Wrong Doing and Dadagiri.....

One funny (sometimes quite disgusting and blood boiling) aspect of people's traffic sense is that they make mistakes, they indeed know they made a mistake on road. Yet they get to fight and show fingers at the other riders.

I had this two bachchaas riding on bike and trying to overtake me from the left in one of the hyderabad galli. I could not give clearance to them because I have traffic coming head on from opposite side. One of the jerks shouted a foul word and tried zooming past. I usually am very accomodative and take things easy, but having a bad day myself at work got nasty. I got past them brought them to a complete halt and got to some word exchange (I have been decent enough not to exchange blows, that usually happens in Hyderabad). Settled it after some local intervention and we parted ways.

But then I started thinking....is it necessary to do so, why should we lose our cool when someone else is making a mistake. Now you guys tell me what should be done in such scenario? Shut and forget or teach some basics? I guess the busy and hectic city lives and the restlessness of the younger generation is the root cause for the drama that you see on the roads everyday. But then I wonder life in other countries and bigger cities is alike....how come you dont get to see such scenes very often??? Is it strict Law enforcement or the fundamental training in traffic that making the difference............any inputs folks?

Driving on road or driving off the road???????

Driving and Traffic - my most passionate and the most heartburning topics. Yaar, ajeeb hain log jo road pe gaadi chalaathe hain. There is no road courtesy, no respect for other people on the road and well the most shocking part is they have no value for their own lives either. All they seem to be engrossed with is "how can move ahead first" irrespective of whether they have right of way or not.....
Btw, how many know what is "right of way"? A pedestrian crossing road has the right of way against a motored vehicle. A vehicle taking a right turn from the longer side has the right of way against another vehicle taking left turn at the corner. A vehicle travelling on the main road has the right of way against a vehicle passing from the by-lanes. These are some basics and common sense points and very few seem to know and respect them.
I had a long journey over the weekend on the highway between hyderabad and vizag. The number of accidents I had seen on the way tells me the carelessness and idiocity of the people driving on the road - speed limits have no meaning, no sense of overtaking rules and again no respect for their own lives nor for the lives of others on road.
Frustrating to see people just getting insensitive to accidents, deaths and blood on roads. Looks like the license issuing process is still a formality, except that it has now become bit hi-tech.

Had a chance to talk to parents of some of the corporate and international schools of hyderabad. Everyone has one word on their tongues - higher fees at the wrong time and absolutely not justified. Came to know from them that parents formed associations in schools like DPS and Oakridge to face the managements and bring them to discussion table on revision of the fees.

The other day saw the pictures of parents demonstrating in front of the schools asking for fees revisions but looks like the managements are well prepared to face it all. They seemed to have adopted a common strategy and timing to ensure that the wards have no choice of moving out to other school either...heard of lobbying and ring formation in tenders but this is probably the first time we are seeing a bad trend in schools.

I have seen notice on gates of a well known school that says "Rights of admission reserved" and one of the parent complained that they are not letting parents as a team and restricting their entry...reminds of of British Raj!

What do we do and how do we handle situation like this? We Indians are used to tolerance and quiet suffering, be it at the hands of politicians, local goons or the ruthless traffic. But this is not a subject to stay quiet and bear it - this is a future deciding aspect, about the very strength of our nation - the mighty education system of India.

Schools

Schools today are nothing less to any other commercial activity. In fact it is the most lucrative and almost a non-questionable vertical. Whether the economy is going down, people are losing jobs or taking pay cuts, their wards need to be educated and yeh lo, the school managements know it. So charge - pay it or leave!!!

Government seems to be hoodwinking the whole process - a standard nexus between the private managements and the bureaucracy. There seems to be no strong, valid reason for the irrational fees hikes in private (so called corporate public) schools. There is no sudden jump up in the quality of education, or teaching staff. And who cares really for the AC buses, classrooms and all unwanted crap. You talk to teachers, they say life did not change for them. Talk to non-teaching staff or the students, they say the same. Then why hike and what is the value add? To setup new branches, give higher life style to self and build individual wealth. But all this at what cost - stalling the intelligent students, pushing the primary cause to back-burner and creating weakness in the primary strength of this country - the education.

Make money - no issues. But education cannot be put on par with other commodities and industries like steel, cement or IT. It has a sanctity of its own and must be respected for being the platform for growth of all industries, economy and society. There must be regulated hikes supported by reason. Year on year hikes cannot be brought in the name of various categories of building fund, welfare fund, and what not.

Government must use a stronger hand to regulate the trend and establish that education is a non-negotiable weapon and every indian must have the power to study in good school with affordable fees structure. They must also counter the corporate schools with state of the art government schools by investing heavily into infrastructure, facilities, teachers and campaign. That is the only alternate to contain the crazy education system.