Road ethics!

'Driving is a privilege, not a right.' proclaims my driving license. Well, I believe it. And that is why I find driving in the city a bit of a disheartening experience. People drive big flashy cars, race superbikes, not once thinking about the privilege- right issue. We often complain about the potholes or the bad roads, but do we always follow traffic ethics? Forget rules. They are to be broken. No one considers a signal jumper a criminal. But are we driving ethically?
Mine is a land of rickshaws. (there is no such word in the Microsoft dictionary!) the rickshaw wallahs are a different breed. You have to be born with it. Something which you cannot learn. I presume they are denied their badges if they give an indication of their turn. They are the absolute savages of the road. They think that their vehicle is meant to fill in the gaps in the traffic. They feel that the world is full of Photophobic people. They absolutely shun headlights! They never, ever give you a clue about what they are going to do next. A word of caution here: If you are an amateur, keep at least 10 meters gap between your vehicle and the Bajaj Ape (that’s their trade name. it lives up to it!) you will end up with a dent and without an apology.
Then there are those kids, hardly ten or twelve, who think that the traffic rules do not apply inside residential complexes. I think they are the ‘unwanted’ children- their parents are not scared of any harm which they might sustain, or worse, do.
Female drivers scare me. I don’t mean to be prudent, but it is a fact. They ride their gearless scooters with the same valour that the great Marathas once rode on their steed. One friend of mine is a good driver, but, she does not believe in applying brakes when she sites a speed breaker. She scares me. The scarier fact is not their driving alone, added to it, is the indifference towards learning the mechanics of the motor. They never try to learn to correct the minor faults or to try to know where the fault lies.
And the ultimate winners are the drivers of Pune. Even Rocci cannot drive there. There is an ABSOLUTE lack of rules there. Now, thinking about the cause, half of the Punekars are pukka Punekars; they will never give up their pride. And other half thinks that they are Americans. So there arises confusion. WHICH WAY TO DRIVE! The females moped-ers of Pune are the scariest of the species. At the first look, you would feel you are in Afghanistan. All the veiled Taliban roaming around. Then they will take a wild acute turn to the right, from the leftist lane. Their mirrors are for adjusting the goggles. I have actually seen a girl typing an SMS while riding on her Activa. I mean, we can make exceptions, she was not breaking any rules. Just talking on the phone is not allowed while driving!
I burn my own blood every time I see people not respecting others lives, overtaking without asking for a pass, or taking a turn without indicating. I have given many people a verbal bashing, at times sarcastic, at times stern. I know it is not enough. Something must be done. I am not asking to get everything ship-shape. That’s asking for too much. Just value the lives of other people on the road. All it takes is a flick of the thumb, and you might just have saved a life!

“Yes, the winds are changing,” the old man said, rubbing his callous right thumb on his left palm. Lali stood at the edge of the rock, shielding her eyes from the sun with her tiny palm. Far away, in the next town maybe, the clouds were gathering. It was going to rain! It meant a lot to her. Now, her grandmother would not have to sell the goat.
The goat had been her best friend till the date. It was dumb though. And it especially irritated her when it looked at her with its wide blank eyes, masticating the grass. But it was a comfort. At night, Lali would curl around its belly, feeling the welcoming warmth, often counting the breaths of the goat. She used to call it ‘Deju’. It meant nothing in her language, but she liked its sound.
So here was she, grinning widely, flashing a toothless grin. She had lost her incisors a week back while having a fight with a girl in the neighbourhood. Granny had told her that the teeth would never grow up unless she gave up fighting. It was not meant for girls. They needed to learn important things in life.
There was a drought the previous year. The wells were going dry, leaving the people concerned. Somehow, they had managed to survive the dry, but a draught this year meant migration. Lali could not understand why people were getting upset. Migration meant going to a new oasis, meeting new people. The people of the deserts have a big heart. Someone would have easily accommodated them. And she made fine bangles. And Deju would always provide milk.
But here were the clouds. They were heavy with the treasure they carried from the faraway seas. And they were going to fill up the wells, wash their roofs and carry the wariness away.

