The System and Us

Morning drives to work can be torturous. Believe me. It has happened to me in-numerous times but I always chose to stay silent about it as it was something that was "normal". But today I'm pissed off. And that's why I want to say what I feel about it. So here goes.

We are hypocrites. Big ones at that. We blame the system for every little thing that is wrong in our day-to-day lives. Water, electricity, road, public transport, corruption. Collectively we call it "poor infrastructure". But guess what? We constitute the goddamn infrastructure. So essentially, we're cribbing about ourselves.

We say there's a shortage of water and electricity everywhere. We want the government to "do something" so that this doesn't happen and that our air conditioners and televisions can work around the clock. We want people to conserve energy and use clean energy all the time.

Yet, we forget to switch off our appliances before we leave the house.

Yet, we don't fix that tap which has been leaking for a whole week now.

And we keep blaming the infrastructure when there are unscheduled power cuts, and laugh at the government's inability because it could not do anything about it.

We are vocal about the litter and filth all around us. We want dustbins to be placed at every corner of every street so that there is no garbage on the roads.

Yet, we shamelessly spit wherever we want to.

Yet, we do not think twice before unzipping our trousers in public places and defacing the place.

Yet, we devour chips and carelessly let the plastic bag out of our windows and into the wind.

No, we do not want to stop using plastic bags. We are too busy to segregate trash based on its reusability. "Who will do all that?", we question. We let our dogs run amok, take them out for walks and let them freely answer their nature's call. We don't bother to pick up after them. And when our expensive Reeboks and Nikes step on those same remains, we blame the system. Funny, isn't it?

We want big, wide roads for faster commute time. We want to be the first person to get in line, to get inside a bus, to board an aircraft. And we also want to be the first person to exit an aircraft, to get out of the bus, to finish our tasks. We are in constant hurry, in a never ending race to be the first to do this or that. We cannot tolerate traffic jams and honk away our fury like that would magically make the traffic disappear.

Yet, we think traffic rules are a joke and break them at every traffic signal.

Yet, we try to sneak our vehicles in the smallest of gaps so that we're ahead of the others; so that we're first in line.

Yet, we gridlock the flow of traffic so bad that it finally reaches a point where none of the vehicles can move in any direction.

And we keep honking away, screaming at "the other car" to move away because we're always right.

The irony of this all is that we're well aware of these problems. We know this thoroughly by now. Yet we choose to ignore these little things which finally evolve and get so big that the entire systems starts to malfunction, one step at a time. And to top it all, its people like you and I - the educated people, the creamy strata as we call ourselves - who do this more than anyone else. We are quick to blame the so called "uneducated auto-wallahs" and argue that their lack of basic civic sense is because of their lack of education. But guess what? There are auto-wallahs who are more qualified than some of us and who are immaculate in their civic responsibilities. So stop stereotyping them.

We drive fancy sedans yet we ignore those little indicator lights when we switch lanes.

We are not bothered if we use high beam at night but somebody else coming from the opposite direction uses high beam and we go ballistic.

We think traffic cops are a bunch of losers but when we crash into someone else's vechicle, we look for them to resolve the conflict. And worse, we expect the cop to side with us. Because "we are always right", you know!

We travel in company transport vehicles and we know that the driver, more often than not, drives like a madman bitten by a dog. But we never ask the driver to drive carefully because we don't care. In effect, a stern word to the driver might bring the rash driving down - think about that.

Please, I plead you to introspect. Think of the little things that you ignore because it might be making a difference that you never thought possible. Because remember, it is us who constitute the system.

The system fails because we don't do anything about it. It fails because we fail.

Think. Act. You can make a difference.