Monday, January 18, 2010

Civic Sense

Civic Sense

It’s not a bad word to elude, it is something that every one of us must know and practice, it is the social responsibility that every one should posses for the welfare of society, as per our constitution we all have rights to Speak, to write but it doesn’t mean we have rights to speak aloud/rubbish in public places, to scribble rubbish in public properties, remember the same constitution says that “Your liberty stops where others start”.

What does it mean? You have all the rights to swing your hands as far as possible while walking, constitution gives you that rights, however constitution restricts the same if your hand intrudes the other person’s, in short your rights should not cause an inconvenience to the other person, whether it is a law or not, it the basic common sense that intruding in other persons area physically or mentally by your acts or thoughts is unethical. I hope no one with sense will disagree this. However we all witnessing such non-civic sense activities daily in our day to day life, like playing music/commentary aloud in public buses, spitting on the public places, throwing garbage in the public places, when I say public places that includes staircase, public transports, street, common area in your flats/offices. Most of us know that this is wrong, and shouldn’t be doing however we still do it. Few of you might ask me what is wrong in playing music aloud in buses/trains. After all it is entertaining that too free of cost, let me ask, them a question.

Assume that one of your close friend or relative is hospitalized and with critical condition, with all worries in the world you are heading to the hospital, will you be interested in hearing a music/cricket commentary, let it be India vs Pakistan finals or A.R Rehman’s or R.D Burman’s or llayaraja music, definitely wont, rite? To make this situation little worse if you are enquiring persons condition over the phone and your co-passenger is playing music aloud, will you be entertained or frustrated? It’s the same case for your co-passenger you don’t know what mood he is in? It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t enjoy music/commentary while travelling, you can do it very well, that’s the reason why headphones were invented, so that you can enjoy the music without disturbing others, worst than this using profanity in buses/trains especially when kids are your co-passengers.

Spitting on the streets is another big inconvenience and unhygienic as well, not everyone on the streets where footwear thou, if you are the one who fast for sabrimala you would have experienced that inconvenience, you could imagine now. Probably this is the reason why the footwear’s are not allowed in few air-conditioner showrooms or par lour’s, as they know for sure that you would have stepped on few spit tings on the street, worst than this is using public places as rest rooms, think how embarrassing it will be for the females passing by and vice versa?

Keeping loud cell phone ringtones, avoiding queues, over crowding buses, parking vehicles blocking/scratching others, even occupying any common space for more time when others are waiting for the same are few practices which we tend to do often knowingly, and we always find an excuse for these non-civic sense activities, few such excuses are “it is cool”, “time crunch”, “over crowded”.

With a proper time management, over crowded buses/trains can be avoided, we all know that in peak hours the buses will be crowded, and transport authorities are not concerned about increasing the service, it’s because we are all accustomed to travel in congestion like herds, any which ways you are going to travel in there buses, so why should they increase the service which is a over head expense for which the returns are same as before, if at all you stop travelling in crowded buses showing a considerable deficit in their revenues they are not going to increase the service, and its not going to happen over night, it’s a question of self respect as well, check my earlier blog Fatalistic or Irresponsible, as a social animal, it becomes our responsibility to adhere such civic senses, if not for the welfare of the society, but to tell our next generation that we are civilized.