Dashboards

The New York Times has an amusing (true) article about Indian traffic: Indians Hit the Road Amid Elephants

There's an accompanying slideshow. I loved the picture of a taxi's dashboard


because I keep thinking that I'd like to make a series of dashboard pictures -- dashboards with their various gods and adornments. Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, the dashboard can accommodate everyone.

This one is particularly ornate. The metal tissue box is common enough, but I usually see it on the shelf behind the back seat. There appear to be two perfume containers. There's a mala - a kind of Hinu rosary - hanging from the mirror. A tiny human figure? What's that? At its feet are some pictures, lying flat - perhaps of gods. I was told that people keep stuffed animals in their cars so that they will absorb any evil that may come to them -- if there's a collision, the toy animal will be 'injured', not you.

So I'm inspired anew to explore the dashboard world.