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Have I done it?

Have I figured out what is really wrong with this country?

While the naysayers amongst you would be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of finding yet another thing to crib about, I’ll be one with the optimists on this one. Finding out what is wrong doesn’t always lead to whimper about the issue. It helps us to recognize the problem, isolate it and then duly work on it.

Really?

In any case here goes. The Gurgaon-Delhi toll was supposed to the final word in managing traffic. It was that gilded thought which would set us on the road to growth. This was the kind of road that the Indian tiger was supposed to run on and beat the bejesus out of the Chinese dragon.

Nope.

That didn’t happen. It did make the journey to Delhi a little better but that’s just about it. The point of getting to the toll and the stretch after that is all fine and one really enjoys driving on it. The real issue, the toll plaza is still a mess.

There is chaos and it’s been almost eight months since it started operating. I understand that there is huge traffic that is tackled every day and that thing would take a while to set in. This is a state as well as National Highway and hence the sheer volume of traffic could drive you nuts. But wasn’t that the great idea? Why is it that the people ‘operating’ it still allow cars without the electronic tag to ‘accidentally’ enter the tag only lane? The lane is supposed to offer wait less travel but...on top of that the road in itself is nothing short of a video game from the 1980’s. People cross the road at will and you, at 120 kms/hr, are supposed to keep an eye for them!

All this is fine. As Indians we are well equipped to deal with this mess on not only the nation’s but also one of Asia’s largest toll plaza which boasts of 32 lanes. We will buy toll tags which are supposed to electronically lift the barriers and drive in the sunset or away from it depending on which side you approach the toll from. But what we will not understand is that what the hell is a private cab doing in tag lane and delaying everyone by dishing out money in moneyless lane!?

You buy a tag to avoid scenes like this...but...


Why don’t the builders fine people who enter wrong lanes? Charge them hundred bucks instead of the seventeen and see how the word spreads. No one will make that mistake twice. Keep a police van stationed and anyone who refuses to pay can reason it with people who are on the right side of the law. Actually you don't really need someone to man a tag booth. But that won’t happen now…will it?

Ladies and gents I have deterred too far from the original hook of this post. I have, I think I do, discovered what the hell is really wrong with this country? Once I was made to wait endlessly in a tag lane. When my turn finally came I stopped at the booth and tried talking to the person inside. He was not on his chair, he was perched on his desk and his feet were resting on the chair. Why you ask? Well this being cashless lane, he didn’t expect tagless people so he was resting. I inquired of him that why don’t they do something with people who wander into wrong lanes? I urged him to think of supposedly smarter people, like yours truly, who paid money upfront and bought tags. He told me, ‘Did we ask you to buy a tag?’

Of course he hadn’t.

His implied that we bought the tag now we should just deal with it. Maybe this is it. In India that is what works. If you are in the right, that’s really your problem. The whole Tata-Mamta-Nano-Buddhadeb issue reiterated this sad truth. Things inherently are skewed here and on top that such attitude. Think about it. This toll road is an old road which has been blessed with flyovers so why are people charged to use it? The Delhi-Noida DND taking money is understandable for it was a new road made especially for the purpose that it serves. If a person has to go from Dhaula Kuan to Dwarka or the airport isn’t required to pay then how come a commuter from Gurgaon going the same distance is charged for it?

But with deadlines to meet and life to be lived…who the hell has the time to figure it out?

And after all they never asked you to buy a tag, now did they?

Image: www.thehindubusinessline.com

Pot Holed

If someone ever told me that life’s all about the journey and not the destination…I’d tell them to experience a Gurgaon traffic jam. The other day I got stuck in a jam for over 5 hours and guess what I didn’t even leave Gurgaon!

In an area of less than 6 sq. kms I was subjected to sheer mental torture for over 5 hours. Imagine getting stuck in a car and bumper-to-bumper traffic at 4pm. It was like everyone was out there to create their own rush hour. I tried thinking the whys and the hows of this chaos. The thing about jams is not to think of the above for they will end up giving you heartburn. I mean you can’ just get out and leave your car. This is life and not some REM video.

So the next best thing was to give up thinking about the important issues and question the ones that could be controlled. I ended up thinking about less mundane issues such as my entire existence. It’s an uphill task to come up with something reasonable about your life in a bloody traffic jam. Suddenly the two merge like some artistic vanishing point. You start thinking of your life as a badly managed city road. You will be moving but you won’t go anywhere. There will be a clear plan but nothing will ever come out of it. The people that time and memory threatened to wipe away abruptly turn the tables on you. You end up thinking of the many masters your many lives adhered to.

