Discourteous, Callous or Just Simply Stupid

I have been trying hard to ignore minor irritants in India. With so many people, perhaps, such irritants are inevitable. However, it pained me when my mother was to be taken to her room on the 6th floor of the hospital in a stretcher. It was visiting hours and the visitors rushed into to the elevator. The attendants had to request and push them to make space for my mother.

Aside from the sheer discourtesy shown to an ill patient in a hospital, I was particularly bugged by a group of people who had rushed in first. They had to go to the first floor and pushed their way out. They were younger than me and healthy - so why on earth did they insist on using the elevator.

Driving and teaching on a virtual holiday

Diwali is an important festival and the day after it, people must be relaxing. It was  a pleasure driving to Ropar today morning. I could drive comfortably and safely as there was very little traffic on the road.

I had decided not to cancel the class but discuss a topic outside the course content. The number of students who had not gone home was only 6. I had expected more but it did not matter.

It was an opportunity to sit around in a circle and explore a topic even if I did most of the talking. I wish I could experiment with sitting with a group of 10 students once a week instead of teaching 40 students for 3 hours.

I am convinced that meeting the students even once a week for 1 hour will be more effective as long as we do not have all the sessions on the same day. That is because I as an instructor would get thoroughly bored.

I suspect that this is not something I will ever get a chance to try :(

Be Somewhat Safer, Break the Law

 The following extract from "Be Safe, Break the Law" definitely resonates with my experience of driving in India:

Higher speed limits are often safer because what is worse than speed is variable speed, some people driving fast and some driving slow. When the speed limit is set too low you get lots of people who safely break the law and a few law-abiders who make the roads more dangerous.

I find myself driving faster in order to be consistent with what others are doing. The tendency of impatient drivers to overtake dangerously increases sharply the slower one is driving.

The difference for India though is that our traffic is inherently variable. A slow truck or a tractor is tolerated, though with minimal patience, as the slow speed is expected from them and they are too big to squeeze through on a two lane highway with oncoming traffic.

However, a modern car going too slow - Nah!

Thanks to the irritation with the commercial channels, I have found that there are very interesting conversations on Lok Sabha television. Today, I was listening, unfortunately, to the tail end of a conversation with an MP talking about how important the question hour used to be and these days, it is the one which is routinely disrupted. I recall in my younger days going through the column on questions in the parliament.

By  a coincidence, I saw a TED talk on media should pay attention to non-violent movements in Palestine. It struck me that may be the loss of question hour is related to the same reason. Disruption of the house is exciting news. The commercial channels cover it in great depth. However, questions and answers are not exciting television - unless it is in Kaun Banega Crorepati format.

So, I now have one more grouse against our commercial media. A very unfortunate side effect of commercialisation - the loss of serious discussion in the parliaments.

"According to the service rules, it is necessary to work with the organisation for at least 3 years after coming back from such leave."

To claim that the condition has been met as the resignation was more than 3 years after the study leave was over in spite of being on un-paid leave (absconding?) for two of those years seems like a very convenient logic. And if the government does not agree with this interpretation, it is hounding the person - an even more bizarre deduction.

The loud support by some of the media is downright insulting to intelligence of the viewers and readers.

Incredibly Stupid Parents

It was bad enough that the car was driving in two lanes. Usually, half in each lane but sometimes in the fast lane.

When I came closer, I noticed that someone in the car would hold a baby outside the car window.  The baby must have been enjoying the breeze at 70 Km/hr. The baby was held outside the car several times before I managed to overtake them.

I was horrified at the possibilities which could ruin the family's fun.

Keeping Road Rage Under Control

I try not to forget this story and keep calm.

Yesterday, I saw a policeman try to stop a vehicle ignoring a signal. The driver just sped away. The policeman walked away helplessly.

This morning, an idiot parked his two wheeler in such a strange way in the middle of the road that I had a hard time taking out my car and not hitting the motorcycle. The parking lot was virtually empty. If someone had parked next to me, I would have had to honk and get one of the two to come make space for me. Absurd.

Why did that idiot park in this manner? It is beyond me.