When everything can be so easily accessed, I discovered in the dusty back roads of tropical Kallara in Kerala, India, a language that exists outside of written awareness. There are no posted road signs or street names. Instead, my local experiences here hinge on a driver who intrinsically understands the hidden turns and multiple branchings of dirt roads. In the dark, the driver is the navigator of things unknowable as he works only from memory. Intersections with pockets of people pop up miraculously after miles of darkness so thick. It seems we are driving suspended in space. In this tucked away corner of the world, state planning is less important than the unsaid agreement that occurs between the everyday local people who manage the roads by simply understanding the rhythm of it. Coming across a one lane bridge, it is clear that the government may have planned the traffic light to control the flow of people, vehicles, and animals included, but the people engineered the one lane into multiple spaces, making a way for the cyclists, motorbikes, and cars without incidents. These roads are more sophisticatedly maneuvered than the busiest lanes in Canal Street in Chinatown on a busy summer morning in New York. Where there are no street dividers, the drivers create a fluid language only understood among themselves. There are translations of when to pass, stay behind, and signals to slow down to allow passing from the back with the most flippant of casual waves and staccato beeps. It’s not possible to exchange permanent cross words among community members here. Even with the understanding of the dangers of the roads, stronger still is the companionship of the select drivers who have the knowledge to drive. Though there are no more elephants here used for transportation, it is clear their metal workhorses are shown no less love. There is a space for everything even in the smallest corners of this journey.
