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REALTY SPEAK

One such reality is the status of our road infrastructure, either clogged up with too many vehicles finding their way through haphazard parking, or dug up for reasons few would be aware of.

It must be said to the credit of the police that they are visible in many places, to ease the traffic flow. But they too are helpless when a vehicle sporting red flashing lights, of a politician or a sarkari babu, seeks preference to everybody else.

Thus, even as you battle out the harshness of a 5 kmph crawl on a scorching morning, there is this ‘highness’ bungling with Sudoku, for all you know, in the rear seat of an air-conditioned car blaring its way as if the voter didn’t matter.

Come to think of it, infrastructure is more than a software park. It does make a difference even when you are inside your house, by ensuring predictability in the supply of essential services such as power and water.

Infrastructure comes under stress and, at times, breaks down in times of crisis. A reader mails in with a comparison to show how the response time during Mumbai floods betters what the U.S. could achieve post-Katrina.

One reason, in my view, is that we don’t bet much on the authorities. Haven’t you heard of stories from your Mumbai friends and relatives of common people standing on the road and helping the stranded?

Ramani, a good friend, who happened to be in Mumbai during those fateful days, recalls how when he was wading back to his lodging, there were a few well-dressed businessmen or executives helping by doing something very unusual: At a particular point on the road, these volunteers lifted each passer-by’s leg and placed it about a foot ahead, because there was a deep trench that lay invisible beneath. Ramani wonders if we can expect such an empathetic behaviour in other cities too, and our conversation comes to a minute’s pause, as we introspect.

It is easy to say that the right opportunities for displaying our goodness haven’t arisen, but I won’t buy such an argument, because there is ample scope to better our infrastructure, at the micro level. Don’t take it lying down if, for instance, a pavement shop encroaches upon your road, or if a commercial operator menacingly stations his taxis on the short stretch you have to connect your house or flats with the road.

A reader tells me about Jambu, a resident who had a similar problem. One fine morning, Jambu wakes up to find a line of taxis belonging to some Wizzy Tizzy Call Taxi company outside his compound wall, narrowing the path available for residents’ vehicles to move into and out of the premises. After a few hours, it was the Wizzy Tizzy’s boss who had to contend with his vehicles uniformly sporting a mini-poster on the windshield.

The messages were all handwritten and pasted with some really strong glue, and read, “Your parking the car here causes inconvenience to my house.”

There was heated argument, thereafter, even as the drivers struggled to get the plain message off. But Jambu’s message seemed to have worked, because the cars are no longer causing inconvenience to the residents in that locality. Possibly, the nuisance would have moved to a newer place, I guess.

You may ask if Jambu’s example is a risky one because it amounts to taking law into one’s own hands. It definitely is, and, to be fair, one can argue both ways.

Yet, the point of that story is that you have to get your point across to those who subtract value from the infrastructure which is very much your right.

In most cases, the errant backtrack, once the game is over. But when does that happen? After they know that you have found out that what they do is wrong, and, more than that, you have called the bluff by daring to voice your protest.

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