Beep…Horn..Honk…Noise

The concept of a horn on the vehicle…what was it at the beginning and what is it now? The horn as I understand should be for an alarm to others in sudden situations of possible collision. This I am saying with respect to India of course. In the US, it is just to curse at someone driving incorrectly in most descent cases; and of course this again happens very rarely. Like it’s an insult to be honked at in the US. In the time I lived there, my husband never ever let me press the horn button in the car. Not even in the parking lot. Because it’s illegal or wrong or whatever, to honk without a reason. I would say to him, “I don’t even know how our car honks, one small beep? Please”. Never got to do that! L

Now that I am back here in India, it’s NOISE on the streets. My cab driver uses his horn like an UGLY sound translation of saying “Move …move..move move move....out of my way…move move” which sounds like “Honk…Honk…honk honk honk…honkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!” And this is the case with everyone on the roads. Honk was supposed to be like, “wow! Look out. We almost collided”, but now it’s like “Move..I gotta go…get out of my way..movee ..Dude, just move!” And since everyone honks, everyone ignores too! So there is more and more noise! Most of the times my driver honks at people standing at a red light! What is that supposed to mean? Really! When that happens to me when I am out with my husband, I totally turn back & throw up my hand in the air asking “WHAT??” Can’t they see the red light? When did the rule change to drive through the red light? I totally don’t understand the ways of driving anymore, the more I analyze the more my head gets crazy! Not to mention the different volumes of honks we have on the street! But really, why do we honk so much? I would really like to have a NO-HONK day in India. That would be something isn’t it? Imagine the levels of noise pollution we would reduce for ONE DAY!