There are many harebrained ideas our babus come up with now and then (to prove they actually have a mind that works). And the latest joke played out on us was the maha stupid NO HONKING DAY.
And I find the idea pretty juvenile for two reasons. One, such glorious ‘days’ don’t work ever, we all know exactly what we do on Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day and Mistress’s Day, apart from making the Archies’ folks and the local flower vendor richer: zilch. So even if the odd sod went less horny on that one day, he was back being to his trigger happy self the very next morn.
But the bigger reason I say it shan’t work is this: the problem isn’t that we desis like to blow our own horns (that’s just another manifestation of a deeper issue). The problem is we Indians are basically uncivil people, we aren’t brought up to be sensitive to our environs and fellow citizens. We give a shit if any deed of ours causes inconvenience to the guy next door. So we piss and spit on the streets with impunity (and I am certainly not talking here of the have-nots), we break queues with gay abandon, we cause structural changes in our apartments (thus endangering the entire building), we burn loud crackers in the middle of the night, and yes, we blow our horns to make sure we have the right of way, I could simply go on.
Only yesterday, a group of convent school kids in uniform simply trotted past me in the McDonald’s queue without a sign of apology or remorse. It did not even occur to them they were behaving in a deeply uncivilised manner. And you can well imagine what these students will do when they grow up.
So the point is we have a cultural problem here, a genetic fault in our DNA, and it ain’t gonna be corrected in many generations, leave alone a single day.
Today, I am investing in a really shrill horn for my car, the one lorry drivers use on national highways. And I will blow the bastard trying to overtake me away from my sight.
6 comments:
Hi Anil,
Welcome back. I know it's your space. However we missed you for quite a while.
Hope you found your bearings. Pray that your problems have been soted out with Mumbai Mirror. Nice to see your article get the front page.
I told you. You cannot keep a good man back.
About Indians being uncivilized. totally agree with you. Indians are also abig set of liars, that's why we cannot be trusted anywhere in the world, and having so much (India Shining)of luxury etc. we are yet to be considered a First World.
About the honking issue. The SOB's are incosiderate. Forget the day time. They even blast their horns at 2am. Do not know who they want to shoo at that part of the morning.
Then some of the B's whose parents have a lot of black money, fit their cars with Hi FI sets, and blast away even at night. Sometimes I wonder how they do not get deaf themselves.
Then about repairs etc. It's only when the building falls that the authorities wake up, but that's only to earn brownie points, and show their ugly faces on TV. They care a damn about the victims.
If they were so concerned about us. They and the authorities would look into complaints of irregularities in repairs to ones flat, rather than take bribes from the culprits to overlook such blatant excessess.
Cheers.
NAT
Yawn, another one from your complain box....we deserve something else man especially after a long break.
Heh heh, I tend to agree with Harmeet here. What is your yard stick for the day not working? Also why didn't you stop those snot-nosed kids and send them back in line; they'd have remembered it the next time they thought of jumping lines. And yes welcome back :)
Yawn....tried the shrill horn already. Doesnt work! Surprise surprise!!!
Appears that the receipients (rest of the idiots) are well adapted to the loudness and shrilness and therefore, immune.
Am contemplating getting myself a nice shotgun. Now THAT should get the point across na? lol
hi sir..welcome back!! am very glad to see ur new post esp since u didnt mince any words in it.!! haha...nice choice of words for all those egomaniac SOBs..
i have seen enuf of this right here even in singapore where am now based. any time someone jumps a queue somewhere..it is an indian.
the other day when i was out shopping alone,i had a huge trolley full of groceries and veg. hailed a taxi..guess what?? had to be a surd who quickly hopped into my cab even inspite of seeing me standing in the taxi line. mind u..it was late evening past 8 and i was alone with this huge cart of stuff.
i hate these kind ot people and i dunno what its going to take for these people to change.
God save this country..!!
As expected we have some losers patronising another loser...God bless you all.
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