I wanted to rush to the office, so I opted to travel by auto rickshaw than B.M.T.C. (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) bus. The auto-rickshaw driver was aware of my anxiety, so he dexterously negotiated the traffic on the road to avoid getting stuck in the jam; while doing so, he narrowly escaped brushing passed a car that suddenly appeared on the left hand-side without honking its appearance. The auto-rickshaw driver lost his cool and yelled at the driver for causing the confusion. In order to avoid further delay, I requested him to move on and explained that there are better ways of making erring drivers aware of their follies. I broke into conversation with him and realized that all those who are behind the wheels on the road break the traffic rules at some point in time, but they tend to generalize and blame those who make them feel as the underdogs to be the guilty party. For instance, the auto-rickshaw drivers consider the private car owners as the bullies, who consider the roads to be their private property, while the private car owners consider the auto-rickshaw drivers to be the dare-devils who don't even bat an eye lid to violate traffic rules; therefore the blame game continues.
This made me aware of the fact: the road traffic of a city very much depicts its urban character, its personality. It shows how urbane the inhabitants are.
The topic of discussion eventually changed from private vehicle owners versus auto-rickshaw drivers to the roads and traffic in Bangalore and how much the vehicular traffic had increased within the past ten years. Sayeed (that is his name, owner of the auto-rickshaw, who was ferrying me to my office in Gandhinagar, Bangalore) a young lad in his mid twenties seemed to be quite well versed in the arterial system of the city roads and also had expert comments on the methods Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation had devised to DE-congest traffic on busy routes. When I further probed him to find out if he had a better solution than the one implemented, I was amazed to also receive some rather innovative solutions from him. He pointed out that most of the traffic congestion near Bangalore race course was due to sudden spate of high rises springing up on the Race course road. Neither Race course, nor the high-rises that house many offices have adequate parking space make the car owners park their vehicles on the road causing traffic congestion. The problem could be solved through multi-tiered or underground parking lots. He also cited the congestion caused by the underpass and fly-over at Maharani Collage Circle that added to the massive traffic problem at K.R. Circle. This could be solved by extending the fly-over and deviating the private vehicular traffic from Gandhinagar area through the connecting roads to de-congest traffic at K.R.Circle.
I recalled that I had also come across a mason (brick layer) working at a construction site close to my place of residence who, through his years of work experience in construction, had some innovative ideas, but did not have the opportunity to hone his skills and formally blue-print his ideas as any trained professional can do. Many of the construction site workers have rural background with ample knowledge of indigenous construction especially adobe homes and when they are trained in modern techniques of architecture, they will be able to contribute effectively in innovating indigenous designs suitable and better adapted to the local climes, rather than we aping the western architecture that are ill-suited to the environment and add more to the ecological problems such as unusual warming up of the environment due to excessive use of glass as facades of the buildings.
Similarly, our farmers, sons of the soil, have generations of know-how of the land they till and crops they grow. When they are trained to more scientific approach in honing their skills to improve methods of cultivation and the crops they grow. We will be able to improve our indigenous methods of cultivation and reduce the plasticity of western technology that has alienated us from the natural means of producing crops and through profuse use of chemicals has affected the arability of land.
Are we not depriving ourselves of potential talent that remains untapped and unfortunately disused in the form of unorganized workforce in the form of farm hands, construction site workers, foundry workers and industrial workers, who are to blindly follow the methods to eke their living, rather than train them on the job, hone their skills to use their ingenuity to improve the techniques oriented to the environment: climate, land and the inhabitants. Then we can say that we have innovated and the whole country has evolved and not just grown organically and developed materially.
Do all the inhabitants contribute in planning and improving the village, town or city we live in to eventually develop a sense of belonging so that we can dispel the feeling of alienation that we try to diffuse through blame game? This is the question I asked myself when I paid the auto-rickshaw fare and started walking towards the office building.
