Metro Manners!

I's waiting for that "10-nuisance, MIND IT!!!" report series on delhiites to get over, to write this post...and finally,its over...leaving me with a trillion questions ..and 3 days after I finished reading the final report, I'm still doing what I do the best...I'm pondering over questions...

So, what's it about this sudden rush to seem civilized? about Delhi being rude and crude? about such hue and cry over overnight adoption of manners befitting a world class city? about lack of civic-sense and public etiquette? about this concern over the age-old "chalta-hai" attitude? about this sudden acknowledgment of Delhi being a riot zone, unsafe for women, and being nothing more than a shanty town (last one is an insanely exaggerated statement, I know)...

It's very easy, really, to gabble your tongue and blame delhiites for everything...and then sowing seeds of imaginations, expecting everything to change and things getting easygoing for an event as big as commonwealth games...but providing infrastructure n facilities to implement these flowery dreams need time,money and some real efforts...

I mean, how can you expect, someone traveling across bitter Delhi heat waves, and struck into 20 minutes of traffic stoppage, not to honk impatiently and shout at bad roads and bad traffic management? How can you expect, a crowd that was jostling for space into bluelines some days back, to adopt metro manners suddenly? How can you expect, a population so used to get away with a 50 Rs. note, not to jump red lights and start following traffic rules suddenly, just for the sake of some international event the city is going to host shortly? and how can you expect people, so used to jaywalking, just for the FUN part of it, to walk within the frontiers of subways and over-bridges?

I think its all about the need for strict policing, maintenance of facilities, implementing rules firmly and making them resource driven... Delhiites, as I know them, actually feel very much connected with the city. They don't spit or litter anywhere near well maintained sites like Akshardham temple or even at metro stations because they reckon them as important infrastructural investment by the government...and so, feel like preserving them for their own good.This can never be the case with Sadar bazaar area or chandani chowk, unless such level of facilities be planned there (somehow)...A standardized system and some wisely planned investment is seriously needed...Till then, all this lecturing about how some politicians want delhiites to behave during commonwealth games, and expecting things to turn out accordingly, is nothing more then a fool's paradise...

Some author I cant remember once said- Reality is a question of perspective....atleast for now, it really is...

Amen!!!