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

What (not) to expect from a politician

  The photo has no real significance to the subject being discussed :-) Off late, I have seen a lot of my friends venting their anguish against politicians. Many of them expected the politicians to behave more responsibly, discipline the public on dos & don'ts of COVID precautions, get national priorities right and basically change the society to which they belong and are elected representatives. I think this bunch has wrong expectations from the wrong group of people. Here is why - A politician's entire existence is centred around election victory. Winning an election is their Key Performance Indicator (KPI). A consistently losing politician who is not making any effort to come to power, is not even a politician. Acceptance from society, popularity and majoritarian view are the fundamental characteristics of a politician. They have to operate within the limits of these fundamentals to maintain their existence. Isn't that why we always refer to successful politicians a
Post a Comment
Read more

How to change flat ownership in GHMC records

It's been close to a year since we bought a new flat in Hyderabad. It has been one hell of a learning exercise for the sheer amount of paper work and procedures it involved before, during or after the purchase. Buying a house in Hyderabad has been an exciting and taxing journey, so far. All through this journey, I had a desire to document my experiences so that it would help others who wished to be helped. But luck, laziness and life kept me away from this. However, I'll at least start now with an account of what needs to be done to change the ownership records in GHMC [Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation]. The first time it struck me that I need to do this is when I received a property tax notice addressed to the previous owner of the flat (we made a second hand purchase). All along I thought once I had registered with the land records department, the government would take care of updating all other records. I was so wrong! So, I rushed to the nearest Municipal Citizen
3 comments
Read more
I do this from Suse 10.1 Did I tell you the story of a guy who was blessed with a bit of too much? Well, here go... There was this fella, just got a job with a fat pay check, all married and all, bought a cool desktop for himself planning to have broadband connection so that he could blog his way to glory. ;-). The bloke gets blessed with a laptop of all things. Now he also has a broadband connection (at a whopping speed of 2 MBps). having resources including time at his disposal, he decides to try his hands at Suse 10.1. Now my friends, I am using the inbuilt application in the OS to post this entry. I have also downloaded the latest version of scribe-fire which will work with the latest version of Firefox. Poor me has so much on hands now, that I don't know how to install these updates. Video is not working as well so I have downloaded real player 11. Again I dont know how to install that as well. I hope I will make all things work over this weekend. I had a small personal trip t
4 comments
Read more