Traveling around the world I have found many ways to cross a street, as simple as crossing in Australia where all cars stop only because you are crossing, as easy as Colombia where if you don't see a car just cross or sometimes drivers give you the way. But in India it's different.
To cross a street in India you will first have to be aware of the elements of the environment. They can be autorickshaws, shared autorickshaws (bigger rickshaws), trucks, cows, bikes, people and buses. Everything at the same time. Now, conscious of the environment there are two ways to cross the street: unsafe - safe mode.
Unsafe mode
How my mother taught me: "you look to the left and see if cars are coming". This is totally incorrect, first "you look to the left": India was a British colony so traffic, switches, volume-channel buttons in the remotes, locks are in the opposite direction. How annoying is it to try turning up the volume and instead get another channel, but it would be more annoying trying to cross the street because the car might end up changing your life-channel. Second "if cars are not coming": cars and bikes are always coming.
But anyway, like a good boy I followed this instruction with its corrections from the Indian environment:
look to the right - good! some spot there, let's cross. Result: you dumb-ass forgot about the left, vehicles coming in the wrong direction sometimes are coming as well.
ok
look to the right - left - right - good! some spot there, let's cross. Result: you dumb-ass could step onto a shit or an animal
ok
look at the floor - right - left - right - damn! more cars are coming :(
Now suppose you are a horse! so you have left-right vision and don't care what you step on. Still be aware of the front, you can crash into another person who is crossing from the opposite side. Awesome! You'll probably find how to cross only one lane, then you have to stay in the middle of the two "lanes" waiting to do the same procedure. Don't worry, all motorbikes will be horning you and nearly touching you, but you are kind of safe; Finally you have crossed the street.
Safe mode
Follow an Indian and stand beside him, he knows the business and if someone gets hurt it's gonna be him :)
There's still the wrong direction drivers risk, so cross between two Indians. The risk of the floor is still there but it would be so colonial and inhumane to cross over an Indian.
Safest mode cross into a crowd of Indians, believe me, I'm here writing this post to tell the story.
