My experience with truth

Few of my recent experiences:

  • General population thinks that people in IT industry earn unnecessary money, and they should pay to anyone who ask for money even without a cause
  • If you have a car, then you have too much money, which you don’t need
  • Helping others in need, doesn’t necessarily means you can avoid trouble from distant relatives of the victim, who are more interested in your money
  • Police will try to make money, even if you are not guilty
  • Judicial courts is not really a good place to spend an evening
  • In front of law, everyone is equal – both criminals & innocents are treated same way. If you are an innocent, be prepared to be treated like a seasoned criminal.
  • Your friends are the only one on whom you can rely in tough times

Last week I was waiting on a traffic signal, where people usually don’t stop even if the light is red. An old man crossed in front of my car and stood beside. When the light turned green, I started moving at the same time an auto-rickshaw cut too close to the old man which resulted in the guy falling in front of my car. Luckily I was moving too slow. When they old man did not stood up for a minute, I got down from my car, only to find out that he had broken his leg. So as a responsible citizen & looking at his age, I took this guy to hospital, got him first aid and then took him home. His son requested me to drop him to a nearby hospital, for which I agreed. All health care and medical facilities were free for this guy there, as the hospital and his employer has the tie-up.

On reaching the hospital, there were his distant relatives waiting, not for the injured old man but for me. They wanted money. This pissed me off… Why should I pay the money, was my question. But who cares… you works in IT, drive a car, seems to be an outsider, then surely must be having trunks of money is the general belief.

I refused to pay the money, and approached the police. Spent whole evening at police station (PS), troubled many of my friends, and ruined mine & their day. An FIR was registered against me for negligence driving, under section 338 IPC. What a day!

If that was not enough, I had to get a bail next day from court, which was an experience in itself. The judge (magistrate) is treated like a God, of course he is, since my life at that moment depended on his decision to grant me bail or not… So the second day was ruined, too!!

Advocate charges fee for each time I meet him. Police asks for money for doing their job, and I get sleepless nights…

At the end, I only realized that even if I would have hit and ran that day, I could have avoided all this trouble. I m guilty of being a responsible citizen!

Cavemen in Hyderabad

idiocracyEvery time I get on Hyderabad roads, I see cavemen all around… Now you must be wondering why do I hallucinate, and let me tell you I am not on drugs either. :) But before I tell you more about cavemen, let me first tell you about the movie ‘Idiocracy’ I saw yesterday. It was the dumbest movie ever seen. The story goes like this… a man and women as a part of an experiment are put to sleep in 2005 to woke up a year later, but instead they woke up 500 years later in 2505, just to find that the humans have become dumbass, with no IQ… so the movie was about the rise and fall of human intelligence

Ok now let’s come back to our very own Hyderabad. Just imagine about a person who slept 30000 years ago and woke up one fine day and finds himself in 21st century’s Hyderabad, where everyone follows traffic rules, drive in lane, do not break traffic lights, and do not honk. I know it is hard to imagine, but for fun sake just imagine. What will happen if you give a crash course in driving to this caveman? When he will come on the road, he will be so confused, will not have an idea what to do, where to go, he will come into wrong direction (poor guy, he does not know traffic rules), he will blow horn – again and again because he is enjoying the sound, he will break the light, imagine what all he will do.

Now imagine everyone on the road like him! This is what the real situation is on Hyderabad’s roads. Everyone behaves like this caveman, without any civic sense of driving… and what are our good traffic policecops doing…?Nothing! They are  too polite and humble to do anything.

Humans have evolved from apes and even after thousands of years of evolution there is still an ape in everyone. Most of the time that ape lyes dormant but thats not true in Hyderabad, and this is not just limited to a rickshaw or auto wala, or a taxi driver. This also included the likes of highly educated engineers, managers driving big cars and bikes, working in big MNCs. I have observed people who are well behaved in office (most of the time), as soon as they step out in open the ape inside them takes over. They looses all their civic sense and gets in to road rage…

Human Evolution

To a great extent our very own police is responsible for this. Law runs on fear – no fear, no law. Traffic police here is too lazy and soft to infuse any kind of fear in the people. Everyday, I see people breaking the law in front of a police guy, because that person knows that first the policewala will not see him, even if he see him he will not catch him.

