Time is a luxuary…

Hyderabad or Bangalore… or any other city in India for that matter… traffic sense is kind of not easily found among any one living there. Personally I have experience in these 2 cities and I can comment on these only. But as such its almost the same situations in all the IT hubs for sure. At least I guess so.

Recently I was in B’lore for a weekend and so decided to meet some friends of mine on Sunday evening. All was fine as long as I kept myself away from the heart of the city. But evening I ended up in residency road corner house. Now that’s where all things began. As usual it rained for about 15 mins a li’l heavily though but then I had to face the reality of B’lore. My car was stuck in a traffic jam that took some 30 mins to clear.

Question here is:

Why the traffic is a chaos when it rains?

What happens to the people and their senses when it rains there?

Can’t they just stay home or in office when it rains?

And a lot more…….

So then I started driving back to the majestic area by making a huge circle from Residency to Richmond and then towards corporation and then via KG road to majestic. At least this was my plan initially. Then when I reached corporation I realized its not a easy drive to go through majestic. Took a immediate turn towards Lalbagh and to Chamrajpet. This was quite easy compared to the other roads till then. So in Chamrajpet, I was stuck in between a bunch of stupid drivers. This included autos, two wheelers and private cars. They don’t understand the fact that if vehicles from other side is not allowed to go then there is no way out of the road as its not divided by a median. And I think this understanding still lacks. So I was stuck again for more than 45mins there. Felt myself to be an idiot then. But that’s the reality anyway. Nobody cares and no easy solution for this.

But realized one thing. Its no the number of vehicles or the infrastructure that is lacking in the city. It’s the peoples common sense that is missing in the city which ones had boasted of some of the best known intellectuals in the country. Anyway past is past and future is bleak.

Now its not far from this experience in Hyderabad. I prefer to walk to office and so I have not yet bought a vehicle for myself. But will be son as I realized, walking can kill. Literally…. At least in this city.

One thing I have to face in this city is the fact that the city administration is not friendly to those who want to walk. So if you want to walk be ready for the consequences. I have seen very less roads with pavements and pedestrian ways here. And the shops doors open to the road here. And if some sick driver loses control, he will definitely be inside the shop, hotel or even your home if you are lucky. The foot paths I have seens are on the roads inside the jubilee hills area and other residential areas where people hardly walk and where people walk has none of the so called foot paths. Example the Madhapur road, Hi-tech city road, you name it. And these are the roads where thousands of people walk and most of them engineers who are feeding these cities with their fortune and pride.

Just have to understand that if you are an engineer, if you are gone, there is someone to replace you immediately on the road, in the office or anywhere else. But what about home?

So now I have a question. As a software engineer, I guess we spend most of our hard earned money and time on these cities. I am no John F. Kennady who once said “ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. “

I do expect something in return. And this is not in terms of money or any other unethical means. I am just asking our ‘reformers ‘(so called) to give me some time to spend for myself and my family. Most of the engineers in Bangalore I believe leave for work in the morning like at 7.00AM or 7.30AM and there are some who leave at 6.00AM to catch the company bus to the office. They start their work at 8.00AM or latest by 9.00AM and try to leave by 4.30PM to 6.00PM time frame. But as the situation is, they reach their home by 6.30PM ideally and have most of the times seen sitting in the office buses even after 8.30PM.

Now every day a engineer is wasting say 4-5hrs on travel from office to home and back. So in a week the poor fellow is wasting a full day doing nothing but dreaming about being at home and spend sometime with his kids, wife, parents..etc.., but unfortunately he is on the road still dreaming. In a month he has already wasted a week travelling for no reason and in a year he has wasted more than a quarter of a year travelling within the city. Atleast he could afford a foreign vacation of a week if he had worked for this time and took a weeks off for vacation. That’s extreme but it’s real. Most of them will earn a lakh easily in 3 months and it doesn’t take much to visit places like Singapore or Malaysia these days. Think about it.!!!

Added to that is the fuel costs of driving the bike, car or a bus for more than the time it was required to. Say a 30kms distance can be covered in 1hr 30mins in normal conditions through the city and if it takes more than this, then its waste of time, fuel and a sign of the economy reaching the dooms day by wasting the resources. But none cares. Only thing the administration cares is about their privileges of free fuel, free medical aid, free living, ultimately being a burden on the common tax payer who just finished filing all his taxes for the reason that he was threatened by these blood sucking, useful for nothing slugs. Every time we see the telephone bills in lakhs, electricity bills in thousands, fuel charges in lakhs of these administrators, who are supposedly elected to make some reforms and save all these costs. Anyway, everything that is said about change and handling the change is so far not true. Democracy is a huge failure in this sense, in all sense. Its non sense in India for sure.

But anyway, Hail democracy….