For a short time I thought I was listening to a comedy act.
The man in front of me, an Indian resident, was explaining how to drive in the continent's coastal state of Goa.
The occasion was the Asia-Pacific launch of Ford's new EcoSport mini-SUV, and attending journalists were preparing to head out on a 140-kilometre drive.
Planned route was for the fleet of vehicles to head north from launch headquarters at a Goa beachside hotel, turn inland at the airport, drive south through a series of towns and villages to a lunch spot 70 km away, then turn north again and back to the hotel.
But prior to departure, the Indian man began issuing a series of unusual warnings.
"Now and again you'll come across sets of traffic lights. But if there are no others cars in your way, ignore them - everybody else does!", he said.
"And on the way, you'll notice things like stop signs at the strangest places. Ignore those, too. The roads have changed but nobody's bothered to take the old signs away.
"Most of the roads you will be driving are two-way and they're supposed to have a centre line, but usually the paint has faded or has gone altogether," added our man.
"But it doesn't matter; because in Goa, drivers either straddle the centre line or ignore it completely. So often you will see other cars coming at you on your side of the road.
"It's like a big macho exercise. He's coming at you, you're coming at him - and then you pass each other!"
Wow. The day before, we New Zealand journalists had already had a taste of what the man was talking about when we'd been ferried from Goa airport to our hotel. Our mini-bus had negotiated its way through a mass of cars, motorcycles, roadside vendors, pedestrians, dogs and cattle.
During that short trip, we'd experienced Goan motorists' habit of attempting to pass other vehicles at the most unlikely and dangerous places - such as over brows of hills and around blind corners - so it was with not a little apprehension that we headed out on our drive programme.
The drive turned out to be everything we expected - a heady mix of frustration and adrenalin as we picked our way along awful roads filled with equally awful drivers. The notion of keep left is simply non-existent - drivers just take you on, constantly tooting at you as a way of warning you where they are. Which, in my case, seemed to be all around me all at the same time.
About three-quarters of the way along our drive, it all came to a head when I was halfway across a bridge - when a gaily-painted bus loomed in front of me, full of people hanging out the windows, and with its big front bumper way over on my side of the road.
I squeezed as close as possible to the bridge railing and waited for some form of impact - but we passed each other without so much as a scratch. As the man had said earlier that day, the bus came at me, I came at it, and we passed each other.
As we continued on along the road, my driving partner and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. We had to, you see - otherwise I think you'd go nuts trying to fathom the mad driving habits of motorists in India.