By Ratna Manucha
It is only in apna Bharat that…
- …drivers who suddenly discover they are travelling on the wrong highway turn their vehicles around with impunity and start driving all the way back in the opposite direction. After all who knows when the next diversion/ cut will be and as long as there are no cameras, all is well.
- …one can spot a herd of cows grazing placidly on the grassy median strip of a busy national highway, while the cowherd balances precariously on the brick lined edge immersed in his mobile phone…both the cows and the cowherd oblivious to the traffic whizzing past.
- … impatient two wheelers, three wheelers, four wheelers and bullock carts block both sides of the road at a closed railway crossing, so that when the barrier is finally lifted, it results in a traffic jam of mammoth proportions.
- …pedestrians and cyclists contort their bodies in unimaginable positions and go under a closed railway barrier and amble across the tracks even as the train’s whistle can be heard approaching. One would think they would realise the danger but I wonder if the thought ever crossed their minds. You see, in Bharat, everyone is in a tearing hurry.
- … there is complete lack of queue discipline. Our queues move from left to right or right to left. We stand side by side, not behind each other, so we can surreptitiously nudge each other while trying to get some space.
- … scooters and motorbikes drive in tandem on busy roads…side by side, ek doosre ke saath. It’s almost as if they are singing, ‘Hum bane, tum bane ek dooje ke liye…’ Sometimes the camaraderie is so great that they don’t want to let go of each other and the rider behind has his foot placed in a proprietary fashion on the pedal of the first rider’s vehicle…uff, dosti ho toh aisi. Dil ko chhoo lene wali. Who cares about the irate drivers honking?
- … drivers of two wheelers have perfected the art of talking on their phones while weaving their way through a traffic maze. For the uninitiated, there are two ways to do this-
- Balance the phone between the shoulder blade and the ear…now the only way one can do this is by tilting one’s head at an odd angle and bringing the ear close to the shoulder…a feat in itself. Cricks? Never heard of them
- This is easy-peasy. Stick the phone into the helmet so it is cozily snuggled between the ear and the helmet and off one goes, driving into the sunset…
- … we form relations with the world and its cousins. Hence, all people older than us are referred to as uncles and aunties (not aunts), depending on the gender and the ones our age are didi or bhaiya and bhabhi and in the blink of an eye every woman is each other’s bhabhi…don’t ask how that works! Calling people by their name is blasphemy!
- …we talk in public places on speaker or even watch videos with the volume turned up. Respect others’ privacy? What’s that?
- …brash young and not so young men who have been caught breaking rules confront the law makers by asking, ‘Tumhe pata hai mera baap kaun hai?’ Actually, we don’t, but would love to know. Come on, tell us. Who IS your ‘baap’?
- …there are no designated lanes for ambulances.
- …there are there two sets of rules – one for the powers that be and one for the commoner.
- … the law makers are also the law breakers.
- … the footpaths which are actually meant for pedestrians, are used for everything else except them.
- … spitting is a national habit. One can spit anywhere and everywhere…on staircases, corridors, on the footpaths, on the roads, around national heritage sites…and leave behind bright red splashes of colour.
- … innocent passersby and bystanders die from bullets fired in weddings and during gang wars on the roads.
- … we burn money (literally) on joyous occasions and certain festivals, and donate it in temples to bribe the Gods but think ten times before using that money for social upliftment.
- … the commoner fears the police instead of feeling safe around them.
- …we have no filters whatsoever. We have no qualms in asking intrusive, personal questions from a total stranger…What do you do? Are you married? Do you have children?
- … innocent residents are attacked by vicious pet dogs in residential areas, lifts and colony lanes and the pet owners instead of feeling remorse, blame the injured. A double whammy!
- … there are separate queues and hidden entries for VIP darshan. Now who the VIP is, depends from place to place and occasion to occasion.
- … the citizens consider their country one big dustbin.
- … honking is considered a national pastime…loud and strident, even if there is no traffic.
- .. there is no value of human life. Our manholes are without lids, labourers hang from high-rises without safety harnesses, roads are dug up without warning and then not marked, live electricity cables snake around on the roads in serpentine lines – all of which are recipes for disaster – but a few dead really don’t matter in the larger scheme of things.
- …empathy and insensitivity are alien words.
- .. six people fit on a scooter meant for two, with only one helmet among them.
- .. name changes of towns, cities and roads takes on a significance of epic proportions. The exchequer would rather spend on this than create schools, colleges and hospitals in villages.
- … we have no sense of timing. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes’, can mean anything between now and one hour.
- … we play around with the timings of an invitation, ‘cause if we want people to be at our house by 8 p.m., we must write 7 p.m. so there are some numbers before the actual crowd arrives!
- …traffic comes to a grinding halt if a politician is passing through. It’s the entitlement, you see. They own the roads and everything else there is to own in their city. Ever heard of the term, ‘public servant?’
- …young (presumably) lovers in the throes of passion, proclaim undying love by carving hearts and their initials and sometimes names on protected national monuments. Sweetu loves Titu! Melts my heart, it does.
- …we still obsess over fair skin and foreign accents.
- …the existing green cover is removed callously without it being replenished first, and the voices of concerned citizens fall on deaf ears.
Mera Bharat Mahaan.
(Ratna Manucha, columnist and author of 36 published books and numerous short stories and poems, lives, dreams and writes in Dehradun, her happy place).
