Expressions of creativity

I mostly ride my 2-wheeler for several reasons. I am still not too comfortable behind the driving wheel, it is tedious to find place for parking, it is much easier to whiz past in heavy traffic….blah, blah, blah! So, I get too see a lot of things while commuting. I am especially enamoured by the variety of number plates people have, and even diverse messages on their car, on their bikes!



Earlier I had mentioned about this extremely cute message on a car “not so close darling. I hardly know you”. It really made me smile!


Most common ones are inscribing your religion on your vehicle, be it the stickers of various gods (ganesha is the most preferred, some also go for sai baba), you would also occasionally find a ‘786’ or a ‘cross’. ‘Aai-baba cha aashirwad’, ‘Daddy’s gift’, etc, also can be seen a lot.


Anther trend is creating names or words out of numbers. Many times some numbers are more prominent, rest are too small to even be legible.


In fact, what really prompted this post was the number plate I saw today. It said “careful! Stunter ahead!”. ‘Army’, ‘Press’, Doctor’s cross sign are also very, very common.


Trucks, cars and few bikes display names of the kids of the family. In fact, I also came across 1 car with the photograph of the children on the back.


Many times when I see distorted numbers, I fee strongly that there should be a standardized format for Number plates. In accident cases, one would never be able to make out the correct number of the offenders. A number plate should not be an expression of creativity, it has some purpose and when there is too much of clutter, distorted numbers and creativity at play, it just beats the purpose. A standardized format also orients people in grasping the numbers much more quickly. In current context, even an alert person on the road might take several precious minutes to make out what the number exactly is.