A few weeks ago one of my German friends, Juergen had come over to India. I spend a few days driving him around and showing him places. Well as for any foreigner it did take a while for him to trust the way we drive - it progressed from a scary horror thriller to ‘I don’t know how, but I won’t get hurt’. He used to even call me ‘hell-raiser’ when it comes to driving, even though that upped my ego a bit, I don’t think I am that good 
. One of the things he was confused from day one and something that he never quite got used to is our seemingly random honking. He used to ask me, last time when we went on this road you honked at least once every 5 seconds, but now you didn’t honk for an hour - why? Well he hasn’t quite caught up to the method in all the chaos and I see that there is no authentic guide to honking in India, anywhere on the net. So I have decided to take up the challenge and here you have it.
1. Presence Honking
This particular type of honk is usually of short amplitude and used with high frequency. It is a very polite way of telling the others on the road that you are ‘there’. It is kind of like an animal marking his or her territory. The meaning of it varies with the size of the vehicle too. If it is a bus that is using it, it means - if you cross my path you are dead. If its a motorbike - if you cross my path I am dead. All other variants come in between.
2. What-the-****-are-you-doing Honking
This is a rather impolite but effective way of abusing your fellow road users. It is second in frequency only to Presence honking. Using it always gives a boost to your ego, declaring it yourself to the people around you, that you know everything there is to know, when it comes to driving. This is best done in short bursts of very high loudness and honk-length.
3. Traffic-Light Honking
This is used in many different scenarios at the traffic light. One use is when you think that the person in front of you is blind and has not started moving yet when there is only 5 seconds to go for the light to turn green. Another is rather supernatural or spiritual. It is based on the belief that if you honk a few times, the red light will turn to green faster. It doesn’t harm you to try it does it?
4. The Enquiry Honk
This is even more polite than variant 1. A very polite way to enquire whether you get the right of way. It is used while you try to overtake or is not sure who has the right of way in an intersection. The answers you get and the manner in which you get them can be very varied. You must have the presence of mind to choose the appropriate path of action very quickly or alas you are again dead.
5. The Pointless Honk
Ok, this happens usually when you are annoyed with your boss, or had a quarrel with your wife. You use this horn to vent out your inner troubles. But be very careful as to when you use this. If timing is wrong this type of honking can be easily mistaken for any of the above four variants and cause unexpected page faults. (sorry had to put in a Com. Sci. PJ in somewhere )
Yup, that would have prepared you a bit to take on the roads in India. Now all you need is quite a huge amount of courage and a lot of luck. All the best!
PS: Hell.. they should start giving out PhDs for driving in India. It has so much of science and art in it!
February 5th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Subtle…but hilarious..:D
You’ve covered all the types, I guess..:-P
The one I hate most is the traffic-light honking. Its absolutely pointless. That’s why.
Though you’ve glorified the whole idea of honking in India, its actually a curse, which accounts for our noise level of 90 decibels against the safe noise level of 45 decibels as fixed by the WHO. And as you know, noise pollution causes damage to hearing, increases our heart beat rate, which ultimately results in irreversible changes in the nervous system. So I’m all against PhDs for driving in India, even as a joke!!!!
February 5th, 2009 at 11:23 am
[…] Anoop Shankar took his German friend, who had come to visit, around India. The German could never understand why you need to honk every five second in some occasions and almost never in others. So here comes the authentic guide to honking in India. […]
February 5th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Came here from Desipundit.
Awesome post! You probably forgot to mention the “honk if you see someone beautiful” part of some other drivers.
February 6th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Reminds me of the time I was in India on a scooter with my uncle. This bus cut off a van that veered closer and closer to us as we were in its blind spot. I was dumbfounded as the van came closer and finally was only 2 inches from my leg while we kept driving down this smog filled road with a 3’ tall concrete wall on the other side. The honking really didn’t seem to make a difference so my uncle started pounding on the side of the van with his fist. I followed his example and started pounding and the driver of the van stuck his head out of his window and looked back at us and then gave us a few more inches of space. It’s definitely an adventure driving in India.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:53 am
LOL - you’re funny, man. Found this link on Facebook - totally worth it.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Hahaha…….good one. I live in St.Petersburg Russia. And the first thing I realized was that the roads here are so freakishly silent. No one honks. Its like a freakin curfew. Ma thats one thing I really missed about good ‘ol India!
