Entelechy

I live at a distance of 5 km from my office, "Deccan Park" which is situated in Hitech City. Hitech City, locally referred to as cyberabad, is expanding, and expanding fast, with new buildings spiraling daily just as weeds crop up in fields, destroying the loneliness and replacing it with menace. Everyday, except on weekends, I have to commute this distance, of 5 km, at the peak hours negotiating the traffic which is at its fury at 9 am and 6 pm.

I started using my own vehicle sometime in January 2004, and then realized how difficult it is to drive on Hyderabad roads. Vehicles come at you from all directions, east and west and north and south, badgering you relentlessly, nobody giving a damn to road-sense. But slowly, and hopefully in time, you get used to it. The only thing you will never get used to is 'Autos' in Hyderabad. Of all the drivers in hyderabad the auto-drivers are a breed unparalleled. No one can rival them in creating havoc on roads. They twist and turn at will, emerge on the road from nowhere, drive the wrong way when it pleases them and stop when you least expect them to.

However, this was before the call-center boom in Hyderabad. Before this boom most of the people working in Hitech were the software-engineers, autos being their main mode of transport. The call-center boom spiralled a new breed of drivers: the cab-drivers. Now, you see, the call-center executives are the most pampered lot, unlike the software-engineers. They have these cabs for them, running around the city, picking them up at normal and ungodly hours and from the speed at which these cabs run I guess, these executives are busy 24x7.

If you find yourself in front of either a sumo or a maruti with a 'VC' or a 'Delloite' or a 'Nipuna' sticker on it, then you are in for a 3000-watt sound blast. The cab-drivers will keep honking, even though they know sound never moves the traffic; they will try to overtake you at steep turnings, throwing you off-balance, their horns numbing your ear and leaving you panting with fear. No road is safe with a cab running on it.

Who is responsible for this menace? The Call-center companies surely. Along with making a Janice and a Kimberly out the Indian junta, these companies, I feel, daily screen 'a James Bond movie' or 'Speed' for their drivers, the probable cause of adrenaline rush found in them. No driver is given a basic lesson in driving; the selection criterion being - If you can drive full steam then you are on the team.

What can we do to 'make a difference'? My suggestions: -

1. Ban them all together and start a "Keep-walking" movement for the call-center executives.
2. If the above doesn't work out then everyday screen the traffic-movies for these drivers, the same movies which you are made to watch if the traffic cop catches you without a helmet (pray you never have to watch those movies). Within one week most of these cab-drivers will be disciplined.
3. For those who still come out unscathed from this movie watching odyssey I have a better plan. Get a tuning fork, the one ENT doctors use, connect the handle of the fork with the horn and attach the tines in the groins of these drivers (a nice feedback loop). This should surely curb the honking problem and with that most of the other problems will fizzle out.
   

Any more suggestions are welcome.



 Yashodeep Honmane said...
yes that would be a real good excercise... may be the hall can be rotated, at a great speed, while they are honking... that would be fun to watch...  


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