Getting Run Over for the Second Time

I'd gotten an insider's tip that the Sheraton on TTK road (actually the corner of TTK and Chamiers road) has a night club and happy hour on Wednesday. Last night, being Wednesday, I decided to go check it out. It's the same story everywhere in Chennai apparently. Nightclubs charge double for a 12 oz kingfisher as regular bars charge for a 650 ml. That being said I decided I'd go in anyway and see what the buzz was about. Perhaps it's a weekend type place. I did happen to see a few westerners in there. They were all men (shock and awe). There were in fact women dancing though. There were three of them (surrounded by 5 more men). The music was way too loud to do anything other than eat the bar snacks, drink beer, and watch the crcket highlites of the day, so that's what I did. I suppose this place will be more lively on the weekends at 10PM.

Luckily, said Sheraton is walking distance (a longish walk) from my apartment. So I took the train toward the apartment and walked instead toward the hotel. In the meantime I'd heard there is a nice Thai restaurant (nothing beats eating curry, like eating more curry!) just up the road. I walked up to it and must have seemed very awkward because I was dining alone. Oh well. The food was tasty and overpriced by Indian standards. I paid about half of what I would have for an identical meal in the states. But I was happy to eat non-Indian fare for a night.

On the way, however, I got run over for the second time, this time by a small car. I can't say run over properly, but I was walking and this guy tried to get ahead of me and hit my arm with his car. This merits some mention:

An Indian friend of mine tries to explain some of the Indian mentality to me by saying, "might is right." I've seen a similar style of driving in the middle east before. Whomever has the loudest horn has the right of way. Yikes! What I notice over and over and over again is that I'll be walking along and there is CLEARLY much more room to go behind me than in front of me. Generally speaking I walk pretty close to the sidewalk (sidewalks here are not made for walking, that's another post). When I cross the street at a T-crossing or whatever I go directly from one side to the other. I'm not comfortable dilly-dallying in the street. The traffic is too crazy. More often than not, and I mean something like 9 to 1 if a motorcycle of car is coming out of the side street they will drive IN FRONT of me crossing the street to get into the road. Are you kidding? Give me one second and I won't even be in the road at all. It makes matters harder to comprehend when about half the time the motorcycles are driving into the road on the wrong side for traffic flow. I don't understand what the rush is. I never have, I never will (Insh'allah). A few Americans have mentioned that I might be able to afford a car here. While it is true, that my financial savings would not take much of a hit at all buying a car here, my nerves would. I'd be in a wreck every damn day. I'm already the only person I know who has been in any sort of an accident (completely amazing to me, since I tend to be rather careful).

Last night's run over was even more peculiar in that I was standing on the street corner at a busy intersection waiting for a time to go. I wasn't even moving and this car came by and hit my right arm. DOUBLE U, T, and F? It happened a bit too quickly for me to react as well. The traffic was so busy I couldn't fathom someone just turning left into it, but apparently that is the way things are done here. I saw in that same minute about 3 near miss accidents, but I was the only one who got hit. Go figure!