Humanity comes to rescue me. A hassled lady in the car next to me asks me to locate a mall for her. I tell her that it’s just a few meters ahead. She won’t believe me for she has been hearing the same thing for the past three hours now. I assure her that we might be moving albeit slowly but the mall will be static. She was supposed to meet her daughter; I am told to call her and inform her. I do. For the next forty minutes I join the dots between them. To make things more interesting the mother races ahead. I lose her. The daughter is convinced that I’m somewhere else. I wish. Finally the math does itself in my brain, I tell the daughter to look out for her mother’s car for she should be passing any moment now. Three minutes later I get a call to thank me for all my help.

Back to waterlogged streets and snarling traffic. It was night by now. An entire day of my life was wasted in a traffic jam. And for what reason? There was no real reason for the jam. There never is. The scary part is that this could end up being the bane of modern existence. The more this country is poised to shine, the more you and I are going to get reasons to think about life. This nation might be tiger who is waiting to fire away but no one’s lighting its tail yet.

You want to know why?

Well thanks to the roads we just might not make it in time. We are busy creating a new India but no one seems to notice that the current one is in shambles. While people like me think of life in a jam, the poor tiger is on the verge of extinction. This is what happens when the road less traveled is the road ahead!

Evolution for Dummies

I have a theory. I think Indians are just a step away from being the most evolve species in the world. Take a good look around people and what do you see- people, people and more people. But if you continue top look closer you'd see that there are cows, dogs and donkeys. What does this tell you? I think co-existing with animals on a daily basis is nothing short of evolving to the ultimate level.

Life is fast becoming a bad 1980's video game. Every time I get on the streets I feel nothing less than Racer X from Speed Racer for I have to survive all sorts of obstacles. In addition to the humans pretending to be animals that seemed to have strayed onto four lane roads accidentally there are animals masquerading to be humans, behaving as though they are in front of because of some diving intervention. We don't mind the cows or the donkeys even if they cause massive traffic jams. Imagine cars packed bumper-to-bumper in front of you, you'd be honking your heart out but when you realize that it was an innocent looking cow that caused it you just forget the entire episode as if it never happened.

Now isn't that a sign of co-existence?If that doesn't surprise you then picture a dead cow or dog on the streets. Now do you recall the near perfect maneuvering of vehicles that you see people practice near the carcass? Isn't that another sign of returning to how it was before man decided to have it his way? If that is the case, then why do I think we are one step away from being the completely evolved species? That's because there are other little things we need to strike a chord with and the picture would be complete. These little things include other humans like your neighbor, your annoying childhood friends, your folks, the people who take your parking space at malls, the waiters who take ages to serve, people who can't brew decent coffee, your ex girlfriends and boyfriends and the likes.

It's nothing short of amazing that you might not mind a bloody dog forcing you to run over someone in front of you but you'll curse the daylights out of the guy in the car next to you for honking to get your attention. Maybe the person next to your car wasn't hugged enough as a child so why can't I ignore the non-stop honking on his/ her part? Or better still we will revere a cow but let it run amok on the busiest streets in the name of harmony offered by peaceful co-existence of one and all but have a problem with Taslima Nasreen living in Kolkata?

If you ask me I blame Ms. Nasreen for it. Before you shake your head in horror at my suggestion consider this for a moment: you are thrown out of your country (the reason could be the cause of an intellectual argument that might never end, ever), you bunk in Paris for a while, get a Swiss passport. You eventually land up in India. You have written a book that has pissed off the people in your country (the reasons could be the cause of an intellectual argument that might never end) and suddenly people, who speak the same language as the one in your country and the one you wrote the book in, want you out off Kolkata (the reasons could be the cause of an intellectual argument that might make no sense whatsoever). Ms. Nasreen could stay anywhere in Incredible India but nothing short of the city of joy would do it for her. Why is she she pretending to be some character out of some old Ritwik Ghatak film who still believes that Bengal is one unified state? But then what can I say, she's a writer so she is bound to be off her rockers! Good for you Ms. Nasreen but you must realize that people here are busy appeasing gods and cows and dogs.

No one has time for reality.

Image Courtesy: www.easydriveforum.com