The Bipolar Magnetic Law of the Road (BiMLaR)

Have you lately driven around on highways and city roads in UP?  If you have, you must have been either wonder struck or struck by terror depending on how adventurous you are.  Yes, driving on the roads here is not a drab exercise in following traffic rules and reaching your destination feeling bored to death.  It is a far more colorful and adventurous exercise of braving the unknown; interpreting the numerous rule-sets laid down by each driver and pedestrian, sometimes at the spur of the moment; savoring the frequent thrilling and threatening attempts at door-rubbing / bumper kissing closeness et al.

Authorities who have a penchant for rules, do make attempts at reducing the chaos only to be defeated at the hands of ingenuity of the enterprising denizens.  Quite sometime back the authorities decided to erect dividers on the highways and even major roads in the city in the fond hope of separating the up and down streams of traffic.  The openings in the divider have been minimized or eliminated altogether.  This is supposed to reduce the interruptions arising from right or U turns every 100 meters or so. But the authorities failed to correctly estimate public's penchant for taking the shortest path, their ingenuity, and their love for freedom from rules.

So what does the public do? Suppose you are at point A and aligned with the slavish rule bound traffic. The destination, B, is behind you. The mindlessly framed rules require you to go down the road till you can take an U turn and then drive back to a point opposite A and further down to B, the destination. Now why should you do this and waste your precious time and fuel? Do I hear you asking what should you do? Simple. Just take an U turn right where you are and drive up to point B!  When in UP do as the UPians do.

On second thoughts this may not be a total disregard for the rules but rather a quest for more fundamental laws.  Looked at this way, this UPian way of saving time and fuel is probably based on a theory which holds that irrespective of divisions and sub-divisions a road never loses its two-way character. It is like a magnet where both north and south poles must be present. You can not separate the two poles merely by cutting a single bar magnet into two. What you get instead is two magnets each with its own pair of north and south poles. So I propose that this view taken by the enlightened local drivers be termed the Bipolar Magnetic Law of the Road (BiMLaR.)

Thus in the example above BiMLaR would require that when you are driving in what the rules call the wrong direction in a one-way lane, make sure that you keep to the left. One does make exceptions and there is little harm in following this old, well-established simple rule. Now the newbies who are yet to be initiated in BiMLaR may shout that you are moving against traffic and that too in the fast lane. Just ignore them or if they turn too annoying give them your nastiest look and step on the gas threateningly.

It is a pity that BiMLaR can be applied only to the two halves created by the divider. One would love to extend it to each of the lanes on the either side, but unfortunately they don't make the lanes wide enough for that.

So all those who have not studied magnetism or have studied the silly traffic rules too hard, be warned. You either take cognizance of BiMLaR or perish.

Those who would like to study BiMLaR in all its magnificence will be well advised to drive on the newly constructed beautiful six lane Lucknow-Gorakhpur highway. Though you will find it practiced everywhere on city roads too.

Wish you a happy and rule-free driving.