Citizen Power

I was in Pune recently, and my family and I were heading towards the popular Sinhgad fort. It was around 7:30 p.m. The road leading there is a two lane one, with barely room for a third car to pass. It was Sunday evening, and as expected, we met with a lot of traffic. A new resort was being inaugurated, for which local politicians seem to have been invited, and their jeeps and cars were causing quite a jam. We managed to go through to the other side, only to be informed that the road leading up to the fort closes down at 7 p.m. Somewhat disappointed we came back, and found that the jam being caused by the resort was now quite a long one, with both lanes of the road being occupied by people going the same way, leaving no room for the oncoming traffic.
We stopped the car, and me and Dad got down to see how far the jam was. A quick glance was enough to make it clear that it needed some good traffic managing to get out of this bottleneck. We decided it had to be us. We told my Jeeju, who was driving, not to let more cars join the lane of cars on the wrong side, and then went ahead to the focal point of the jam - the entrance to the resort. A lone guard was trying to manage the vehicles of the VIPs, what with the parking space of the resort already quite full. A few other people were trying to direct a bus through, which was causing the most delay.
Rolling up our sleeves, me and Dad set about directing the people on the wrong side of the road to clear the way for the bus. At first people co-operated, seeing that the bus needed space to clear out. But as we went about it, it was sad to see the narrow minded attitude of the people, who failed to see the larger picture, and only cared how they themselves could get through.

The main problem arised due to the situation depicted here (seen from top). People had lined up on the wrong side (like car B) which was blocking the way for the bus and cars behind it to move, and similarly cars had lined up on the opposite side, blocking both ways. The way out was to make car A wait, let car B enter the correct lane, making way for the bus to pass, and others to follow. It would be quite simple, if only people had a bit of common sense. The person driving Car A would argue that he has been stuck in the jam for more than 30 minutes now, why should he wait more for car B to pass when it was car B which was in the wrong lane. What Mr. Car A did not realise was that if he would let car B pass, it would take them both less time to clear the jam, than to have his own way and get stuck again further. And this would happen over and over again. It took us extreme patience and persuasion to get them to see reason, which in some cases, didn't happen at all and Car A would still move ahead, blocking the way again. What surprised me was how stubborn people could get, and fail to see reason even when it stared them in the face. To make matters worse, people on two wheelers would squeeze into any space they could find, and cause further blockage. They had to be individually directed into the correct lane, and told to wait. At the back end, Jeeju was having a tough time making people join the correct lane, and not line up on the wrong side. Why almost no one had sense himself to do so seemed a rhetoric question to ask.
Finally, the silver lining showed itself, as more people got out of their cars, and helped out in directing traffic, speeding up the process. After about an hour of this went on, the jam was finally cleared and we could move on.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. Though often heard, but seldom seen practiced, and never personally experienced, the point was that one cannot always blame others, even though they may be wrong. Taking things into your own hands is better than sitting and complaining about why no one is doing anything. It felt quite a bit like the TOI ads (Hum chalein, to Hindustan chale....) where people are shown doing such things, like move a fallen tree out of a road. What happened that day showed me what is meant when people say that India`s true power lies in its masses. When we collectively and actively realise this, is the moment when we, as a nation, will truly progress.