Spare the rod and spoil the adult?

By Philip Mudartha
Bellevision Media Network

 

Where do you think this is? I took this photograph at Vakola BEST Bus Stop in front of  the Church. Vakola is a locality in  Santa Cruz, which is a middle class suburb in   Mumbai. Do you any queue? No? Then where are the passengers? Is Mumbai bus transport so efficient, that, one does not require any waiting?

 

Well, take a good look and the read.

 

a) Pavement is nice. No one wants to use them.

b) Bus Stop is clean. Q lane is cute. The chrome steel is shiny and inviting to use its bench.

c) Times of India reminds us that we can read or inhale and exhale, while we wait for the buses. The advertisement suggests that we can do kriyas as we wait.

d) Or Smoke, but seventh puff, we die. Smoking kills..

 

The passengers are all standing in the middle of the road. They are not queuing up. They want to be first to board a bus. They can’t sit on the bench and wait for their turn. They want to ’race’ and get ahead. Not knowing, the consequences.
Is it smoking alone that kills? What about dodging traffic on a busy road? What about boarding a running bus? What about waiting on the road?

 

Do we need police to use their ’lathis’ to instruct us?  Do we need the politicians to enact more laws, or come to each bus stop and force us to  use tits facilities in the manner they are meant to be used?

 

Spare the rod, spoil the kid, goes the proverb. But, as adults and parents, we frown if teachers in our schools use rod on our kids. to discipline them.  If any teacher does that, we blame our education system, our laws, our politicians, and our ministers, and our governments.

 

Instead, let us wait at a stop, inhale, exhale and think for a while.

 

Before our habits kill us or someone else...

 

Recently, a 42-year old housewife was killed under a bus. She dodged traffic in front of Times of India building outside CST, Fort, Mumbai. CST is the main railway terminal , popularly known as VT or Bori- Bunder. It is one of the busiest roads in Mumbai. There are more than one underpasses for pedestrians to cross the road . But she did not use it. Why? Why could she not use the underpass?

 

The newspapers reported the accident, including the arrest of the BEST bus driver. Many condemned the driver. Many condemned BEST. Many criticized the corporation for bad traffic management. Many blamed politicians for not having broader roads, for not clearing the street vendors from selling on the pavement.

 

No sane voice was heard. Of finding the 42-year old woman, a mother of two and an office-going  wife of another office-going husband for her reckless act of being on a  busy road, where she should not be, against all rules and common sense. 
She paid the ultimate price: her life.

 

She could have done the other best thing: take responsibility to her actions.