Culture relativity

When you are living in a foreign Country, your mind is always in a "Relativity" mode-meaning you are always comparing the culture, the people, the food, the social life etc.

Basically comparing anything and everything.

The "standards" that we set are from what we have seen back home. Yesterday while returning back from work, i witnessed a small incident which made yet another dent to those "standards".
On my rather longish walk back home, there is this narrow stretch of road which is a one-way only for vehicles excluding cycles. Usually unlike India, drivers here are more law abiding.
But yesterday i saw a car approaching from the wrong side. He probably did not notice the one-way sign.

But thats not the point. What happened next completely flummoxed me!

All of a sudden a cyclist dude coming in the opposite direction, stopped mid road facing the car speeding from the opposite direction.The car braked hard and screeched to a stop, literally centimeters away from the cyclist.

Now i thought this cyclist dude has had it. My mind started churning out pictures of a street fight and volleys of curses. I was ready to shoot the scene for a icaught moment.

But hang on, this is not the streets of Bangalore or hyderabad or Delhi.

The cyclist dude in a very polite manner informed the guy in the car that this is a one way and he is driving in the wrong direction. The driver apologized profusely and thanked the cyclist and turned the car back.

eh! Thats it? No "tera baap ka road hain kya"(Is this your father's road?) or "tu saale, kya commisioner hain kya" (are you the commisioner here?) dialogues??

But Having seen hundreds of duels on the roads of Bangalore just coz people don't want to let go of their ego, this small incident was a welcome change. And sure did make a deep dent to my "standards".

Bangalore traffic woes remedy?

After a lot of craziness-good craziness ie. i am back to the blogosphere finally!


Yesterday in TOI(Check out the epaper version www.epaper.timesofindia.com) there was an ad from the traffic police department about fulfilling 4 out of the 10 promises made by them.

Pretty novel ideas-the BTIS traffic management system and the easy auto ones.
As soon as i saw the ad, i went over to the website http://www.btis.in/.
This website gives details on the traffic status all across Bangalore and driving directions can be sms'ed to your cellphone.
Although it is a very novel concept, i don't think it is of any great use other than its novelty factor.

Say, if i have to go to electronic city, irrespective of the traffic delays, i don't have a choice but to go on hosur road.(atleast now). It is also a no-brainer that during peak hours there will be jams on 90% of the roads.

I think the need of the hour is to figure out a way to smoothen traffic rather than giving the aam aadmi the "traffic control room" status. More often than not it is the general indiscipline among drivers that causes a traffic jam. While we drive, we have a sense of urgency which we carry about. This leads to people driving on the wrong side of the lane, driving over footpaths(yeah!), skipping signals, zero pedestrian respect, haphazard parking and so on....

Here in Tokyo, most roads are narrower than in Bangalore, but there are few very simple guidelines which make driving a breeze.
Like for e.g.. Every T-junction or intersection will have pillars fixed with mirrors. this helps the driver to exactly see what is on the other corner. So no banging bumpers!

All stop lines for vehicles stopping at signals are placed much before the intersection. This helps in easy turning for the vehicles coming from the other side. Of course, no one ever skips signals. At least I haven't seen anyone.

Back in Bangalore, if you are waiting at a stop signal and there are no pedestrians crossing or no vehicles approaching, folks will happily drive on. If you want to be the rule fearing person, you have no choice but to go deaf thanks to the blaring horns.

Simple things like this do not cost a lot and easy to implement rather than having hi-fi gadgets(blackberries for policemen!?), traffic status or building a loop flyover for 10 years.

Looks like Mr. Kumaraswamy is in a hurry to show some quick wins and this is the way he can do it!