It may seem odd to propose traffic signals can tell us so much about our culture. But, in reality, traffic signals are the gateway to one’s culture. In traffic signals, the young and the elderly alike cross paths—huddling through, juggling between, and striding forth—zebra crossing, meeting strangers, falling in love, reeling through heartbreaks, sobbing every now and then, laughing with (and at) one another, sipping coffee, and slurping bubble tea.
Traffic signals halt our movement and absorb us into the world for a moment. Just as we wait for signals to start blinking, we feel, observe, smell, rationalise, envy, smile, and smirk all at once or in intervals. Encounters with traffic signals open us to the embrace of social beings all in relation to one another but also oblivious to each other’s worlds simultaneously. Traffic signals, for that moment, become a space for thriving social engagement.
In the place where I came from, back in India’s New Delhi, traffic moved slowly. The honks of auto-rikshaws and cars mixed to produce an unquiet noise, bereft of all symphonies. The jam-packed buses, hoarding people from one bus stop to another, tilted unevenly to allow the wobbly wheels to endure—the heat, the traffic, and the pollution.
Among these daily commuters lived the bravehearts—the motorcyclists. Just as traffic grew denser, these office-going motorcyclists squeezed between one another, wading through narrow spaces, shouting at one another to give way, cursing themselves for choosing the route and the government for not fixing potholes. And just when the traffic turned red again, the motorcyclists took a new turn. They pushed their bikes onto the footpath, where pedestrians were supposed to walk, and sped them to the start of the traffic line.
In between all this, the pedestrians would mindlessly walk through traffic, waving their hands at the cars to slow down—or stop—just as they crossed the roads. In India, traffic lights are not designed for pedestrians. On any Indian road (and this is not an exaggeration!), there is no way of knowing when to cross the road. From the time I spent in my native village in Southern India to the time spent in metropolitan cities like Bengaluru and Delhi, I can tell with certainty that all life until now, whenever I crossed the road, I held my right arm in the air signalling the cars and trucks to stop.
And every second traffic stop, there are encounters with estranged children selling pens and pencils, enticing the parents to buy balloons, forcing lovers to purchase roses and demanding just enough sums, or just holding out their bowls for alms and currency notes. A significant number of these children may be trafficked, but there are no checks in place. And this situation continues unabated.
On the Delhi roads, at one corner lived the rich in their bungalows in posh localities, and at the other, the poor, in their tatters, in slums. And in Delhi, both interacted in unusually absurd ways. The rich expected the slum-dwelling houseboys to take the dog for a walk every morning. The house cooks and cleaners who lived in a poverty-stricken locality were not allowed to use the same lifts as those rich, educated, office-going babus. The cooks were required to make food for the whole household but were forbidden from using the same cups to drink water. So, the rich lived at the expense of the poor, and the poor were at the mercy of the rich.
When I first came to Brisbane during Christmas last year in 2023, I was amazed at the traffic signals. As someone who had never stepped outside India and had just then travelled the whole day in the plane, crossing oceans to a new land, a lucky country, I was to see new things. And in traffic lights, I first came to visit Australia. Traffic lights—red, orange, and green—were not different from the ones in India. They flashed the same as those in India. Vehicles stopped at orange and red and started moving at green.
However, unlike in India, Brisbane roads are designed for pedestrians. There are meticulous zebra crossings. And before the zebra crossings, the cars stopped for pedestrians to cross the streets. Occasionally, seeing those cars stop to let me pass through (altogether a new phenomenon!), the humble me would wave at the drivers to thank them and brisk through the crossings.
At every traffic signal point, small buttons are placed for pedestrians to press start to blink, signalling you to cross paths and stopping all vehicular movements towards you. In the mornings, just after my runs, and in the afternoons, post my grocery shenanigans every weekend, I press the traffic button—and wait for the signal to turn green and start beeping. ‘Ah, the bliss!’ I told myself every time I crossed the road.
There is a particular cultural element in the traffic life of the cities. Brisbane, unlike Sydney and Melbourne, is relatively peaceful. Or so they say. The people I speak with. Nonetheless, life across traffic signals tells us that there is an inherent joy in crossing roads: carefree. Back in Delhi, a friend once told me: ‘You hold your heart dear, your eyes wide open, and your hands held out, and cross the road.’ That… is the secret recipe to crossing Indian roads.
Importantly, Brisbane traffic had no gender, caste, class, or religious divides. Everyone was at the mercy of the traffic machine, signalling them to cross the roads. In the short time I have stayed here, I have learned that the tradies—often mooted in India as unskilled labour and paid the least—were the highest-paid people. (Recently, my kitchen sink broke. The plumber charged us a whopping 350 AUD for an hour, and my flatmate was asking me to reconsider my PhD studies.) In Brisbane, there was a sense of value in people’s work. Back in India, everyone was just busy—the rich at exploiting the poor, and the poor at escaping exploitation by working hard (or feeling the illusion of escaping poverty!).
But these conditions are also historical. India is still a developing country, with a significant chunk of the population in poverty, whereas Australia is a highly developed society. The colonial influences on Australia and India were also varied: one was a colony, and the other was a settlement for Europe. In Australia, the indigenous economy was displaced by the European capitalist structure. On the contrary, India became an important supplier of raw materials and consumer of end products of the colonial economy.
The after-effects of colonialism are visible in traffic signals. Now, embraced in the capitalist structure, both India and Australia sustain within the same world capitalist structure. The labour-intensive technical jobs, now outsourced to tech geeks in India, keep up with societies like Australia. Just as Western societies stand to benefit from cheap labour, Indian society finds solace in trying to catch up. In traffic signals, Indian society is catching up to ambulances in heavy traffic. Therefore, there follows an entourage of cars, autorickshaws, and motorcycles behind every ambulance. Just as those inside an ambulance feel their emergency, the cars lined up behind present their sense of urgency to reach their offices and call centres.
In that vein, the Australian traffic lights blink for pedestrians, and in India, pedestrians are to wave their hands at cars and motorcycles.
Cover Photo By Nelson Pavlosky – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=147951108