launched in India but you would still need help from the people to get to the correct place. The same example as the Mount Rushmore experience because sometimes the map could be outdated. The best example of how you get help in India about road directions is the Nokia add “Never get lost again”. Even though this add focuses more on the GPS device which is now available on the Nokia phone. But if you try to see the other side of this ad you can see that even though the GPS device is at focus there are other people on the outside which keeps on showing the direction until the girl reaches her final destination. Thats what India’s helping nature is in its true form. If your car breaks down in the middle of the road you can ask for help from the road side goers and they will without any complaint help you out in pushing your car to the side of the road or helping you out to the nearest mechanic shop. Even though the road side assistance is still not there but if you know your mechanic number he will your road side assistance. Public transport is easily available anywhere from auto rickshaw to bus to taxi.

So finally even though without proper road sign, GPS, Maps, road side assistance etc traveling and getting lost in India is not at all a harrowing experience. It could be chaotic sometimes but once you absorb the chaos you will start liking and realizing the helpful & the social nature of the Indian crowd.  So thats why I say in India you never get lost even though if you don’t have a Nokia GPS phone.

For others in India they get their directions from – check out the photo >>

(image sources : http://doodlewala.blogspot.com/)