YIELD or GIVE WAY

Oh man, I screamed as I applied sudden brakes. I was going at a fairly high speed on the main road.  One two wheeler entered from the left side road and took a swift left turn in front of me, forget about slowing down or stopping, he didn’t even bother to look whether anybody was coming from main road. That reminded of that traffic signal “inverted triangle” with “YIELD” written on the middle. I had seen it in the US not in India, so as usual I did that, when in doubt google! Ah, I did get the answer.

 In road transport, a yield (Canada, Ireland, South Africa, South Korea and the United States) or give way (United Kingdom, other Commonwealth and English-speaking countries) traffic sign indicates that each driver must prepare to stop if necessary to let a driver on another approach proceed.

No wonder I didn’t find YIELD sign boards on Bangalore roads. The same phenomenon - Right hand drive Vs Left hand drive, Celsius Vs Fahrenheit, 220 Volt  Vs 110 Volt, 50 Hz Vs 60 Hz, GIVE WAY Vs YIELD. Wait a sec,  I haven’t seen a GIVE WAY signboard either. It could be because we have those unscientific humps 1 foot high, quarter foot wide that can make people slow down. Still I would rather urge the authorities to put up those GIVE WAY “inverted red triangles”. Even if people would not realize the actual purpose of it, some may mistakenly be reminded of the symbol for another good nationwide initiative – “human population control” !

People are so impatient and intolerant now a days, they do not want to yield or give way even an inch.

I was at the veterinarian’s place the other day, took my dog for routine vaccination. I waited outside, I was the only one apart from the one being inside the doctor’s room. Two people got down with their pets simultaneously, one in an auto rickshaw, the other in his car. It was like a photo finish as it was very difficult to identify who had arrived first. CCTV is not around to check it. As my job was done, I got out of the Vet’s room, I saw heavy argument between these two. Who should enter first? As their decibel levels increased, even dogs joined the party. Many dogs had arrived by then with their masters, all started barking. It looked like a protest by dogs demanding suspension of Vet’s assistant who had injected one of their friends rather painfully on the previous day ! Vet had to come out, pacify and solve the issue. I do not understand what is wrong in one of them giving way for the other. It is a matter of waiting for another 15 minutes. If I had been one of them, I would have happily allowed the other to go first. In those 15 minutes I could have talked to some other dog, or perhaps to the owner of the dog itself if she was found attractive!!

I remember fight between two siblings when I was a kid. It was in a village. Both these guys were well off and had acres of fertile land, rubber plantations. The fight was on a compound wall constructed by the elder one who had encroached by 2 feet. I still remember the argument he put forward to his dad, who was living with younger one “ Dad, don’t argue too much, don’t be too smart. After all there is age gap of only 25 years between you and me ! “ People don’t want to yield even 2 feet when they have acres of land, they don't mind going any extend to abuse "others".

I used to travel to town by train to attend college from the same village. Those journeys were interesting not because it was free for me as my dad was working in railways. Every day one can witness fights or arguments, sellers of petty but interesting stuff, can learn playing rummy and what not? That day the train just pulled into the starting station. As usual, I got through the back door ( door on the non-platform side ) and secured a window seat. I saw a bag kept in the opposite side window seat, kept through the window by somebody to reserve the seat, even before boarding the train. I saw a rude face, non smiling, approaching the seat, kept the bag beside him and sat on the seat. 5 minutes later another rude, non smiling face appeared and started fighting with the first one, demanding to give way the seat as he was the one who had reserved it. It was heating up, I even offered my window seat, though it was hard earned by me. Both of them did not accept my offer. There was no compromise, finally “bag man” took his bag, said a few words which I cannot mention here and walked out to get into another compartment. I am pretty sure he had to travel standing, as the train was jam packed. Not only people do not want to give way, the anger makes them blind even to accept a reasonable compromise.

Recently I was driving back after a visit to temple. It was late in the evening. I took a right to the side road from the busy main road. I found another car approaching really fast from a distance. I blinked my high beam suggesting he needed to wait, there was no way both of us could go as cars were parked on both sides of the road. He didn’t honor it, came in front of me and stopped. I also stopped and no way I could go reverse because it was heavy traffic there. He could go back but he had to cover a long distance. He blinked his headlights twice. I switched off ignition of my car. He honked. I just pulled the lever to open the bonnet. He rolled the window down and started shouting. I opened the door and stepped out. (Don’t mistake me I was in no mood to have a fight with him, especially after a peaceful prayer at temple ). I just opened the bonnet checked 3 things I know of only - battery, engine oil level and wiper fluid level. He is still honking. I pulled a few things which are firmly fixed to the car. I didn’t know what purpose they served, I did not want them to come in to my hands either as it would result in breakdown of the car. I wanted to pretend that the car had broken down. Public gathered, asked the honking man to go back and they were ready to push my car. As he backtracked, I just started the car, thanked the public and took off. There are peaceful ways to overcome these situations.

I got results of my routine annual health check up this morning. All parameters are normal. My give way attitude when stakes are not that high and my peaceful approach when I need to win, are paying me rich dividends, no doubt!