Exactly how big is an inch?

Well, according to our wonderful driver, Imtiyaz, that would be anywhere from 5 feet to 7 feet, depending on the swagger. The reason I pose this question is because we, as well as other living beings, have been within an inch of death on the roads on numerous occasions during the past four days.
Cattle have been inches from severed horns and limbs, chickens have have been spared to see another day of clucking, passenger's knee caps sticking out of auto rickshaws will bend again, large transportation trucks (india version of a semi) will meet their destination with no mortal delays, cats and dogs will continue to be mangy, and all the school children will learn to love another day of learning and staring with smiling faces at foreigners. At the same time, we have nearly missed running over rocks in the road that could pierce steel, avoided swerving over steep precipices, maneuvered through traffic jams shielding hazardous (petrol) service vehicles, and bypassed beehive infested routes...
And this, all this for what??? Well, all this for a shot at "India's beaches that rival those of the Maldives". Welcome to the Konkan Coast just south of Bombay. Well, at least that is what senor lonely planet said...we've learned that sometimes it's just best to leave the book at home. We risked death for the potential of seeing such beaches...but all we got at first were a bunch of trash infested, windy, overpriced, local underwear wearing, wave-deprived, cow populated, and camel run (these were actually cool) beaches.
Obviously this is what traveling is all about and it was a great experience but we didn't begin to hit some better beaches until north Goa. Even then we were introduced to some of the funniest tourists we've encountered yet.
We'll have to tell you about that later...but so far India rocks! We're still trying to figure it out...but we have another three weeks to do so. The people are fun, food is great, weather hot...even when you haven't realized that nobody really speaks English. Cheerio!