Marine Drive this morning. I was in my car on the way to physiotherapy, heading north. Light's green. Traffic moving.
And there's an old man, hobbling across the street with a stick. Slowly. Steadily. Completely unbothered.
Even though the light was green for us, he just kept going. All of us slowed down. He crossed.
No drama. No urgency. No apology. Just matter of fact.
It got me thinking. You see this all the time at Marine Drive. And all over India.
Especially in the evenings, peak hours where I live, by Pizza by the Bay — people trying to get across to the water, to see the sunset at Nariman Point, to soak in the Queen's Necklace.
There are signals. There are crossings. And yet, there are also herds. Now they've put cops there. Sometimes even the army, I think. Seven or eight of them, ropes in hand, trying to control the crowd. Because otherwise, even when the light is green for cars, people just start crossing.
It always begins the same way.
One person steps out. Not dramatically. Just slightly. If he sees traffic slow down — even for a nanosecond — he inches forward. Maybe raises his hand if he can't make it across in time. And he just keeps moving. Like it's already built into the system that people can cross anytime.
And the cars? They slow down. Almost as if they expect it.
Then others in the crowd see him. And you can almost feel the thought process:
"He's taken the risk. He's done the hard part. Now we can go."
And suddenly, it's not one person. It's a group. Then a herd.
And now the cars have no choice. They wait. Some honk. Some don't. But everyone adjusts. It's just normal.
At first, it used to infuriate me. Maybe it still does, a little. But I've been here long enough now.
And I've caught myself doing the illegal crossing, too. Not the first one. Never am I the first one to do it. But once someone else starts, something changes. The risk feels lower. You think, okay, he's already slowed the traffic. Now I can go.
This is game theory, not chaos.
That first person changes the game. Cars slow down even though they have the right of way. His single action reduces the risk for everyone else. Once the risk drops, everyone follows.
Nobody is thinking about "game theory," of course. But the behaviour is exactly that. One move changes the incentives for everyone. And it spreads instantly.
In New York, where I spent 28 years, this doesn't happen. You wait. You follow the signal. You don't negotiate with traffic.
Even in Hanoi, famously chaotic, I remember people waiting and then crossing together.
India feels different. People negotiate. Systems bend.
Is it impatience? Distrust of systems? Are the signals too long? Too designed for cars and not pedestrians? The common man asserting himself against infrastructure built around a different life?
I don't know.
The strange thing is, it shouldn't work. And yet it does. People cross. Cars slow. Life moves on.
Chaotic. Irrational. Oddly efficient.