February 7th, 2009 at 7:53 am
@Espresso : I didn’t really mean to glorify the honking. It was only sarcasm, but face it, with the kind of roads we have, well.. we have to honk!!
@Sudipta : Yeah, that’s one I missed! How could I
@Kaushik : Thanks!
@Vyas : Yeah dude… it feels like a morgue on European roads!
February 7th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Oh, you don’t know the root cause for excessive honking then? It runs deeper than mere presence honking. Much much deeper. Check it out
February 8th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Where’s that old chestnut about driving in India (”if you see a single cyclopean headlight coming at you at 6 ft level, this is not a super motor bike but a lorry with one light out”)? it’s circa about 2001. Good stuff.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Loved this line:
If it is a bus that is using it, it means - if you cross my path you are dead.
March 20th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Hey, nice blog… ha ha ha..what the **** are you doing type of honking…if you ask me all the honkings in India are of those type :). The worst part is companies like toyota supplying over the top horns to please “Indian customers” :). We have reached levels of absurdity that none can think of.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 am
Anywhere…
They became well-known for energetic live performances. They were integrated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, their 1st year of eligibility. Baseing on to the New York Times, The Who have sold 100 million cds….
June 27th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Haha, spot on! And it’s funny seeing a seemingly random comment about The Who, this is (was?) the band who has the world record for throwing the loudest concerts ever. It is reported that audience frequently experienced temporary deafness after returning from a The Who concert.
January 25th, 2010 at 7:58 am
Good Post. Perhaps some auto mfr will see it and try to make mellower horns now that he can realise it that its not the intensity but the pattern that defines usage of a horn
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:25 pm
What about an oncoming car that flashes their lights at you when you plan to turn in front of them? Does it mean stay out of my way or go ahead and turn in front of me? I’ve never known what to do with that…
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:35 pm
You write about it as though it is/should be acceptible. It is utterly ridiculous the way people honk their horns around here, completely maddening and annoying, and thoroughly pointless. Not to mention the fact that it encourages unsafe driving practices (”well, if I just honk, I can cut anyone off whenever I like, and if I just honk, I can travel at ridiculous speeds, make everyone move out of my way, and break just about every traffic rule there is”). And that’s not even getting into the proven factor of a whole city with far higher-than-average hearing loss across all sectors of the population because of the ****ing honking all the time!! The Mumbai police have posted signs in various places saying “honk only when necessary”. I think this fails to drive home the point - it should be “honk only in genuine emergencies” (i.e. your car’s break-line is cut and you can’t stop; you’re driving someone to the hospital and they’re about to bleed to death; etc).
February 24th, 2010 at 11:50 am
[…] http://rusty.in/archives/pom-pom-the-authentic-guide-to-honking-in-india/ Horn ok please […]
February 24th, 2010 at 8:09 pm
@Jeanneleez: Flashing of the light means yes; stay out of my way - I’m coming through.
@LivingInMumbai: I meant to be sarcastic; but also you can’t just discount it by saying its ‘utterly ridiculous’. Our roads have to improve; if people should stop honking so frequently. Otherwise the number of people who die from accidents would be way more than the ones who get hearing problems.
I am also a bit surprised at the amount of attention this post is getting off late
It’s been one year since I posted this; suddenly there’s a surge in the traffic to this page.. What happened peeps?
February 24th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Anoop: Regarding comment about roads: although I agree that potholes etc. play a major role in accidents, it’s not always the size of the roads that make a difference. In London I was kinda very surprised to see that most of the roads even in central London are way smaller than our village roads. Yet people follow rules and drive quite safely. It’s sometimes amazing to see the huge red buses here make its way down tiny London lanes (a bit scary sometimes). But if you follow the rules (and have a bit of patience), I guess everything’s a bit better.