The (Ugly?) Equality

The first alarm is at 5:30. This one just goes by. I don’t even remember when I switch this one off in my sleepy state. The second one at 6. I generally have some vague recollection of switching this one off with a promise to myself that I will get up in 5 mins & start the exercise. The third “emergency” alarm is at 7. Nowadays I have been getting up to the emergency alarm only. Gone are the days when I used to be up at 5:30 for the morning exercise routine. My day starts off at 7:00 when I lazily get up after PJ, one of my flat mates graciously finishes his morning routine, so the bathroom is free for my use. By 7:30 I’m up & ready for leaving. The office bus (actually buses..we have many buses from near my place) starts off at around 7:45. I then sit back & wait for the ordeal to get over.

Along the route to office, I see all kinds of vehicles:

1. The sub zero – These are the exorbitantly expensive luxury vehicles. The Mercedes C200, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Honda CR-V, etc.
2. The super cool – They include the higher end cruise bikes like Avenger, & the mid segment cars like Skoda Octavia, some good SUV’s and cars like Suzuki Swift, Toyota Corolla & Honda City.
3. The cool – A little lower than the mid segment come cars. Cars like Fiat Palio, Hyundai Getz, Santro Xing, Tata Indigo & many of the mid size cars. All other bikes.
4. The normal stuff – All the other privately owned cars. Maruti 800, Alto, Indica etc.
5. The junk – Taxis, buses, Auto-rickshaws, Trucks.

Scenario 1:
"S has a Honda Accord – a big luxury car. And he wants to go out, flaunt it & just drive around with its large powerful engine. Yeah! So he goes out & races away on wide plain highway showing all the other people who bought “lesser cars” their place. And he is not even thinking about the occasional bus that he passes by.
Ravi is in the company bus. The highway is plain, wide & empty. The bus trudges along with all the power it can afford. In spite of this we see the likes of Honda Accord just speeding away leaving the rest of the traffic behind. So if the bus takes 40 mins to cover the 20 km distance, this car takes around 15 mins. Ravi gets a feeling that he is poor."

The above scenario however is not true. The true nature of what actually happens everyday follows.

Scenario 2:
"S has a Honda Accord. He contemplates on using it. It’s been months since he has risked going in the new Accord he has bought. He generally uses his old Ford Ikon. But today he was feeling guilty of not having used the new car. He decides to risk going to office on the Accord. So the big machine gets cleaned up & out it goes. Inside the residential area, the roads are too narrow for him to drive anything beyond 20km/hr. Once he hits the main road, the faint hope he had that he would enjoy the car’s ride dies as he hits the stop & go heavy traffic. The fact that his car is much wider than his other car does not help. He now has to be extra careful not to get it scratched. His lack of practice on this car is one more problem that adds to his woes. He now seriously is contemplating hiring a chauffeur. While he is thinking he looks up beyond his slanted windshield. Just beside him is a bus of some company. Just out of curiosity he looks at one of the windows. A person there is staring right back at him…smiling.
Ravi is traveling in his company bus. He knows that the bus will typically take between 1 hr & 1.5 hrs to reach office. So he decides to have a nice little nap. A sudden brake wakes him up. Just next to the bus is a Honda Accord. This Honda Accord cannot show any of its abilities in this traffic..eh? He looks at the person who is driving this car. Ravi thinks “This guy definitely seems to be in some trouble”. He realizes that driving the big expensive car in this traffic must be a nightmare. He cannot help but feel the sadistic satisfaction of having had some sort of revenge. A smile escapes Ravi’s lips just as S takes notice of him. Ravi later feels bad of having done this – I am really a good person from inside."

The roads in Mumbai are generally good but the corporation has this strange fascination of digging up every road, which they find is full of traffic to create further congestion. The reason given generally - flyover construction. So the roads are nicely dug up & open by the time of the rainy season. The icing on the cake is the rain that comes and converts these dug up roads into muddy wastelands. The width of the road itself keeps changing from 4 lanes to single lane. This means a lot of traffic jams & consequently a lot of waste of time. The most heavily hit of course are the people in cars as they can go only as fast as the vehicle before them. In a traffic jam that would be around 5 km/hr. Everyone goes at this same pace. You could have a car that could easily go 150km/hr, but you simply have to follow that puny looking Auto-rickshaw.

And here lies the equality. Everybody takes the same amount of time to reach his or her destination. There is no difference between the rich & the poor, the car & the auto-rickshaw, the bike & the truck. But in the end everyone looses. Everyone takes more time than they normally would. And this is what I do not like about this whole business. I wouldn’t mind watching an Accord or two passing me by if I reach faster than I already do. I do not want this equality. Let there be wider roads. Let the roads allow each vehicle to show its potential.

Let there be inequality