Well you might find the link a bit odd but I have a strong argument
to back it up. See, it all started this morning when I pleased as punch that I will
be reaching office relatively in time (which means only 10 minutes late) gets
road blocked by a gentleman talking on the phone.
So Man is driving slow infact crawling and we are talking 10
o’clock in the morning road blocker who is the worst kind, the bane of all of
us simple folks who just want to reach office in time. I honk and curse but Man
does not care, he shifts close to the divider and that is the only
acknowledgement of my efforts. So okay, I am flexible I hie off to the left and
run parrellel to him to vent my spleen and lo and behold Man is concentrated on
the phone, talking to biwi…talking to girl friend….talking to…who cares. The
point is Man got me thinking.
Is traffic etiquette related to family structure. See those
cities which follow the extended family or the joint family as we call it, like
Ahmedabad, you would assume has a strong community feeling. But no here is the
surprise they are indifferent, I guess living within the community structure makes
you develop contempt for it, I mean when you are living it everyday, do you
care…Naah.
So you don’t care if your are blocking the road by driving
slow, parking in the middle, dropping somebody off at the crossing by just
stopping at the crossing…or any of the other convenient things that saves your
time at the cost of others. Who cares…they are all family no, we are one big
family so what if I delay you, it is all part of the give and take.
But look at the West or Mumbai closer home, here we have
Nuclear families, single parent families, they are all in a hurry, no time as
they don’t have an extended family member to take up the slack, so they are in
a perpetual hurry. What this means is they understand that you are also in a
hurry and don’t want to waste time with a road blocker. So they will park where
there is parking and walk down to where they actually want to go, drive on the
left or park when they are talking on the phone, act like the crossing is there
for a reason and not as a drop of zone. All this because they value their time
and know that as an individual you also value yours. And they have no rights on
you to waste yours and vice versa.
Well, that my argument and I am sure it is worth a working
hypothesis, now who will conduct a research to validate it…..over to you.
