Recently I heard on the news that somewhere in Bihar a train ran over a man who in a hurry jumped on to the tracks instead of using the over bridge to cross over to the next platform and eventually meeting his death. This incident caused a furor and the masses started stone pelting at the train driver. Such an incident can only occur in India where you break the rule and you penalize the authority for your breaking of the rule. What blatant indiscipline. Makes me really wonder why are we,Indians, like this.
Everyday when I ride to work, to the IT District of Hyderabad, I see such exhibition of disregard of the rules of the land that it really breaks my heart. Complete disregard to any kind of Civic sense. I really do not blame any of these auto rickshaw-wallas and taxi drivers as they are beyond my comments. I would really blame the whole system wherein a driving license can simply be purchased in an RTO. Unfortunately in India as long you can handle a vehicle (thought not neccessarily) you are fit to drive. Unlike most western countries, driving is taken as a serious business where it is a mix of your skill behind the wheels and your understanding of the traffic rules. However I am talking about all these 'so-called' IT professional, who at some point of their lives have surely travelled to the developed western countries and have appreciated their sense of civic responsibilities and talked about it back home. But once they are back home, like here on the streets of Hyderabad or any other city in this country exhibit blatant disregard to it. Well the dominant emotion most of them exhibit is that of 'I am the king of the roads', 'Nothing can happen to me'.......I wonder why???? Why is there a complete lack of civic sense that one can drive on their extreme left when they want to go their right, causing a complete chaos when they finally attempt to go the direction they initially intended to or have the most important discussion of their life on their mobiles when they are at one of the busiest junctions trying to go past on the signal turning green.................It completely beats me!!!
On my many visits abroad I had the good fortune (or bad fortune, I am not entirely sure but I am more inclined to call it my bad fortune for reasons mentioned further in this blog) to witness various actions performed by many Indians, some of them being my colleagues, that has made me think that there is something seriously wrong with us, Indians!!!! Let me narrate an incident that took place at the client site I was visiting. At the client office, like many offices in the western countries, there are free supplies of milk bottles, tea bags, coffee (both normal and decaf), and sugar in the pantry for the employees to treat themselves to tea or coffee at leisure or whenever they desire. Well further into my tenure I started to notice a strange phenomenon, wherein some of my Indian colleagues, on the pretext of working late, started to fill their bag packs (which was meant for the laptops) with these tea bags, sugar and milk bottles from the pantry once every member of the client office has left for the day. And, too many people's surprise, there was one person who did not even spare the tissues in the pantry as well as the toilets. It made me feel really bad. Why are we like this????? Well we are not exploited IT professional such that in these expensive countries we cannot afford to buy milk or tissues for our day to day living.
There is a major problem in our attitudes. We are always looking for a chance to cheat. I was making a booking for a day trip around Scotland. As my father was a senior citizen I made an attempt to avail the senior citizen concession. While I was making a booking online, I called up the tour operators to ask them what proof they required me to produce for the concession that I have availed. Very politely the lady at the other end of the phone told me ‘Oh! We do not require any proof for it, we have faith that you would not misuse it'. This was the major difference I found in India and other nations. People give you the freedom and the citizens are decent enough not to misuse it with exceptions for sure. Unlike India, if you give any kind of liberty you can rest assured that it would be misused, whether it is governmental liberties or liberties in a multinational corporation.
What would take for us Indian to change our attitudes? What would take for us to incorporate some discipline in our daily lives? I am sure if we made this small change within each and every one of us, most of our problems in this country will surely see rays of hope. Building swanky buildings, or making swanky airports or increasing the number of retail therapy options or increasing the GDP of the nation or the foreign currency reserves in our banks are not the only thing we need to call ourselves the leaders of the world in the 21st century, we also have to change the way we conduct ourselves and also our attitudes in order to become the true leaders.
