Horn Ok Please!?

I am Back in Mumbai for my internship and since that consumes only 5 hours of my day I have got myself involved in as many things I could. Which means that I have excessive amount of travelling involved throughout the day, and a little too much time on my hand to observe, write, read and enjoy music these days.

So on my one hour long journey to Vashi for my Spanish Class, as I sat in the AC bus reading Steve Job’s Biography (which I find really interesting By the way), I looked out of the large glass windows to see a truck emitting huge amount of Carbon Monoxide which made me wonder how long do we really have in this world, considering the mess we are creating.

However what diverted my attention was the color of the truck and how it was decorated to look like some royal carriage. But no! This post isn’t about my routine, Global warming, the beauty of the ordinary truck or any of that. This is about my childhood fascination of looking at the back of a truck and reading aloud 3 simple words – HORN OK PLEASE!

At the Age of 12 I got really sick of the grammatically wrong phrase and no correct answer by any grown up as to why it is used throughout the country when it is well…so WRONG!

I wanted to find out the greater purpose for using it, and I searched everywhere till I found the answer!

So did you know- the term bears its roots in the Second World War where the trucks were run on kerosene engines. Kerosene, being highly unstable in nature, would cause the trucks to explode at the slightest accident. Hence a warning would be painted on the back saying "horn Please, On Kerosene". Gradually this became a norm and is still seen on most trucks even today.

Fascinating, isn't it? Did you ever wonder why it is used? or simply believed that is was not so wrong after repeatedly reading it for all these years? We never pay attention to minute and insignificant details in things, do we? but the realization and knowledge about the same is almost always delightful.

P.s: I can now speak almost-fluent-Spanish. However my tenses are really messed up there too. which does not make me even half as sad as compared to how much it makes me happy to know a whole new language and go about blabbering it.

*tuned into* You and I Both- jason mraz.