Head Lights

I came to India almost a year ago and had to stay back. I wouldn't dwell on the "strange" reasons for this, but have accepted it as fate from Allah SWT. The experiences I have been going through have piled up in such large proportions that if I start to write about them, I can fill the complete virtual-memory space allotted for posting in this blog.
well, for now I want to start with a surprisingly common, almost ubiqutous habit of people on the roads, be it pedestrians, motor-bikers or four-wheel drivers and anyone from 10 year old kids to retired unlces, aunts, educated MNC employees to the illiterate "thela-waalaas". It is the way they force you to turn the head-lights of your vehicle off during the day-time. In fact, they have developed a peculiar hand-gesture to bring this to your attention if you are violating this un-written rule on the road. I just feel amazed why they care so much about this. Are they being energy-saving concious? Thinking-green kind-of thing? But it does not burn or consume any fuel in the vehicle. It might be a burden on the vehicle's battery's performance, but not so much to be forced to turn-off by the whole humanity on the roads. Does the glare from the head-lights hamper their visibility? Not in the day-time...impossible if the sun is out. On the contrary, a majority of them have their high-beam on, flashing right into your eyes during the night times. Dare to ask shifting it to the low-beam and you are guaranteed the choicest expletives enough to hurt your ego and if time and circumstances permit, it might cascade into a full-fledged street brawl guaranteeing a hurt to your physical self.

So I just go about turning my head-lights off when asked to do so in the day-time, always wondering what possible scientific/religious/philosophical/stupid reason might be for the people to enforce this on me.