There are days when I question how I continue to use the sorry excuse for public transport that this city provides. The buses, apart from the completely missing schedules and sense of timing, are actually not so bad ever since we've shifted to this side of town - so what if I have to leave over an hour early despite being just 15 minutes from work? But the 6-seaters a.k.a. share-rickshaws make me feel downright misreable at times, especially considering the fact that there are never less than twice that number stuffed in the vehicle and I'm often squashed between members of the blue-collared society, making it a rather uncomfortable (and often smelly) ten minutes ride. I have to constantly remind myself not to think like a feudal mistress and to remember that they lead a difficult life and I have no right to look down my nose at them. Yet I stubbornly refuse to learn how to drive (maybe it won't hurt to learn) and add another vehicle to the roads which already can't bear the burden that has been dumped on them. I know it sounds super twisted (like most of my logic) but I see it as akin to cutting trees, or spitting or throwing trash on the road. It is the easy way out to buy a two-wheeler or a car, but it isn't the solution. Neither the roads nor the environment can sustain it...I know my silly gesture (read stubborn act) will really not amount to much but I don't see myself backing off and compromising any time soon...
Sigh...seems like I'm cursed then to suffer in this realm as well, since I refuse to compromise on my "principles." I wish I wasn't such an idealist and a stickler for principles and values. I wish I hadn't learnt to question and analyse. I wish I was a tad less intelligent (or far more, actually and thus above all this banal crap) and knew how to compromise on what seems so trivial to most people but to me becomes a question of right and wrong. I wish I wasn't....
Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.
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3 comments:
i never really thought of it that way.. buying a bike or a car..its interesting how uve put it..like throwng dechets..but me as opposed to u am not an idealist.. i wish i was..always have the tendency to slip into the convenient escapes compromising on principles..well the grass is always greener on the other side...
i wish you'd just to move to mumbai where the public transport is superb.
;-P the pollution and traffic jams might kill you though...
there was a time when Pune was called the 'cycle city'...of course that was when 'bike' still meant exactly that - a pushbike!
Happy Diwali. Wish I was in Pune for the winters too. Really miss that.
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