Traffic Bloopers

So here I was waiting at Eranhipalam junction waiting for my ride back home. Having been kept waiting for a good twenty minutes, I couldn’t get myself to read anymore the magazine in my hand. And so I thought of looking around for something interesting or anything that would keep me occupied for the remainder of my wait.

The traffic was moving normally without any major hiccups, with the odd jams when a heavy vehicle (the bully) or an auto (the Brat) entered the junction. Two cops, who were present before I arrived the junction, suddenly decided to manage traffic. And it sure was a hilarious spectacle, although it might not have been for the motorists (Thats another post folks!!).

To start off, the cops din’t have a clue how to manage the traffic (I wonder if they recieved any training), with two of them the flow of traffic should have been very smooth. To control the vehicles effectively, a cop has to be visible to the motorists and for that he has to stand at a spot visible to all. But these cops were ill-positioned, not clear or easily visible to motorists. And his actions half the time was too hard to read, at one instance I thought he was imitating the film actor Mammoty.

In between all this 'theatricals', there was a minor accident between two cars. One of the cops went to attend it and I too thought of checking it out - just a scratch. Not much action here and I thought of getting back to the antics of our uniformed friends. To my suprise, the second cop ...just disappeared. And the one who attended to the accident just came back and stood under a shady spot.

Its seemed that he got too tired managing traffic for ten minutes, or maybe, he was too scared to do it all alone, can’t blame him , trucks and busses have a mind of their own.

All credits go to our dear motorists in the region for driving in a civilized manner (Not all, lets just say a majority of them) and managing by themselves efficiently. I would also like to thank the Traffic department for not interfering much with their incompetence and letting us carry on by ourselves.

Smart Legislators required, not Suppandis'

‘Experience is the best teacher of all things’, a proverb recorded in Julius Caesar’s book, Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War), is something that our bureaucrats or rulers have not  yet understood or come across. A few years back, with the outbreak of Bird-Flu and the deaths that followed, we were supposed to have formulated a plan in case something like this sprang up again. The Swine Flu pandemic and the secret cover up of the recent Chikungunia endemic are telling pointers to the current sordid state of affairs in our health ministry. Rather than weighing out the options at hand and making sound decisions based on logic and previous experiences, our governments are used to ‘Knee-jerk’ reactions, or simply put – Act first, Think next. The Bird Flu and Chikungunya endemic, years ago, should have prompted the government to set up a model that would help tackle something enormous and deadly as the current Swine Flu (and the Chikungunya outbreak).

The decision to ban private practice of Medical College Doctors and make Medical Colleges (MC) referral centres only is another such badly planned move. No doubt doing this would help us advance in medical research and be at par with our Western counterparts as this would require time on the side of the Doctors for study on new techniques and drugs, but, was it executed properly? With most of our Public Health Centres (PHC) and Community Medical Centres (CMC) lacking proper or basic facilities, how is this decision going to help? What the government should have done is first improve the lower tiers, make sure that the PHCs and CMCs have the manpower and equipment to provide the necessary service to the people who fall outside the purview of MCs and its Doctors once the law got implemented.

This negligence was further visible when Contraceptive pills were introduced in the Indian market. The marketing campaign of the drug companies gave a wrong idea to consumers that these pills would prevent pregnancy under any circumstances and also failed to mention the side effects (which, by the way are very severe), and who can and cannot consume these pills. This was also in a way promoting the concept of casual relationships, something very common in Western countries, but against our ethos. It was the duty of the health ministry to regulate such ads and guard the general public from such false notions.

Legitimising Homosexuality, ban on NH-212, plight of farmers in drought hit states, the floods in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh—the list keeps going on and on. What we need right now is a government that is proactive, and not reactive, one that learns from past mistakes and short comings and prepares for the future. We need a government that is smart enough to know that that is their job.