Monday, July 20, 2009

Fatalistic or Unrealistic

On a Saturday morning, after a rhubarb cricket match, I was heading back home along with my friends Sripall, Rajan and Vijay. We took a train to beach station, as we pass by several pit stops, we all noticed one thing, entraining commuters don’t even care for detraining passengers, they didn’t give enough room to detrain and every one were taking this barbaric action for granted, including my friends, when I outrageously said why they are behaving like cattle’s, all my friends unanimously shouted at me to stop jiving at them. One thing I don’t understand when the car is already full, you push and crush yourself, in that jam packed car like cattle, by intruding into others space for which you don’t even excuse, you don’t even feel bad, and you call this as adjustment, but actually you are compromising, you are compromising on your pride, your self respect your liberty last but not the least your dignity.

Why you want to compromise on your private space, as per the Human rights commission of India and Indian Law, your liberty stops where others starts, it also includes your private space, you don’t share the public restrooms with your neighbor just because he is about to blast his bladder, either you wait or make him wait, but for sure you don’t share the space. Though these rules don’t apply in train, however logic does. When the train that you are about travel, gets delayed don’t you gather all buddy passengers and block the other train which is on time, forcing it to get delayed as well, sharing the pain and un-comfortableness instead of joy and happiness to your fellow commuters, redefining socialism.

Now let’s see the arguments that you come up to support your compromising act, inadequate trains, delayed frequencies, procrastinative authorities and deprecative ministries, you blame them all as if you are perfect and promptitude , how many times you raised your concerns to the respective authorities about the sanitary conditions in the trains/buses you travel? How many times you raised your concern to the authorities to increase the frequency of the bus/trains that you travel? Have you ever taken time to notice that in a bus that there are only 25 passengers are allowed to travel as standees? If you have noticed that and till wish to travel as the 26th standee passenger, what you expect me to call you as human or cattle? Cattle cant read, so there are NGO’s to regulate there transport, but you are a human being, you took the pride of being the superior of all creations, you claim to have the sixth sense, however you lack that basic common sense that you should not travel as 26th standee passenger where only 25 standees are allowed.

I know you can come up with several lame excuses, you might be running out of time to office, is that not a lack of time management? There might not be sufficient services after that service? As mentioned earlier, have you raised that concern to the respective authorities? Have you discussed about this with your co-passengers and enlightened them? It is not illogical or unrealistic, what I’m suggesting is practical, and I’m practicing. When Karl Marx suggested the theory of communism, the theory is for 80% needy who were getting crushed by 20% of privileged however his communist theory was called impractical and illogical by those needy, and it was called as unrealistic by the privileged group, however now 20% of that communist country threatens the 80% of the democratic, secularist and capitalistic theories. When Raja Ram MohanRoy was preaching against Sati, he was ridiculed by the society, saying that the reformation is impossible however now you can’t even find the meaning for the word Sati in the dictionary. When society was filled with Theist and theology myths, there was only one spark that rose into fire to burn out the myths, the spark of Atheism is later known as Periyar. When the world was following the foot steps of violence, there was one pair which detour and walked towards non-violence, MohanDas Karamchand Ghandi, later known as Mahatma, superior of all souls.

They all were pooh-poohed by their friends, relatives and family members for theories, claimed them as impractical, however, these theories later become renowned theories. It is true that they suffered a lot to reach this stage, they reincarnated from there dead fish life, yes we are leading a dead fish life, which stinks for those who don’t know how to cook (Enemies) and it’s an appetizer for those who knows to cook (Friends). It’s true that we are leaving for others we are just like that dead fish, only others determine whether we stink or not. The day we start leaving for our own, we will learn from the world and we preach world.

Is that not true, that you feel agitated when some one crushes you in the bus/train, and you still stay like dead fish killing your emotions, you surely want to warn that person, but in that jam packed bus, you fear that your voice may not be heard. You keep yourself mum, if you are in pleasant mood you call this as adjustment/compromise, and if you are disturbed you call this as fatalistic. However once your start knowing this as your irresponsibility you start seeing changes. It doesn’t mean you have to be emotionally jugular but responsible.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi :
Being more realistic regarding the public transportation, which i believe wont be possible or realistic in the present situation we have. Considering more than a 15 lakh commuters (maybe higher) travelling in public transport bus. If 25 (put to together 75 in total) count is allowed, then public transport system will become chaos. Maybe an alternative that can be thought is like that MRTS.

Any comments?

AlvaThundu said...

I think you looked at the wrong side, its not every time the buses/trains over crowded, its only during peak hours, as I already discussed in the article, as a commuter, a little bit of time management like avoiding travelling during peak hours will reduce the burden on the transport authorities so that they can realistically increase the service little bit, for the benefit of those who cant avoid traveling during peak hours. It is not just a authorities challenge it is also commuters challenge as well, if they both help each other, unrealistic will become realistic. little bit of planning and initiative is all what we need now.

Unknown said...

Hey,

You r right sir, if the commuters start traveling early("non peak hrs) then they will be going to destination well ahead of time....which will not be possible in many scenarios(e.g., schools, colleges, offices, etc). There is a time to go every where, unfortunately every one has to travel in the same time. Time management easy to talk about but difficult to keep-up.Increase of bus/train services will increase the traffic, will increase the time of travel, will increase the expenses for the government,will increase the tax u pay,will decrease the perks/incentives for the driver because of the increase in number of drivers. ...i remember c'ing u travel in the foot-board of 41D, 27(i guess)...squeezing to get a ticket( movies, train, etc.). Given the population, if there are 10 ppl to follow the rules like u then there will be 1000 ppl break the same like me. Any ways there are atleast few ppl like u have a time and concern to think abt others. Thanks

Ramaiah said...

Don't you travel in crowded buses ?
I appreciate your concern over public responsibility,
Do you think it is possible to have such large no of pubic transport buses in country Like us(Second largest in Population).

AlvaThundu said...

Ramiah, population per sq kilometer is what need to be considered, and not the population of the country as such if that is case, then Moscow, Tokyo, NewYork, London,Paris, Frankfrut are the few cities where population per Sq KM is higher than chennai, and they have come up with good public transportation system, say tube in London, Subway in Newyork and Boston, have considerable reduced the traffic and easyed the commuters life. More public transport doesnt mean more taxes, in others words it mean more income as you make ppl to travel by public trasport rather there own, leading to green revolution as well. It is much broader than you think. every first step is difficult, even for Bolt his first step was trembling, but now he is fastest person on the globle that was possible because of determination.

AlvaThundu said...

Karthick, you mean you saw me in crowded bus say 41 or 21, and crushing myself for tickets? you got to be mistaken, first I dont travel in those buses, second I dont buy tickets, dont think I'm cheating government, as I always buy season pass to travel as per my wish. Answering your point

what you said is correct, in 1996/7 CCTP (Chennai City Traffic Police) has asked all the schools to move there schools timings couple hours before/after the regular office hours (10:00), hence all schools started working from 08:00 hrs to 16:00 hrs, just because the office goers has to travel two times one to drop there children and come back home to travel again to there office, they shifted there office timings from 10:00 to 09:00 hrs, so the purpose was not solved rather it was tramatic for children as they have to wake up early. CCTP never anticipated this, and there smart move was proven to be silly, as per my ealier comment Chennai's population per SQ KM is much lesser than the other thickly and densely populated cities who are successul in there public transport system