Lets Behave India - Roads

The biggest challenge of urban life in India - the daily commute from home to work and back. Traffic is never smooth. Jams, dug up roads, incessant honking,increasing commute times are a regular feature. Yet quite a bit of this irritant can be reduced by following road discipline. Something which we Indians lack. 

Cutting lanes, jumping traffic signals, not wearing a helmet, driving in the wrong direction for a short-cut, not signalling while changing lanes or turning, stopping bang on the zebra crossing instead of behind it, pedestrians moving about without a care, over-speeding, honking for the sake of it, using mobile phones while driving (I have even observed one gentleman playing poker on his mobile while driving) - Rule breaking has become a part of our habit. And all of us our guilty of it.

Though we get away with breaking these rules most of the time but some are not so lucky. Accidents happen but many are completely avoidable, Only if everyone followed discipline on the road. We may not be able to do much about dug up roads or malfunctioning traffic lights or the sheer number of vehicles on the road, but we can be more strict in following up the rules. After all rules have been made for our convenience only, although many would like to differ. 

Only way to curb these dangerous activities is heavy fines and stricter implementation of rules by the traffic police. Within my office campus, most of the cars and buses actually follow speed limits, park in designated areas only and even stop for pedestrians on the zebra crossing. Chief reason being penalties which are deducted directly from the next month's salary. So monetary fines do have an effect if implemented properly. Another good option would be to take the offenders to the nearest station and show them videos/images of real life accidents which might put in some fear in them.

What we should & should not do?

• Stop before the zebra crossing. Don't think any time is saved by stopping 2 yards further.
• Use helmets always. And on your head. Carrying the helmet in your arm while riding is even more dangerous
• No mobile use - especially no texting or games or photography. All Smartphones have motion detectors. So why don't the likes of Apple and Samsung make sets which hibernate if moving beyond certain speeds. All callers can be notified that the person is driving and is thus unable to take the call. 
• No weaving through lanes.
• No honking at signals. I think most drivers in India believe that the vehicle in front is powered not by fuel but by the sound of the horn.
• Drive within speed limits.

Hope this initiative by Mumbai Mirror and Sanjay Manjrekar (Link1, Link2) has some positive effect. Hopefully our roads will then become a better place. I know there won't be any instantaneous change but we should continuously strive for it.

P.S. An old post on the subject of Road Rush (Link)

Ten From Twenty11

The year 2011 A.D. is going by. Before we go on into 2012, its time to step back and remember the events to remember 2011 by. Following is my compilation of how 2011 went by. 

1. Trending Topic of the Year - R.I.P.

2011 took away a lot of legends. RIP was an ever trending topic on twitter. India lost legends like Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Tiger Pataudi, Sai Baba, Bhupen Hazarika, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Jagjit Singh, Ustad Sultan Khan. The computer world lost Steve Jobs & Dennis Ritchie. Dcitators and despots also seemed to be having a pretty bad time with bin Laden, Gaddafi & Kim gone (though hopefully no RIP for them)

2. Year of Movements

Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Bahrain, Syria and even India all saw major upheavals backed by the people. Social media acted as the mass mobilizer. Time magazine declared "The Protestor" as the "Person of the Year". However people on the roads certainly wasn't always a good thing. The riots in England & Vancouver, the attack on female journalists covering Tahrir showing up the ugly side of the people agitation. 

3. Overhype of the Year (sponsored by MRF Blimp)

As Diwali approached, there seemed to be only one event happening in India. The release of Ra.one. The promos were here, there and everywhere. It popped up in cricket ad breaks, sneaked on you through youtube, jumped on you through newspapers. Anywhere you went, you just couldn't escape the Chhammak Chhalo. In the end the marketing worked, as it could lure in big audiences before the critical (read bad) reviews had a chance to come out. 

P.S. Kareena Kapoor looked absolutely ravishing as the Chhammak Chhalo (the only universally agreed upon redeeming feature of the movie)

4. Picture of the Year

Quite a few competitors. There were quite a few movements (point 2 above) and natural disasters (e.g. Japan earthquake & tsunami). But the picture of the year comes from the Vancouver riots following an ice hockey match (!!!) as a young couple kiss on the road.



5. Doodle of the Year

Google have been playing around with their logo for quite a while now. Earlier it used to be just an image. Now they have shifted to making animated & interactive doodles. There were a few contenders for the doodle of the year, but to me the best was the Google Guitar, played on June 9th to mark the  anniversary of Les Paul. (incidentally also the anniversary of my joining my current company)

6. Song of the Year

Why this Kolaveri, Kolaveri, Kolaveri Di. So asked Dhanush. And soon the whole world was asking the same question. And everyone had their own version of it. There is the cute Nevan Nigam version, the dancing girls, the Arabic, the local boys, the chipmunks and the best of the lot the Punjabi version. Even CNN declared it to be the song of the year. And yet the question remains. Why This Koaveri, Kolaveri, Kolaveri Di?

7. Understatement of the Year

Planning Commission's revised poverty line which came up to Rs 32/day. While it was immediately hyped up without trying to make full sense of the statistic, it showed a grim reality. There were nearly 40% Indians surviving on even less. Point to ponder upon.

8. Camouflage of the Year

Baba Ramdev dressed in salwar kameez. With his appearance wonder how much of a help was this dress.



