I am sure we all recall the nursery rhyme, “Little Jack Horner, sat in a corner..”, in India we have Mohans, Abduls, Peters, Diljeet all ‘horners’ and mind you they are not little physically, but have very little matter in the upper story. The reason is simple, they derive perverse pleasure in honking their horns non stop, while they are supposedly driving their chosen mode of transport, two/four wheeled ones but at the same time driving the rest of the commuters or even innocent bystanders nuts. Honking of horn comes as part of the package, as they press the accelerator, the hand automatically moves to the horn, which was perhaps feeling left out, as all the other parts clutch , brake, accelerator etc have been put to use, so out of sheer compassion for the horn, these blessed drivers do the honourable thing. In the days of yore, when there were cycles and tongas for commuting or even the older buses, they did not have the luxury of these electronic horns, they had something which was called a ‘bhonpoo’ in Hindi, its contraption was essentially a rubber oval ball attached to a concave shaped metallic or even plastic through a slender pipe. As the rubber ball was pressed, the air passing through the speaker would amplify the sound, making a sound like ‘bho…poo’, hence the name. The word rhymes with ‘bhondoo’ which means an idiot and the ones who keep honking can best be described by the same adjective.
English is a funny language, but when it comes to horns, the other meaning of horns which the devil is supposed to be sporting, they got it right for a change. Horns have to be truly a devil’s work, and here there no horns of dilemma in honking, just plain and simple torture for the delicate eardrums. Like the Jack in the box, these morons will come and toot their cacophonic horns out of the blue, thus startling the commuters. Traffic rules dictate that honking of horns is prohibited near hospitals, but these horners have no qualms in going about their job with utter disdain for the poor patients, noise pollution be damned. As if the loud horns were not enough, the availability of cheap Chinese electronic ones have added multiple tunes which only end up exacerbating the agony. Irony is that traffic policemen seem to enjoy it, as despite clear instructions on the subject, none of these defaulters get booked for violating the rules.
Strangely we in the South Asia are probably the only people who have been afflicted with this malaise, and proudly boast “we are the horners!”. One rarely comes across anyone in the West or even Africa as much as even pressing it inadvertently. It is considered downright rude and not just impolite to blow the horn. We don’t realise but probably we all are gradually growing deaf, our ears coming out of the little end of the horn themselves. As a civilisation we are no greenhorns, then why is it that we behave in such an uncivilised manner, the authorities are definitely not facing any horns of dilemma on this pertinent matter. Locking ‘horns’ with these imbeciles is no easy task but these bullheaded fellows need to be taken literally by their ‘horns’, that is the need of the hour.
High time they take the bull by its horns….