Mobile

It came in our lives and made a big statement. The thing every rich and powerful person wanted. To be able to defy the wires and cords and go mobile!
I remember reading the blue coloured ads. Rs 10/min it said. And I used to wonder. Those days, a call to Bombay would cost Rs.3.5. so this was an out of bounds! Also, the fact that the person who received a mobile call would pay to listen, was something which was unheard of. So, it became an object of pride, something to show off, for the owners, an object of awe for yet another group of people, and of ridicule for people like me!
And yet, I went mobile. In the pre 'Ab incoming free hai' era, I got my own SIM and got tangle-free! The phones were simpler then, with the maximum feature of having a game etc. but in another six months, I saw a camera phone. I mean, it was something like in a fairy tale. A utility device, click where you go. No need for a Kodak film and all. And of course, the tariffs started dropping like anything. All this added to our own dependency on the 80 grams of plastic which we care for more than our flesh!
I became a big-time mobile addict. I got myself a gaming phone. So when I was not talking, or short messaging, (I don't know why it is called as SMS.) I was either racing or roaming through the jungles or killing someone with my M 16 semi-automatic. It was a constant companion, a bulk in my left pocket, without which, I felt like I was missing something important.
And today I decided not to renew my subscription. I decided to go off the mobile. One would ask why. The reason is simple but multifactorial (big words, docs like to use them!) To start with, I do not like the idea of someone else controlling my life. And this '80 grams of plastic' was slowly taking a grip of me and for that matter of everybody else! I mean, previously, we had loads of topics to discuss; we had sports (read cricket), babes, mean machines to swap our knowledge of. And now, all we talk is about is in terms of megapixels, and 30p/min and in gigabytes! I mean, does it matter if a camera has twice the pixel capturing capacity of another camera? Do we frame every huge snap we take? Previously, when we decided to hang out, we used to be us, only the friends, and nobody else. And now, we get an important call every 12 minutes, and an SM every 3 minutes. If we are not receiving any, we are just typing something.
Previously, we knew how to face confrontations. There were emails of course, but we were quite adept to have a one on one conversation. And now, we just send a 'sorry yar' message and we think we are done! We have lost the art, or should I say, nerve, to apologize, without using any kind of media. Today, everyone is late, thinking, 'are yaar, who pohchega to call karega'. When two people decide to meet, the typical line used is," give me a missed call when you reach. We will decide then the exact place." We have lost our ability to plan beforehand! And we feel very important doing so.
We feel that being mobile saves our time. It saves our anxiety, it keeps us informed. We can access the internet, get in touch with our friends, can listen to music when we are travelling, and thus save our time from getting wasted. All I ask is, is our time that important? Do we need to cramp all that we can do, into the 24 hours we get? Is it all that necessary to lose our solitude to things that can wait? We should understand that the blank spaces make the object of a picture more worthwhile.
It has been five days since I last tapped on my cell phone. (I know that I am sounding like a person in rehab!) I do not use it even for the basic purpose of alarm. And what can I say? I save started meeting people coincidentally; something which never happened in the past six-seven years. I think it is a good omen. I don't know how long can I stay off mobile, but I am going to enjoy the phase, until it lasts!

untitled

I sit by the window reading the newspaper.

I like to read it in parts, the front and the sports page in the morning, the page 3 stuff in the afternoon, and the other page-fillers in the evening. I open up the inside pages and begun reading. The familiar headlines spring in front of my eyes. Rain arrived some three days back. A month ago, some official had declared shamelessly,” Mumbai is ready for rains this year.” And of course, he is proven wrong in just three days. There is a bit of flooding, a bit of power cut, a bit of trains going off schedule! All routine, nothing worth making it to page one. The pages are filled with articles accusing, defending and counter accusing people, some ‘intelligent’ people telling us what to do, some stupid celebs telling us how they ‘enjoy’ the rains, someone dying, someone getting crushed, all on the same page! Then the ‘smart’ journalist turns to some ‘smart’ doctors who has goofed up big time.

There is an interesting article. Some doctor has operated a lady for some pancreatic problem, and having found one of the kidneys infected, removed it too. Now, the smart journalist has filled three hundred words, stating how the action is morally wrong, how it was removed without consent(!) etc. the newspaper claims to have a CT report stating that both the kidneys were normal in size, shape and density! Now that is what irks me. After all, a CT is an investigation; you cannot overtly rely on it! And if you open up a person, and find some organ affected, so much so that the life of the person might be at risk, would you rely on your eyes, or on the CT report?

A professor of mine once stated that being a doctor is a thankless job. People fall ill on their own accord, and they feel that the fifty odd rupees they pay the doctor are a catalyst (def: a substance or a condition helping in speeding up a process or a reaction) warrant them an immediate recovery. After all, it is just a sore throat, if the doctor cannot heal it in a nick of time, he is not worth it! I remember the prof. every time I see or read such articles.

It is this point of time, that I am horribly confused about what I want in the future. I don’t have an idea whether to go into the conventional PG stream, or to go for research, or for that matter, do something else. And here I sit reading things which disturb me immensely. We have money for IPL, for building statues, but not for the proper development of the city! I cannot complain. The people who decide such things are elected by people like me! At this juncture, when the storm is raging outside, and a similar one inside, I pick up the towel, and head for a cold shower.