9. Self -created newsmaker of the year

Poonam Pandey followed Larissa Riquelme's footsteps. Unlike Ms. Riquelme who fulfilled her promise inspite of Paraguay not winng the football world cup, Ms Pandey did not despite India winning the cricket world cup. And she hitched her name to the team without any rhyme or reason and continued with her weird antics throughout the year. Wondering if the Indian team's inconsistent showing post the World Cup was a result of this? (:P)

10. New borns of the year

There were some famous new borns in the year. First came the so called 7 Billionth baby, who was born in at least 3 different places. Then followed the media frenzy over Baby B. If this is the frenzy on just being born wonder what would happen if they do anything notable.

So this was 2011. Lets see what 2012 has in store for us. Though if the Mayans are correct, this might be the last year-end list I would have end. Certainly a nice thought to enter the new year.

Wishing all readers a very Happy & Prosperous 2012 :)

The Road Rush

A few months back, having witnessed a spate of accidents and near misses during a 15 minute bus ride, I had written this post. It was pretty disturbing to see all these totally avoidable incidents. A little bit of road-sense and restraint could have easily avoided all these incidents. These thoughts came back to me after witnessing some more such drama again.

Incident 1 - Was waiting for the bus to come to take me back home. The bus duly came, slowed down while getting near the stand. However a car also stopped bang in front of it to pick a person waiting there. The bus driver had to brake real hard to avoid running into the car. Not only ignorant of his mistake the fellow driving the car starts shouting at the bus before moving away.

Incident 2 - on the same journey.  The people generally get on from the rear of the bus and get off from the front.The bus was crowded. And there was a heavy rush at a particular stop. Some ladies started climbing on to the bus from the front. This inspite of the protests from the driver. The bus got further jampacked. This also made it more difficult stuck in the middle to get off at their designated stops.

Incident 3 - Well this is a daily happening and not particular to this day. At the traffic signals the vehicles are stopped right over or in some cases even after the zebra crossing. No thoughts spared for how the pedestrians are supposed to navigate through and cross the roads. And I just not understand how much of time is saved by stopping a couple of yards behind or ahead.

Incident 4 - A bus was trying to turn into a street. Task had been made more difficult due to an SUV parked at the corner. As the bus turning, a biker came in trying to weave his way through. And that was the start of a small traffic jam. All the biker had to do was wait for maybe 30 seconds at most. Instead the ensuing jam must have resulted in a 5 minute delay.

In conclusion, all I can say is, We, the people of India just lack traffic sense, and have a knack of not following rules which have been made for our own convenience. I know our road infra-structure is bad, our streets are crowded with vehicles, and the traffic police is more interested in money making but the traffic would still improve drastically if we showed even an iota of respect to these rules and had basic road sense.

P.S. All incidents from Navi Mumbai area on the evening of August 30th, 2011.

Rush & Rage

Everywhere I look people are in a rush. And if they are forced to take a momentary pause in this rushed existence, something inside them snaps. And they take it out on the nearest available person. And it is this rage on the roads which I am talking about. I have seen lots of examples of this in the past few days on the roads of Navi Mumbai.

Today morning was extra eventful. In the 15 minute bus ride to my work place, it seemed everybody was angry and just waiting to take out their frustration on each other.

Due to the ongoing road rebuilding exercise, the main roads have all been halved. So traffic is plying on just one side, with small markers acting as the road divider. But as everyone is in a rush, people won’t wait on their side of the road. So if anybody sees a traffic jam, it’s time to just cross over to the other side in hope of finding a way forward, without giving any thought to the people coming from the other side.

Scene 1 – A couple were sitting on the roadside near the bus stand after having fallen off the bike they were on. Reason trying to move ahead through the traffic and ramming into the road marker.

Scene 2 – The bus was moving and then had to stop inspite of an almost clear road. This because a biker had nearly got crushed between the bus and another car which were moving in opposite directions.

Scene 3 – Repeat of the same incident, except that no one came in real danger, but the bike rider started abusing the bus driver. The bus driver did not respond, although the fault was clearly the biker’s.

Scene 4 – After getting down from the bus, I crossed the road (which is at full breadth here, no construction going on). However there is a heavy traffic snarl on a daily basis, as people try to enter the office. After crossing the road, I heard a commotion. A truck was parked/ stuck bang in the middle and another person had climbed into it and started beating up the driver. I don’t really know what had happened (After all I myself was in a rush to swipe in on time).

Scene 5 – This happened a couple of days back, which I managed to view from my balcony. Seemed a bike and a cycle had collided. The people had started fighting. Soon the verbal fight turned into a fist fight and then one of them picked up a stone from the road and hit the other person. Thankfully not much damage was done.

These sights are becoming too common an occurrence. Any rush hour traffic would have some hold ups because people have got into a fight. People trying to overtake others; jumping on the wrong side of the road; pedestrians running across the roads. No one even thinks of waiting. And perchance they are interrupted in this rush, the rage takes over. The first angry abuse, the retort, get off the vehicle, time for more verbals followed by fisticuffs, then maybe even weapons. And doesn’t end until something really foolish happens or the need to rush overpowers again.

God only knows what would happen if something like the 10 km long traffic jam in China takes place here.