my aglakadam

Hang On, Look Inside March 21, 2011

I am sharing one real life story of a car driver. This is what I observed once on the city main road. A high value car was moving at a very fast pace. While passing by a temple it marginally managed not to run over a flower vendor. Looked like the car driver was not in his proper senses. Coincidentally I and that car were both moving on the same route. A few yards ahead the car wrongly undertook a moving van and made a rash left turn on the road which would take us to the city hospital. I could make it that there was an emergency and may be the car driver was in a hurry to take the patient to the doctor. When it comes to saving life, a bit of rule breaking here and there can be overlooked. I sympathized with the sick person inside.

However what I saw ahead was an eye opener for me. That car did not move inside the hospital but whizzed ahead with full speed making brash horn noise daringly in front of the “No Horn” Hospital zone. There was no regard for the traffic signal’s mourning on the road side. The car was now running on the road to the city airport. Further ahead I saw this car suddenly dropping down its speed and moving very slowly over a large size speed breaker. A double standard behavior was demonstrated by this care driver; while he was driving so carelessly within the city he was extremely careful not to drive fast over the speed breaker!

The individual driving that car was not at all bothered about the safety of the people on & off the road. Neither there was any emergency nor he was drunk. In fact he had no respect for the traffic rules & no empathy for the patients struggling for health in the hospitals. He was though extremely careful not to speed the car over the speed breaker lest the car suspension system might get damaged and it would incur him inconvenience! He seemed to be extremely selfish and socially irresponsible. I thought it was a high value car driven by a value less creature inside!

Many times I had cursed those frequent large sized speed breakers on roads in many Indian cities. But I now realized that simply putting a go slow traffic sign post is not sufficient to inspire an individual to honor the safety & security rights of the people on the road. I have seen it many times; people driving a vehicle prefer not to respect the traffic sign when no one is watching them. With the ever dipping human sensitivity the height of the speed breaker on the road was proportionately increasing day by day. People who are extremely selfish, will stop or slow down only when it would threaten to impact them directly and not when others might get the blow.

Such horrible exposures on roads are not uncommon today. The hopeless person driving that car is not just one example of human insensitivity. One comes across many such incidents at various other occasions in multiple formats. It is said that man is a social animal but the fact is now changing for some people for whom I can say “man is less social and more animal”! (saying this might as well be a disrespect for most of the animals!).

I would like to quote one more road side behavior of unsocial people – ‘peeing on the roadside’. Invariably we find men using the road side for urinal even in daylight. This is so unhygienic and unfortunate. I consider this as a gross disrespect for the ladies and the society. Once upon a time a person used to look for a hide, deep inside somewhere, but now-a-days anyplace on the road side is not a problem. This is not because of the lack of hygiene infrastructure facilities, I have seen people from well to do families shamelessly defecating on the roads even in residential places crowded with families around. For such people the only criterion to release themselves in public area is to ensure that the place is far off from their home. As long as their near and dear ones are not aware of such a public demonstration, it is ok for them to convert anyplace into a urinal!
I have one observation here : with ever increasing insensitivity of such human beings, the majority of good people in the society is getting desensitized. Whatever may be the reason but the tolerance quotient of decent and sensible human beings is ever increasing now a days. Common man on the road prefers to close eyes and move ahead when unsocial people are found creating non sense on the road.

Yet another experience comes when people play colours on the road. Festival of holi is a wonderful way to celebrate & welcome a season change. It teaches us to accept various colours of life in totality and keep smiling. Unfortunately on the day of holi we get to see the weak side of human character. On the day when people play with colours, you will find many people making noise and yelling abuses on the roads! Is this what a festival is meant for? No, but it happens and the only reason why it happens is because people doing such notorious acts feel they have hidden themselves behind the mask of holi colours and as such no one will recognize them! They tend to reveal their true unsocial self!

Friends its time for all of us to Hang On & Look Inside. Generally we do not attempt to even admonish that rash car driver or the person using road side as a urinal or the one abusing on a festive day. Do we? Something within us is changing very rapidly. We have subconsciously started accepting unsocial behaviors as a part of life. We now subscribe to the philosophy that it’s better to be prepared & proactive than to react and raise voice against unworthy elements. This is what we teach our children today. We educate them more on self defense & self restraint.

My understanding is that we still have more than 80% of socially decent & sensitive human beings around us but the balance 20% is a potential threat for the progeny. It’s time we start inculcating social responsibility in our children so that the future generation reaps the fruits of socially sensitive environment. Only teaching vices will not work, we elders have the utmost responsibility to collectively execute “responsible behavior”! Austerity begins at home. We can start teaching social responsibility first by way of demonstrating the desired behavior at home. We will have to make everyone understand that “Character is what we do when no one is watching us”. It is my vehement appeal to our schools, societies and parents to take an initiative in their own capacities to address this issue. A journey of thousand miles starts with the very first step, please do take one step in this direction. This write-up is my first step, I invite all of you to join here and convert this attempt into a social movement.

Ajit Varwandkar
Contact : info@fsindia.in