The Mumbai traffic police have initiated a ‘No Honking’ campaign in the city. They stated with a ‘No Honking Week’ and are now carrying out a ‘No Honking Drive’. They even have declared certain areas as ‘Silent Zones’. I am not sure how successful their campaign is, but I am surprised that such a campaign was even initiated.

Honking (or Horning, as we locals call it), is a ‘tradition’ in India and as Indian, I think we should try to preserve it rather than abolish it. The credo behind ‘Horn OK Please’, whatever it is, needs to be protected from those who accuse the horn of causing noise pollution. I don’t think honking causes any pollution whatsoever, and hence honking as a tradition should be cherished rather than abolished. Honking is a way of expression. It’s a way of communication. How else do you expect us to alert our fellow drivers of our existence (we don’t use side mirrors), or show our frustration and anger (we don’t use the finger gesture – nobody understands that), or demonstrate our accomplishments (of having jumped a signal just as it turned from yellow to red), or express our anxiety and joy (that we experience when we know that the signal is about to turn green in the next few seconds). How else do we intimate the pedestrians (or the cow or the dog) crossing the street that we do not intend to stop for them? How else do we let people in our neighborhoods know that we have returned home? For all this, we need the horn and we need to use it too. We thus need to follow the doctrine governed by ‘Horn OK Please’.

‘Horn OK Please’, is not just a phrase. It symbolized national integrity; for it is the only phrase that is unanimously used across the nation. Invariably seen on the back of trucks and at times on other commercial vehicles like buses, taxis, and autos too, the phrase signifies our unity in diversity. It’s a belief that we have in our fellow countrymen: ‘Whoever you are, wherever you are, I know you will honk for me’. It’s a phrase that, for some reason, nobody has ever attempted to translate in Hindi or any other regional language. Maybe because nobody really knows what ‘Horn OK Please’ exactly means. Nor does anybody have any information on the origins of this phrase. Hence nobody wants to take the risk of tampering with it. On second thoughts, nobody really knows what a ‘horn’ is called in Hindi or any other regional language for that matter (I know some of you think it’s called ‘Haaran’ in Hindi, but no, that’s not correct). Neither does anybody know how exactly ‘OK’ would translate in a regional language.

But whatever the reasons, I feel ‘Horn OK Please’ should be valued as an icon of national heritage. Despite there being no traffic rule that mandates the inscription of ‘Horn OK Please’ on vehicles, vehicle owners all across the country have been doing so for decades (and often in decorative fonts and styling). We ought to respect this tradition; and the philosophy of honking that it preaches ought to be followed.

So ladies and gentlemen, when in India, do as the Indians do. Horn Please. OK.