I wonder how long I will crib about this… I can go on and on and on… and I dont see any reprise from this, at least in near future…. We have become so insensitive, overtaking someone seems more important than driving in lane or follow traffic rules.

:(

A dog’s life

Every night when I go back home, I always find a dog sleeping in the middle of the road. He changes his color. Some night he is black and other nights he is white. No no… Don’t get surprised, it’s not a magical dog that can change its color. If India Today or AajTak news channel came to know about it, they will make it a breaking news or headline. The truth is that there are two dogs, who take turns to sleep in middle of the road.

They are not afraid to sleep there. If you honk, they will just ignore you. They will raise their head slightly, look from the corner of one eye and then will just ignore and go back to sleep. I guess they must be thinking who the hell is he, honking in the middle of the night disturbing their sleep. Well they also know by now that I will not run over them and they think it’s my responsibility to by-pass them on the way even if I have to get down the road on the ‘kacha rasta’.

Well, I guess they are right to a great extent. Dog is the closest animal to humans and it is natural that their behavior will get influenced by humans. No matter how small the dog’s brain* is, it still got some and uses it. Dog is not the only animal humans have influenced – other then dogs you can see buffaloes & cows with similar traits.

* The brain of a 20 kg (45 lb) dog would weight about 80 to 100 grams or about 3 to 3 1/2 oz. In contrast a human’s brain weighs about 1500 gram or 3 pounds.

Amazing India

Balancing act - 1Balancing Act The bike - (moped)

I usually drive office late to avoid traffic chaos & congestions. This morning while going to office I have to pick up a teammate on the way. These pic was taken from my Nokia N70 while driving, from within the car. I wonder how this guy is driving the bike with such a huge stock on the back… Truly my countrymen never fail to amaze me of their capabilities! :)

Indians on the roads

I am a safe driver, most of the time. Of course I love driving fast, on hills, on looped roads, on highways, in Jungle… but then I usually take care of driving rules & respect other people on the road. I don’t find it very difficult to do so.

I hate white indicas & quails running on the roads and I equally hate autos. They are the moving hazards. Autos are pain in the ***. The maximum speed they can achieve is say 42-45 kmph. These guys will usually drive in the right most lane – or in other word the fast lane, with another auto in the next lane, and thus blocking the complete road. At times one auto will be going at 40 kmph and other will try to overtake at 42 kmph…. And this race will continue till one of them has to stop for the passengers to get down or else. Now they are not the only people running around breaking all the traffic rules, The so called ‘Aam aadmi’ – the common man is equally responsible. You can see this ‘aam aadmi’ zipping past you in his scorpio or a santro or a bike or a cycle or else… sometimes with mobile in one hand and steering in other… crossing road or taking the turn without looking at the coming traffic. One think I have noticed about the bikers is that they are like flies as soon as they find an empty space on a red light they all will gather there like flies on sweets.

Another thing I have noticed, especially in Hyderabad, is that people do not fear the police and the traffic police are equally pathetic. Sometimes you can see few traffic cops on the side of the road chatting with each other, and you may have to honk continuously to get their attention. That doesn’t mean that all traffic cops are like that… there are always few exceptions. :)

The basic mentality of an Indian driver is why he should worry about taking care of traffic rules. It is always the other person’s responsibility to avoid an accident… The road on which he is driving is owned by his ‘taau’… so he is free to drive according to his wish.

We Indians are the worst drivers on the road… though I am not sure about in air or on/under water… :) It shall be the next wonder of the world if people start driving carefully on the roads in India.

I sometimes wish I should be in traffic police. :D