If you want real adventure,if you feel the need to get in touch with the 'rebel' side of yourself, and if you have to be a part of a mass-chaotic-homicidal-ill disciplined-senseless-ear and brain deafening ritual, i promise you, t.nagar is the place. I am an idiot(I konw you know that). Because, I thought I could drive. A 2-wheeler. On the roads. In Madras. On a weekday(doesn't matter though). With the deepavali festival soon approaching(don't say its a good two months from now, i will take you down to the adayar bridge and throw you into the cooum in the area with the maximum amount of disturbing foul looking things).
You see, madness, has no cure. There is only palliative cure. That is why, most of the bus/auto/lorry/other such big things are driven by extremely careless, stone-faced, haughty, I-don't-care-for-the-mere-mortal-down-there types, who are immune to criticism, constructive, destructive, or any other severe forms of it are free to roam around in the streets of the city. I know, I whine now, like a little girl, as if I have never driven in Madras before. No, you don't understand what this place has become-too heavy and congested for its own good. I slowly get a sinking sensation that we might be headed the bangalore way.
Going ahead, I have nothing against auto people. Most cavalier, trustworthy, well-behaved, disciplined and neat lot. I know you would want some of what I am smoking right now, and I know you wouldn't believe me if I stripped naked to prove the veracity(I don't know how that would prove anything, but the picture is vividly voyeuristic, and strangely exciting and disturbing at the same time). As I was saying about the drivers, they all have a healthy disregard for anything that is on a sign board; of course, if the sign board has a picture of a skimpily clad silk smitha, then things are different.
MTC bus drivers have to be taught two main things.
1. There are other human beings driving on the road, and sometimes there are some creatures called pedestrians.
2. The clutch, is located right next to the left leg, at the bottom of the seat in which the driver usually sits;it must be employed when changing gears, or some engineers feel the need to press their ears against the seat in front and close their eyes and pray tearfully when they hear the meshing gears cry for mercy.
Some serious suggestions, even though they might be temporary(from the trip to, er...ok, US. I am not showing off, I thought some of 'their' rules made sense):-
Left and right only lanes
More number of one way streets to regulate traffic
Lane discipline at least on all arterial roads that are wide enough to have 4 lanes
Speed limit enforcement(I mean enforcement, not like on the boards)
better training and better facilities for drivers(MTC buses)
No horn zones
Autonomous traffic regulating body to study effective methods to monitor and improve traffic bottlenecks in the city(not CMDA, though i have no idea what the hell they do)
It would be become much worse if nothing is going to be done about the current state of affairs, and no amount of metro trains can save the city if every other part is going to be choked. Seamless inter connectivity, feeder routes from stations, and what not; Will anybody listen?(At the cost of sounding like a same bit news the whole bloody day news channel)
