Where to Look? Inside Us!

(in continuation to ‘Guns & Roses Part 2: Roses – Immobilized Khaki’) 

Mr Pravin Sheth, the eminent political analyst says, (Ahmedabad Mirror, 24 July 2008 ) nowadays people are much candid about their conduct and do not care about the behavioural ethics in public. Because of his deep insights in social issues, Mr Sheth relates two recent outrageous incidents, first is the violent consequences after protest against the death of two kids and the second is the display of currency bundles in the Lok Sabha. We know the roots and the extent of corruption and conspiracies are not easy to find. But the contemporary methods of ill-behaviour are ingenuous. So called ‘sadhaks’ of Asaram came out with weapons, got violent openly on roads and vandalized residents’ belongings. In Delhi, some MPs displayed bundles of currency notes in Lok Sabha during trust vote, not giving a single thought for dignity of the Parliament, dignity of the democracy! They colored India’s face black to the whole world and wrote a black day in Indian history. As I just previously mentioned, that I doubt if there’s any line to be crossed as I cannot even dream about worse things. But as the fact, we can see unimaginable things keep happening every other day.

More or less, we all behave analogously, be it in private or public. At times, we do not care the expressions we send across are very harmful and unfavorable to many. If we look at the example of the cyclist (Part 2: Roses – Immobilized Khaki) who did not hang back before insulting the traffic officer, did not think whether he’s in fault or not and rashly started abusing and threatening in public. Being candid would also involve that one wouldn’t even be bothered for his own decorum being grounded. Swearing, shouting, making filthy comments and gestures to women, offending others in public, bullying the weak – all these are everyday and everywhere. The vision has to be changed from eyes and to be reached to the mind. We must start looking inside ourselves. We have to start seeing others equally and understand the importance of their existence too. I am resisting the notion of ‘Kaliyug’ as I didn’t much believed in. We don’t have to act accordingly either to prove the commencement of ‘Kaliyug’. Let us preserve ourselves as humans (‘Manav’) and re-establish an undivided and complete ‘Manav Yug’.

 

Related Articles:
Guns & Roses – Part 1: Guns – Memo No. 1!
Guns & Roses – Part 2: Roses for Immobilized Khaki

Guns & Roses – Part 2

Roses – Immobilized Khaki

 

‘Thola’ or ‘Kaka’ – that’s what we call our traffic police officers. ‘White & Khaki’ has never been respected enough in our society. We lie, we bribe, we misuse political connections, we use names, we flee, we run away but we DO NOT obey! Exceeding traffic, increasing number of cars and also two wheelers and parking chaos are making each day tougher than the previous for the traffic department. How can we ignore the dug roads, blocked junctions, diversions and many other repair and construction work going on in city? It is becoming excruciating because these works have altered traffic patterns at many places in city since long and have not been restored to normal. It’s a nightmare! Managing these cattle on wheels is not at all an easy job anymore. There are noise, smoke, crowd and rushing vehicles from everywhere.

 

In such a situation, we are only obliged to cooperate with the self discipline as much as we can. We have to start from somewhere. The following incident is a usual one of many, which shows how stubborn and indiscipline we are! (“I insist on using ‘We’ as we all are a part of it, one way or the other. Using ‘You’ would have excluded me!”)

 

A cyclist is already standing 10 feet further from the stopping line in an evening rush hour. (“I doubt if there’s any line we, humans have left to cross be it morals, discipline, corruption, violence, conspiracies and so on.”) An irritated traffic officer, shouted at the cyclist to go back and not to move further. That obstinate cyclist shouted back and was not willing to go back by an inch. Another officer got angry seeing the rider being hostile! The officer acted furiously to send the cyclist back and tried to deflate cycle’s tyre. The rider then started abusing, took out his mobile phone and started threatening the officer that he would call someone to harm that officer in any way. They continued to shout at each other, but the rider neither moved back nor did he stop abusing. I had to move on, so I could not witness how the clash was ended. Although very little, it’s a very serious thing, that how the guardians of law on the roads are affronted and let down. They are vulnerable to verbal and physical assault too. Are they our enemies, aren’t they the part of our own society? Are they stopping us or fining us for any personal contention? It may be argued that they are corrupted and eat bribes! Only we are supplying our helping hand to encourage corruption. We do not want to pay the full amount of the penalty. Have we also thought of the reasons behind it? There must not be any reason to advocate any kind of corruption but the society is leading towards horrific inequalities and imbalance. Rich and poor are at the North Pole and the South Pole respectively. This is another burning and huge issue which cannot be accommodated within the current discussion.

 

 

Let’s be in our all senses, while driving or while behaving with cops or any other public entity. We are only isolating them more and more by not adhering to the norms and offering bribes to them. It was published few weeks before in a daily tabloid that traffic officers distributed roses to the drivers in Vadodara city for illustrating that ‘We all belong to the same society. Please cooperate.’ I would say who actually need to be retained and given ‘Roses’ are these traffic officers. Obeying rules and behaving in discipline will be more than roses to them!

 

Related Articles:
Guns & Roses – Part 1: Guns – Memo No. 1!
Guns & Roses – In Continuation: Where to Look? Inside Us!