Its about 7:30 in the evening, a majority of the ever increasing horde of vehicles in the city descends upon the roads in an effort to reach wherever they wish to go, hoping for, but not necessarily expecting an enjoyable ride along the way. Everything is going fine until that blasted traffic signal decides its time to Give you Red (is A.Bachchan getting on other people's nerves as well? He is everywhere you see, but that's a good topic for another blog, perhaps). Anyway, so obviously the useless multi-colored devil isn't going to stop that brand new Wing Rider (yeah yeah, I know I watch TV too much) in his tracks, is it? He tries to sneak in behind that guy who also managed to just about sneak past that truck in the nick of time. By a stretch of his bad luck (the darned traffic coming from the other side or the evil looking policeman lurking in the corner) he has to actually stop at a traffic signal!. Damn. Fine, so he screeches to a halt a good couple of yards beyond the signal, challenging the rest of the traffic to find a way around him (of course...it was them who made him stop, right?) The traffic coming from behind slows down and you soon realize that for some people, driving on just the one side of that strange yellow line running down the road is simply too boring and that they need to sample that other 'right' side of the road so that they can make a quick getaway once the signal turns green (or maybe even a little earlier, say, when the digital down-counter has reached about 5?) Within no time, you have an entire bunch of eager riders on the whole other side of the road while there's acres of land on your's! . Wait... did I also see a couple of cars in there? Yeah, why not!.
It makes you wonder...what are you doing trying to follow all the traffic 'rules'. These people obviously seem to know what they are doing or why else would a whole group of sane looking people demonstrate a collective lack of common sense? Maybe they do it for convenience, maybe for an everybody-does-it attitude or because they have gotten just too used to it. It still doesn't help the worsening traffic situation in any which way. Take an example of a huge traffic jam that leaves a wake of at least a fraction of a mile behind it (the case in point being the atrocious NalStop square). It can only be magic, that going around the right creates enough space at the front, so that the jam breaks in a jiffy and the world is a happier place again. Although I have enjoyed the luxury of having an entire stretch of road on the left, left vacant, while all those magicians have been praticing their skills on the other side, I still shudder at the thought of a poor approaching ambulance or a hectic fire truck getting caught in between. Do we let those unfortunate souls they are tending to, suffer because we are arrogant enough to flay all norms?
All the McKinseys, Penalosas and SkyBuses that are being hailed as saviors, are going to be useless if the people don't want to improve themselves. Improvement, much like charity, begins at home. The questions is, are we willing to welcome it in our homes? Unless the answer to that is in the affirmative, I am afraid this city is always going to be Right.
