THE MECHANIZED DELHI LIFE

Delhi was a posting I had never sought. My relatives found it quite amusing. To them I appeared a man not in his proper state of mind. I felt I will get lost in the melee of a metropolitan and was more than satisfied in conservative set up of Eastern India where I spent the first 24 years of my service career. However, fate brought me to Delhi. I take this as an opportunity to read the city and the psyche of its resident.

People develop a particular perception about a city. E.g. for Kolkata it is said that that is the safest city for women. Guwahati is a city of laahe laahe (slowly-slowly), where people are never in a hurry. For Pune and Bengaluru it is said that these are places suitable for leading retired life. Delhi and Mumbai is known for its fast life. However, my experience leads me to conclude that such compartmentalization is generally not correct. It is people, who inhabit a city, make the city. Good people and bad people exist in every city and hence instead of branding a city good or bad we should rather brand its people good or bad, depending on whom we meet in our day to day life. Thus my effort at penning Delhi Diary is aimed, not at some sort of generalization, but writing about this historical city, as I find it every day while traveling to my office by chartered bus or while returning by the Delhi Metro.

Delhi is the cynosure of India. Whatever happens anywhere in India, its reverberations can be felt in India. In the same breath I would like to add that whatever happens in Delhi makes a louder noise compared to such happenings elsewhere in India. This, I feel, is not only due to the fact that Delhi is the capital of the nation- the face of India to the world, but also because of its raised consciousness- the news thirsty media and the news hungry netas and NGOs, which does not allow even minor event to pass off unnoticed. While media has their own compulsion to show one or the other breaking news (even though these may not qualify to be termed as news at all) throughout the day, netas and NGOs consider these as a chance to project themselves into limelight for a possible improvement in their standing and ratings. However, this one-upmanship among these three stakeholders makes Delhi appear a city in a mess- a city in complete chaos for the simple reason that bad events always outscore the few good events which really deserve mention. At the end of the day it brings a bad name to the city- nationally as well as internationally.

I was witness to such a chaos recently. While returning from office I normally walk down from the metro to my residence. On the way there is a traffic signal on a road cross on the K. N. Katju Marg, just past the ESI Hospital. The other day I was alarmed to see the rush of vehicle from, well, over a kilometer on this stretch. This wasn’t normal. On approaching the traffic signal I found that it wasn’t working that day and the main crossing was choke a block with vehicle. It appeared that people were guided, not by their wisdom or their traffic sense while driving but were subservient to a red light. And here it was- an out of order traffic signal was making mockery of the traffic sense and wisdom of people. Some Bikers and enthusiastic car drivers went a step ahead and drove into the service lane and soon it was also choke a block with vehicle. It was simply impossible for a single traffic police to handle the situation who left the matters in the hands of the people. Everyone who got stuck up in the jam that day learnt a lesson in discipline, only to forget it the other day. Ought we to not learn a lesson in civic sense and discipline from our children to keep our roads free from such hassles?