A month back I got myself a new bike. It is a nice black and blue mix colored one. After paying the amount to the showroom guy, I was almost ready to leave to my house with my new bike when the mechanic over there asked me whether I would prefer sticking anything on my bike. Some thing like a photo or inscription I want to make on my bike. I preferred nothing but the question asked by that guy made me look at the other bikes and taxis while I was going to my work place and also returning to my home. I was more interested in others bikes than mine. For the next two days I was going on looking at different pictures or writings pasted on bikes and taxis and believe me most of them were very hilarious. They made my journey enjoyable and stress free. Any other day, I would have been tired of driving but not those two days. Here are the few things I could notice on the back of bike’s:

  • Gift from Dad/Mom/God
  • I don’t care
  • Don’t kiss me
  • Tere saat (that means ‘with you’. This one has been on my friend’s bike)
  • Catch me if you can
  • Hunk on board
  • Support:- Mayhem and violence, drugs and alcohol, use of strong language, blood and gore

What’s more funny is the way the auto wallahs write on the back of their taxis. Like names of their favourite films or actors.One guy actually had written 007 on the back of his taxi with the OM symbol on both its sides. That’s not all. He even had the symbol of the Islam religion on top of the 007 symbol. How secular??

The humour over here is that these guys change the whole structure of the word itself and write in their own way. The reason is obvious. They have very little knowledge of the English language. Instead of the word puncture they write pumcher. The end part of the word ‘puncture i.e. ‘ture’ is actually spelt as chur. It is but obvious that these guys write it the way they spell it.

Not only on the outside but many taxis interior decorate their vehicles with all sorts of pictures. Most of the time they have pictures covering more than half of their windshield. I don’t know how could they drive with all those pictures literally over their faces. To add to their infatuation to a particular item, these drivers, instead of having the background for that stop badge on the back of their vehicle put the picture of their desired object. It’s the same with the number plate. Likewise some time back everyone started having the name of India on the number plate in blue colour.

Is that required? Many times I have witnessed that many of these stickers on the bikes come off leaving them incomplete. That is the most hilarious thing to happen with only half the sticker remaining and the biker loosing interest to mend it.

Some people go further and write the number on their number plate in their language. How innovative? Some guys paste stickers of their favorite theme like one of my friends has the Ferrari label on his bike. One guy has pasted a picture of a girl and a guy kissing and it was so hilarious with the faces of the two people so disfigured that I could not understand for a few minutes what that particular thing is. I was literally looking at his bike and driving for a good part of my journey. The truck drivers generally have paintings on the mudguards of their rear wheels. Those paintings lso are so hilarious to watch.

The car drivers are no less. Their decoration range from writing names of their dear ones on the rear wind shield to pasting stickers indicating their profession. As long as doctors are concerned it is accepted as they may be useful to people in the cases of emergency. Some people go further and write the pet names or nicknames like bunty, babloo, chunni, munni, puppy etc. Guys who are more into this racing interest paint their cars with the same theme as that of their favourite driver. I can’t understand why do they waste the beauty of their car. Moreover the car starts looking ugly.

In a country like America, people have their names or whatever they like as their number plates or license plates as they call it. That’s a tad higher than the craze we have over here in India. Even though all this craze for decoration might not go down with everyone, it adds to the funny element to the driving. It also adds a sense of something new whenever a thing is added to the already available decoration.

Yours Always,