MOTORIST WOES:
There’s a lot of hullabaloo during the peak hours of the day and the traffic seems to be endless. At a point of time one feels that he could walk faster than his new BMW such is the magnitude of traffic congestion which derives its status from various factors like hot-headed nature of us drivers, acute willingness to break the rules, driving in mysterious patterns and hence creating chaos, to name a few. Nowadays we have people babbling on their mobiles and driving simultaneously as if they are the ‘world’s-most-busiest’ or it should be taken as a new definition for multitasking. Another feather in our cap is that we never give way for ambulances or Cops, when on duty. I’m not trying to throw all the weight of these errata on us motorists we can partially blame the authorities for being slow in finishing off its jobs like covering open manholes, which end up as death beds for many and laying out pucca roads, carpeting of roads that are damaged due to natural causes. When we don the avatar of a pedestrian we do a lot of callisthenics in the middle of the road rather than climbing the Road-over-bridge which is a stone’s throw away and hence we start the blame-game against the motorists claiming that it was all their fault. The mutual understanding that a motorist and a pedestrian ought to have near Zebra-crossing has been completely lost as we never try to stop-and-go near them.
The solution for this problem is easier said than done. Although, the authorities have placed rules regarding this, we have taken an oath not to follow this. The time has come atleast we break this oath of ours and start following those rules that we have filled in all those books that are displayed only in shelves of transport authorities. Traffic Police should put more emphasis on educating people about this rather than trying to empty motorist’s pockets to fil theirs. Stringent rules must be placed so that they compel a motorist to attend counselling regarding his/her driving.
IN’SANITY’:
The other day I was travelling in a bus and I could not help but notice a person who was chewing a pan unable to hold the liquid spat out on the road unconcerned about the traffic that is coming from behind the bus. I was quite perturbed by this act and asked him why did you do that and his reply was not surprising “everybody does that, so did I,” well this sums up our attitude towards cleanliness. This disease is quite contagious with our denizens. We try to dispose all our domestic wastes on roads rather than disposing them in the dumps provided by the authorities. One might feel that a clean surroundings is a harbinger of sanity that we are regaining and hence wants to avoid it. All these years of education and most of our childhood spent in learning good habits is of little use when we have grown up, as we go on like this. Even an illiterate seems to be rational in issues like cleanliness, shame on us!
The second to this brigade are the great femeurs or smokers whose job is to make some contribution to the fast deteriorating clean air. A smoker can be credited to be an altruistic person because he’s commiting a long-term suicide in which his neighbor, a non-smoker is also made part of. This way this group of people are trying to reduce our population. Recent surveys stated that India boasts of the highest number of smokers in this world, an honor well deserved. Although smoking has been banned in public places, these ‘chimneys’ never stop for their contribution is vital to air pollution. We’ve forgiven all this but one act that bolsters the fact about our ever-fading common-sense is – not shunting the cigarette after the person is done smoking and throwing these unshunted stubs into garbage dumps or on the roads contributing to fire accidents. The solution for this is not counselling but common-sense, God gave us a brain so that it can think in the right way and so we have to dust our brains and make sure that we shunt the stubs.
The third member of this elite group is the great sanitary tamasha we do on the roads. It seems that sometimes we shut-down our brains and forget the fact that curbs are meant for walking as we sanctify them with our urine. This great favor done by us refrains many others from using these pavements because of the noisome scents they spread. We can take this as another reason for the traffic snarls. The Government’s reply to this was pay-and-use toilets which we never seem to use as we are habituated to freeing our body wastes in public places. Professional, we call ourselves but is this a leaf in the book of professionalism that we clain to have professed?
Well, I have delayed the solution for the spitting-the-pan problem as it shares it with the above problem. People who spoil cleanliness must be caught hold of and they should be made to clean the place where they have urinated or the place where they drool irrespective of caste, creed, status, race, etc. People who do this activity from moving vehicles should be caught by those officials who inspect these activities on a bike. For implementation of this the municipalities or the corporations have to recruit more people who inspect such activity in the city or town that way unemployment has been partially decreased. Also those people who commit this offense must be brainwashed so that such crimes are not committed again. Rather than asking the convicted to pay money for the offense, they should be jailed that way we are curbing the redundancy of such crimes.
I do not want to bore you all with many more but one last one before I bid adieu. This is about the athleticism we show on roads chasing buses and also getting down from running buses. This athleticism and agility, if shown in olympics would have fetched us a barrage of Gold Medals. Alas, all this energy is channelised in bragging a skull-crushing, bone-breaking death that in the end is devoid of any reason and which is unnecessary to the core. We expect Government to tackle such matters although it is us, who have left our brains in the freezer at home asking for an appointment with death. Well the solution for this may not be brainwashing but trying to be in control of all our senses. We don’t have to do this for saving few yards of walk for there is every chance that we might as well end up limbless for the rest of our life with this useless bravado of ours. Here’s something that implies to both motorists and foot-boarders: In the quest of saving minutes we are letting our life evaporate in seconds.
