What it's like to drive in Indian traffic conditions?

Horrible !  That's how I felt when I was learning to drive car in India with help of a driving school tutor, despite having driven a Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima, Chevy Impala, Ford Focus, Ford Explorer SUV (9 seater), BMW 3 series, Mercedes A series, U-Haul truck, and a 36 feet RV Bus during my 10 year stint in the US.

People here in India drive crazily, including the 3 year old bicyclists who shares the road with you.  They don't follow any rules, signs or signal.  Pedestrians or bicyclists don't have their right-of-way.  The only thing that every driver cares about is: their own car.  If it is a bus driver or a truck driver he doesn't care about the vehicle he drives because it's not his own vehicle.  One thing that I learnt in the first few weeks of driving in Indian roads was that I had to just keep driving without looking at the mirrors and the traffic will either create way for my car or flow around my car.

When the time came, I bought a car too - a brand new Honda City Model S Sedan Silver color Petrol with manual transmission.  Maneuvering, such a big sedan on the city main roads was not a challenge for me because I have driven similar cars in the US.  The biggest challenge for me was to drive within the arterial roads (streets) of the Chennai city.  I had to share the road with bicyclists, street hawkers, parked bikes and cars along the road, and the vehicle that's coming in the opposite direction(sometimes it could be a mini bus).  Another pain point was driving with manual gear shift, especially when one had to keep rolling slowly with clutch half pressed.  Driving just in second gear, not overtaking any vehicle including a bicyclist, foreseeing problems before it happens, giving way to a bigger, rogue vehicles( taxi drivers, garbage truck, mini bus) coming in the opposite direction, and just keep rolling my car even if it's 5 km per hour, has helped me survive thus far.

With just 3 months of ownership, I feel I should have bought an automatic transmission; it's worth every penny it to drive in the congested slow moving city roads.  It's so much painful to press your clutch too often to shift gears.  Sometimes, I feel so much pain in my leg joins that I wanted to give up in the middle of the road amid traffic.  But other than for that part, I love my Honda City for the shear pleasure of driving it.

The mantra I follow to drive in Indian roads is:  drive slow, don't overtake others in the city roads, take it easy and let others pass you if they wish to, be nice to others whenever possible, avoid accidents before it happens, don't claim your right of way especially with taxi drivers, trucks and government buses, don't try to teach a lesson to some rogue driver because the damage will be yours too, be a defensive driver and finally, be an aggressive driver when it is fully safe to do so.