Friday, February 23, 2007

Traffic blues


A weary day in college and my battle with bangalore's traffic, which made me take one and a half hours to cover a 5 km distance has completely sunk my flagging spirits. Here's what I think of it.
"Traffic is only one of the side effects of growth." Roy Barnes- I wish we were still in the primitive ages wearing vegetable skins as clothes(I'm against killing animals to wear their skin), walking around among dense jungles and smiling at any human faces we encounter, instead of snarling at the driver in the next car and honking in his ear until he turns stone deaf. I wonder why the person who discovered the wheel couldn't have got amnesia the next day.
"A man sits in his car at the traffic lights, waiting for them to go green."- Michael Frayn.Maybe that man actually got to move ahead instead of listening to a high pitched quarrel between a small truck and an auto driver over an indistinguishable scratch blocking the way for the fleet of vehicles behind them. He must have gone home happy and satisified and probably not have clenched his fists with rage when his mother asked him if he had a pleasant drive.

"My wife and I, we like to ride where there's not much traffic."- Evel Knievel. That statement according to me is a myth, I will believe it when I see it.
"I stop and look at traffic accidents. I won't hang around, but when I hear something is terrible, as bad as it is, I've gotta look at it. "-Norman Lear . It never stops at looking, they gawk and gape and worsen the situation without lifting a finger to help the person who needs their help or move along with after assimilating all the facts without offering any aid to recount it as a grisly story at a gathering.


Moral: Don't hog the road, move to the side if ur moving slow, allow vehicles to overtake you, don't be sexist and assume that women have no right to overtake you and try to hinder their progress, follow lane discipline, muffle the horn until really needed and if you have to quarrel, do it at the side of the road instead of starting a street fight, and if the distance is short please do walk!!!!!!

3 comments:

Chica, Cienna, and Cali said...

:)if only we cud fly.....but then we wud have made the skies as messy too!!!

traffic sure sucks in b'lore!!! and its going from bad to worse....yet another example of pathetic and indifferent urban-planning on our lawmakers' part!!! funny how we claim we have the largest pool of brains in our country and then go design a modern city like Gurgaon as pathetically as that!!!

suramya said...

yes I think so too :), have u seen the jetson's cartoon, the new age space family, they had many sky jams, though there the roads were free :)

a modern city like gurgaon was the creation of corrupt politicans so I guess its be expected :(, though i was hoping it was better I was planning to work there for a year.

mandeep said...

Well its hardly been a month that I am here and I totally agree with the prevailing traffic conditions. Things in Delhi are a lot better which undoubtedly gives me another reason to miss delhi roads.

I guess the root cause lies with the road width and the only good option is to have well designed flyovers to relieve the congestion and cut down choke points.

A good post with good expresssion and use of words.

Regards
Mandeep