Skip to main content

Criminal character

<I may have written about this earlier>

 

As I drove to office today, like any other day, there were hordes of people on the road breaking traffic rules. Overtaking from the left, changing lanes without indicators, disobeying traffic signals…all of it. This irritates me the most (well second most, if you count ‘scratching nails on a blackboard’).

Why is that we need policing all the time to obey a set of simple rules? Why aren’t we civilized enough for this simple thing? Breaking all rules may take me to office in 25 minutes instead of the usual 30 minutes. But it increases chaos on the road manifold. It also increases the chances of an accident. And I am not even counting the stress it causes. We Indians being the wisest in the world, why have we failed to apply this simple logic?

Though I see this situation to be a lot better in Goa, it is not certainly ideal. People there have a lot more civic sense. Not out of education, mind it. It’s just the way people are brought up – not to harm others, bully them is something inherent in a Goan. Notably, on the back cover of my Driving License (Issued in Goa) is written the sentence ‘ A RIGHT NOT,  A PRIVILEGE DRIVING IS’.  This is the essence of the road transport policing in Goa.

It’s said, ‘Character is what you do when no one is looking’. For lack of policing, we will all break traffic rules. Or who knows, maybe also steal, rape or murder. Does that make all of us a criminal character?

 

Comments

Clueso said…
I sometimes wonder if this is because India had severe supply constraints on just about everything for a large part of its history as a country. That could have instilled in people the need to be ultra selfish and try and squeeze every tiny advantage for themselves without caring two hoots about the common good.
Supply constraints are now being eroded but the people who are adults today are still grounded in the old behaviour. The real test would be whether today's children behave differently when they grow up.

I guess secondly, it also depends on expectations. It takes significantly more character to not do wrong when everyone else is. Not everyone can I guess, though they should.
2:23 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The oscar for dilemmas

As I was travelling from Goa to Pune in a Bus, I overheard some conversation and could see a lot of dilemma on the face of a fellow passenger. As the story evolved, I could connect with him. Thus it went: They were a couple, he was with his fiance/wife/girlfriend (a non-ma/behen relationship). There was another girl (pretty) who wanted to a lady's seat. She could get it only if this gentleman would give up the company of his travel mate as there were no other female passengers on the bus. I have been through similar situation and have said no and felt guilty about it till the society at large did something equally unjust to me. But this incident in the bus the other day, sparked off some more such dilemmas that I have come across quite often. I thought of having a golden globe of dilemmas; put them on the blog and see which is the most common dilemma. First being the one above, the second dilemma that comes to my mind is of cheating in exams. No No. Me cheating is taboo enough! It ...
2 comments
Read more

The business of all that is complex

Very recently I have been following Jason Fried's posts on 37signals.com. I am impressed by his minimalist thoughts and the whole idea of customers 'growing out of' and 'growing into' your product. Per Jason, there are just a certain simple features that customers really want and a product company should strive to be the best at those features. But beyond these features, your customers will always have some desires and will keep asking for more features. One should learn to say no to such demands and crowd the Product with features that only a few of your customers will actually use. These frills not only hamper the performance of the product technically, but also make the Product manufacturer waste a lot of effort in the form of product support and other allied activities. This seems to have been working for folks at 37signals.com and many more such companies (SFDC, Flip Video recorders etc.) I then started thinking of this philosophy in the context of Indian IT co...
2 comments
Read more

RSS - an answer to the caste discrimination

One of my old post on Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh drew a comment today. It posed a few question about the stand RSS takes on the issues of caste system in our contry. The reader also asked if RSS could be a possible solution. And this, my dear readers in the fuel for this post. Let me put forth some facts about the organisation called RSS right at the beginning. RSS is a social organisation. There is no formal registration and participation is completely voluntary. It is not a political, religious or profit making orgnisation. There are no posts, there are only responsibilities (in fact that what they are called). These facts make it clear that this is a place where entry and exit is pretty easy. There are no costs involved with either. Which means there is no-one who can tell you that he will get you registered with the RSS and do you a favour. RSS is for everyone. In my opinion it is a perfect place where caste ism cannot exist. There are no reservations for a certain community. T...
9 comments
Read more