As any road traveler in India will tell you, the country is full of signs on the roads, in shops, restaurants and hotels that are funny. And as it goes for all things funny, some of them are intentionally so while others are just comedies of errors. For instance I, during all of my travels in India, have never come across a single dhabha that has been able to spell breakfast right. It’s always ‘break’ ‘fast’ with a space in between. As a child I used to wonder whether it’s been spelt right by them and my textbooks forgot to add the space bar maybe. But signs such as “Child Beer” and “pattis” made me realize that maybe it’s my textbook that I should trust more.
However, the desert of Ladakh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, has plenty of such road signs that are intentionally comic! Signs include witticisms such as “Darling, I like you; but not so fast,” and “If you are married, divorce speed”. These signs have been administered by Himank, a project of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) in the Ladakh region. While driving through these risky paths, also the world’s highest motorable roads, travelers, especially bikers, must chuckle to themselves as they wind through a bend and come upon one of these. It’s true that Ladakh is traversed by many hoping to see the vertiginous peaks, the glimmering lakes and the occasional prayer flag that sways with the wind. But on my visit to Ladakh, apart from all of that, it was these road signs that caught my attention and I soon started capturing them…
