Tuesday, May 29, 2018

God of Car

Growing up in (religious) India, I am very used to having a God staring down at the passengers from the dashboard of a car. It's an extremely common sight in India, and just by looking at the God, you can pretty much guess from which part of India the driver (or the owner of the car is).

For a while in USA, I didn't see many Gods staring down at the passengers other than when an Indian was driving a car. So I pretty much assumed that it was a totally Indian thing till I came to East Asia. Here I occasionally find Gods of different religions sitting above the Dash. But these Gods tend to focus on the road (look out) rather than look at passengers.

So I guess, Indian Gods need to keep an eye on the driver to make sure that he is driving safe. While the rest of the East Asian Gods need to keep an eye outside to make sure that everyone else is driving their cars properly.

I came across this video of a driver in UK (I am assuming he is of Indian origin) who put his Tesla in auto-pilot and moved to the passenger seat. Of course he was fined for reckless driving and his license has been revoked for a period of time. But what I found most interesting in the video is that there is an idol of a God looking at him while he is in the passenger seat and the car is driving itself! Now the reason I felt the driver was of Indian origin is because the God seems to be looking into the car than onto the road.


Now I think I have changed my theory about Gods in car. We (Indians) need the God to look at us so that we don't misbehave (put the car in auto-pilot and do something crazy like moving into the passenger seat!).