It happens only in ‘India’?

We keep hearing this statement almost every day from some or the other person. And I keep wondering how can they say this? May be they have travelled to other countries or they know very well about other countries. It sounds negative, anyway! But there is absolutely no reason to take it positively.

Saturday, being the hot day as it was the previous day of Ganesha Chaturthi, most of the market areas were chaotic. People were scattered on the main roads; not allowing vehicles to move freely; flowers, and banana plant stalls, fruit stalls and many more were just on the roads. In a way it was good to see the festive spirit, but, at the same time, it was absolutely annoying to travel from one place to another. If you are on a four wheeler or a two wheeler, you will encounter many traffic inspectors on the road who will show you the stop signal and walkover in front of you. You will be ignored to the extent that you will get tired by the time you cross the road. You cannot say anything because there is a very good reason and you are also a part of the festive spirit.

With all this chaotic state of affairs, Harish and I were very busy attending to our regular work at the school. Harish also wanted to book his bus tickets to Pune. So we had to go to one more hot spot of Bengaluru – Kalasipalyam! While I was riding my bike, we were discussing on some issues and were totally absorbed in our discussion. Suddenly I realized that we are amidst cows and buffalos! If someone would’ve taken our photograph, that would’ve won the photo of the year contest! That funny the scene was. I could not raise the accelerator and at the same time, I could not stop because of these new four legged commuters encircling us. It was so hilarious that both of us just kept laughing at our movement and we thought ‘this happens only in India’. To our surprise, there was a Traffic guy with the mask on! (Not the regular Traffic Police mask, but the Swine Flu mask). He was talking to some lorry driver and even though he noticed the scene, he did not care about who is on the road or check whether they are eligible to be on the road or not!

I shouted at him asking him to clear this wonderful traffic jam first and then carry on with his time-pass session. For which he did not even care and he acted as if he did not hear what I said. But the woman, the owner of those four legged commuters, heard what I said and she shouted back at me referring to the Traffic Police, saying “What can he do? Let him come near us, he will be pulled and these cows will take off his cap and send him home. What does he thinks about himself? He drinks milk every day, so he is not supposed to touch these animals.” And she moved on to the next road leaving us at peace.

Wow! We were totally shocked by those heavy words of that woman. And, again we convinced ourselves with the hottest line – ‘It happens only in India’.

Now, what do you think of this act? What is it that we see every day? Is this the arrogance that is developed just because the woman is doing a great job of making people drink milk every day? Or is it the carelessness that is developed in the system that traffic police did not bother about cows being on road? Or is it that festive spirit which allows such things to happen and disturb the smooth transport? Or it is just that we are in ‘India’ and anything can happen here?

I do not know!

Srik

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