Lets Help Ourselves

I had the chance to travel quite long distances in public transport, pass trough various towns and villages across two states. One common observation all through the travel was that… U can find a place without temple, without hospital, without roads, without cinema halls, without cinema posters, but never without the posters carrying the bright, smart faces and messages of our so called political leaders. I wondered how even the smallest, newest party could manage funds to have posters and other publicity work done covering even the most remote and inaccessible places of the state. Don’t panic…it’s obviously not our hard earned tax money deployed into this propaganda extravaganza of our political superstars. It’s their very own black money released in the name of party funds which caters to their publicity requirements. They call this public relation!

If our politicians were really interested with public development, they can very well reach us easily by laying good roads with their party funds. Who takes your vote? The man with the biggest cutout or the one who straightened your road?

The nation is gearing up to face the collapse of the government or get into a historic nuclear deal. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas proclaims that the nuclear deal will put us in a very convenient position to resolve our energy related issues. The ministry in its recent advertisement in daily newspapers has requested citizens to drive at optimum speeds, make use of clutch wisely and switch off engines while waiting in traffic signals to reduce fuel consumption. The root cause for excessive clutch driving and traffic snarls is that our roads are not wide enough and smooth enough.

Good wide roads and proper traffic regulation will save so much fuel that we can afford to survive sometime more without a nuclear deal to do the savior role.

Not even a single day passes at Chennai city without fights between commuters and our auto drivers. No meter, Rs.10 above meter charges, flat rates, refusal to traverse inside narrow streets…the list never ends. During my recent visit to a small town near coastal Tamilnadu, I asked a auto driver how much he would charge me to drop me at the Bus stand which was less than 1 km away from my hotel room. He said he wanted Rs.30. Had I walked to that place it would cost me nothing but less than 30 minutes of my time…not willing to take the risk of walking in the hot sun, I settled to travel by auto for Rs.25 (after heavy arguments with 3 auto drivers). Share auto’s charging Rs.5 per trip changed to Rs.10 when RTO officials started penalizing those (raids) for license issues. Now the RTO’s aren’t frequent with their raids against share autos. But still the charge hasn’t come down. We still pay whatever they demand. The amount I spend on my bike and its fuel per day is still less than what I would spend on share auto and public transport if I were to take the latter means to office. This statistics is true even after the scorching rise in fuel prices. Blindly blaming inflation we push on our life with this trauma. But I had to stop and re-assure the fact that we are being exploited, thanks to my recent visit to our neighboring state. I took an auto to travel 50 km. This is equal to circumnavigating Chennai city twice. I’m sure that any auto driver here in Chennai would have charged me not less than Rs.1000 citing fuel price hike, empty return etc as reasons. But there I had to pay only Rs.400 with a clear break up of minimum charges plus rate per km. There is no room for bargaining. Commuters and drivers are very clear about the rates. Another point I observed there was that, there is to some extent the system of queue being followed while boarding buses and the rule that men should board buses through the rear door and ladies through the front entrance is strictly followed there.

Here I see some self discipline playing a clear role in maintaining hassle free travel experience. May be we should also stop complaining and try to follow some discipline if we need some good change!