We have all at some point or the other cursed our luck during one of those endless traffic jams, the honking, the stop-go aches, the nauseating drone of FM radio, and the irony of actually being part of the problem. When you ask Mumbai-based lyricist Prasoon Joshi about traffic, he first gives a practical answer. In Mumbai, road jams are built into daily schedules as people finish phone calls and important chores. “I write lyrics on the road from the car on my phone. The jams are when I do all my advertising-related conference calls.”

Of course, then he gets typically philosophical. “The world is frustrated because they spend all this time in traffic. If people in Mumbai spent less time on the road, they would have a better chance of spending that time with their families. Jams affect productivity, happiness, everything.” They can also be life-threatening. Recently, an elderly man died en route to a hospital in Delhi. His ambulance was stuck in traffic. Similarly, last week, another elderly man crossing the road at Puzhakkal on the busy...