Hold my hand

I'm scared to cross the roads here. I'm getting used to the smaller side streets, but the main ones swarm with speeding vehicles and buzz with danger. The first time I was in Bangalore I never felt safer than when a local friend held my hand and guided me across the main MG Road.

Without him I feel like I'm guiding a chariot across the Red Sea, fearing that what looks like an empty landscape will change before I can do anything about it. If there are other people waiting by the edge - they always look so calm - I hang in their shadow like a shy child grabbing a parent's leg.

At home, I've been teaching my little girl about roads and crossing them. We stand at the edge, look left and right, until we can't see any cars. I don't know what I'd tell her here because hundreds of metres of empty lanes don't exist.

There are vehicles everywhere, smooth-running sedans, smoke-blowing rickshaws, motorcycles with fearless riders and bicycles of various degrees of sturdiness. To me the slow-pedalling cyclists are among the world's bravest people. They are so much more vulnerable than edgy tourists.