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| A section of yesterday's jam |
My wife and I had a horrid time yesterday. Aiming to get to an
office-furniture shop we came out on the Sultania Road and, lo and behold,
there was a jam. We did some stop-and-crawl and by the time we got to the Royal
Market tri-junction we knew it was impossible to get to the Peer Gate area.
Apparently a rehearsal was on for the PM’s cavalcade next day and the VIP Road
had been closed to traffic. Hence, all the peak time traffic had spilled on to
the Sultania Road. Worse, the road leading up to Imami Gate was blocked and we
had to turn left and attempted going to Bairagarh.
As we got on to the Sultania Road
it was again a jam-like situation and later as we approached Lal Ghati
everything came to a halt. While the down lane was stuck the up lane was
crawling. Some enterprising drivers got on to the BRTS lanes and sped away.
Never knew we had so many vehicles in this town. It was only 3 to 4 kilometres
stretch and a few thousand vehicles were labouring up and down the two
carriageways. Yes, it is the main artery that takes you to the newer areas from
the airport but there are other roads as well which would have been suffering
jams right at that time. My hunch to this effect was right as newspapers
reported this morning.
Sitting cooped up in my compact vehicle I was wondering if only Modi-ji
could be shown a video of the jam that was wrought in this town because of his
mere four-hour visit for inaugurating the World Hindi Sammelan which is less of
a Sammelan and more of a jamboree. Nine such Sammelans have already been held
but they have done precious little for promotion of the Hindi language. Such
conclaves can hardly promote a language. All that is, however, beside the
point. The point is that crores of rupees are being spent in an effort that may
not fructify but at the same time is inconveniencing hundreds and thousands of
people who have nothing to do with it and may never be able to get anywhere
near the highly sanitised venue.
Thousand of litres petrol and diesel were burnt, no not for the conclave alone,
but by the vehicles idling on the roads in jams fouling up the environment.
Most of our half literate drivers do not know that one needs to switch off the
engine if the halt is of more than a minute.
Talking of jams, recently, the newspapers had published a photograph of
a jam on the Delhi-Gurgaon 6 to 8 lanes expressway. It was unbelievable. In
such conditions one wonders as to why people should travel at all unless it is for
an emergency. Apparently, barring the new metro there is no public transport
and commuters rely on their personal vehicles. In the North, however,there is
also a tendency to show off and using public transport is, kind of, infra dig. Most
cities in India have too many personal four-wheelers and commuters are prone to
getting stuck in jams. The governments all over have failed in making available
decent and dependable public transport. With rising incomes cars have become
both, a necessity and a luxury – luxury in the sense that numerous families now
have multiple cars, sometime having no space for them at home. Residential
areas are clogged by parked vehicles. In the area where I live parked Honda
City cars on the streets along with a few Mercedes and an occasional BMW is a
common sight.
Coming back to the jam that we got stuck in, it occurred to me that our
traffic policemen are pretty prompt in blocking roads for the convenienceof
VIPs. It somehow does not occur to them that they need to be sensitive about
the conveniences of the commuting public as well. It never occurs to them when
a road is blocked the on-coming commuters need to be advised at all preceding
junctions about the blockage ahead to enable them to take alternative routes
saving for them inconvenience, time and gas. But this is what the traffic
people always slip on. Their primary aim is to enable unhindered supersonic
ride for the VIPs through the roads rendered empty by the blocked traffic.
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Photo: from the Internet
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