[Neil Roy]

Originally Posted by roy_libran

Contributing a recent experience:
--------------------------------
My wife is a newbie driver, and she was driving the Logan. A "L" sign was prominently displayed and blinkers were On..........
A lady driving a Nissan Sunny, with her kid, overtook us from the Left, and cut across our lane to take the U-Turn, in quite a hurry. My wife had to brake in an emergency, else we would surely have collided.........This whole thing made me very very angry, and I didn't want to play the Sucker here. Later, my wife and my friends had to talk me out of what I was planning to do with the Gurkha the next day!

Look at it on the bright side. Your wife got a real hands on experience on what to expect everyday when she is behind the wheel. The saddest part is that the lady in the sunny had her kid with her when she did her theatrics. I wonder what kind of example she is setting for her child. Money can get you a lot of things but good manners and good upbringing is certainly not one of them.
The civilised man is a dying breed in India. Where people are breeding like rabbits and there is only so much that the country can accomodate, it just boils down to survival of the fittest, or should I say FIGHTEST. The guy who is empathetic to his fellow being is a sucker because the fellow being in question is out to take you for a ride.The guy who follows traffic rules is a sucker because the rules themselves are interpreted by half baked morons who always try to use the rules to extract money from you. The guy who pays his taxes to the govt is a sucker because the money that is paid is not used to develop the country but to fill in the coffers of whichever political party is in power.Upper/lower/middle class does not come into the picture.
So what gives here? Why is there an inherent urge to follow the rules even when you are a sucker? The answer is simple. All religions speak of an afterlife. What you sow in this world gets you a better ticket to the next world.To quote Shakespeare,"All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances".It is the hope that my act of following the rules, being empathetic to my fellow beings, paying my taxes and teaching proper human values to my son will not only be an attempt at making my country a better place, but also give me a higher chance at demanding my ticket from the One above for a better afterlife.
At least it is this hope which makes me last the day.

[mmxylorider]

Nice one, OP! I am a sucker for sure! But what plays into my mind is I am also being legal in lots of things. The moment I decide to follow others, my intent has become clear.

I do however do not let myself suckered into some situations. Wrong side drivers do not get space to merge in front of me. I am willing to play chicken in who brakes first to avoid that dent.

[acroback]

Somehow it seems like I wrote the Original post.
Aptly put and depicts my own situation accurately.

Sad state of affairs in this maniac country. :(

[Rubbertramps]

Originally Posted by trtraj

2. Every driver think that he is a robo with 6 set of eyes and so, they fold the mirrors and never even bothers the vehicles which comes behind


The people driving opposite side that too with high beam in the night is the highest rate of frustration initiators.

.. Nowadays i cautiously look for the presence of mirror on the vehicle ahead of me before overtaking it. If not , i use the sounds and lights incessantly to warn him.

I once wrote an imaginary blog post like having a jeep with iron rods all around the vehicle and goes on ramming the egoistic fellas on road. That was my way of venting the frustration.

This happened to me some time back. I was standing at the first signal to take right from silk board to HSR. A drunk fella, actually a drunk huge fellow came and banged my car from behind. I came out and confronted him. He got down and came on to me for showering blows. I reluctantly moved into my vehicle and started off. A police officer standing in the signal just warned him where he could have fined him for drunk and drive. This guy was challenging the police constable also. Great going i thought and left not knowing how to vent my anger. The next day i was researching for karate classes around my premises.

[deadguy25]

Great thread. I used to think only few of us were thinking on these lines.
On the bright side, I feel better - my thoughts are echoed in most of the posts.

The sad part is, when one starts questioning, he is singled-out and has to bear the brunt.

[Trojan]

Good discussion!

I think we all talk about this everyday, I do with my friends (all of them BHPians). Frustration is all around us, i think we need to :

Be smart and get back at these people/situations, whenever possible.

Selfdrive gave a very good suggestion about cops, 'Name Dropping' does work.

If you keep quiet all the time, people might not bother you that much but it doesn't make you feel better as your reason of frustration (speakers playing at odd hours et all) remain unresolved.

Maybe the neighbor politician might get away by 'bribing' the cops, but hey just think about it, if that becomes a regular feature, the cops will be happy to come to collect the funds, but the politician will surely think of a better way to stop this nuisance

If you can't beat them outright, make things difficult for them!

If I am doing the right thing, I would try as much as possible to prevent others from doing the wrong thing.

In our locality, there are three Ganpati temples within 200mts radius, each one has there own Mandals (we all know what the majority of them make these Mandals for).
They all come to collect Donations for celebrating and organizing the festival, but I think the essence of the festival is lost totally.
We refuse to pay donations to any one of them, we don't say that we won't pay as you make noise or create traffic jams, but our point is clear, why don't you celebrate the festivals of other communities as well?
Why such preferences, we have people from all communities, so the approach should be the same.
They don't have an answer and we don't pay them anything!

If I can't stop it, I won't contribute to it either!

Try to do good deeds, believe me it really helps in feeling better. We all should strive to do something good I don't know about the society but it surely helps in making our lives better.

Help people on the streets, there are plenty, old people waiting to cross the road.
You see someone with a flat tyre, signal out bring it to their notice
Biker with a lady riding pillion, and dupatta flying around, stop them ask them to be careful
Accident victims, we all are in a hurry but someone might need us more to be there.

The more we help others, it at least changes our outlook. You would then see that instead of focusing more on how many people are doing wrong every day, you would focus more on how many people need help every day!

Try it, will make you feel better!

[razorBlades]

Originally Posted by Trojan

Try to do good deeds, believe me it really helps in feeling better. We all should strive to do something good I don't know about the society but it surely helps in making our lives better.

Help people on the streets, there are plenty, old people waiting to cross the road.
You see someone with a flat tyre, signal out bring it to their notice
Biker with a lady riding pillion, and dupatta flying around, stop them ask them to be careful
Accident victims, we all are in a hurry but someone might need us more to be there.

The more we help others, it at least changes our outlook. You would then see that instead of focusing more on how many people are doing wrong every day, you would focus more on how many people need help every day!

Try it, will make you feel better!

Very true. When I wait for an elderly person or kids crossing the road, I feel better in thinking I did the right thing, which overcomes the frustration of the middle finger or the shouting which I get later.

We need to take pride in doing the right things. If we dont do it, no one else will. Hopefully that is where the change will start.

If we help some stranger, he might help another one and so on. Just like the videos which we see in facebook.

Things will definitely improve.. we just need to contribute and wait beyond our patience, patiently

[Soumyajit9]

Brilliant write-up and brilliant discussion.
Hellmet, you just spoke out our hearts.

One thing, just like phamilyman said, you either choose to be the sucker or the one to beat the shit out.

Simple, react according to the scenario. How the scenario is defined ? Based on your own judgement. No one can define a scenario for another.
In some cases, back off, in some go ahead and have a word.

I have come to terms with Bangalore traffic, people, infrastructure, costs, crime, etc etc. The quicker one adapts, the easier it is for one. I am not asking you to force yourself on something which you don't like. But there are somethings for which you don't have a choice. A House for instance. You buy an apartment in a jungle, anywhere in India, you can't guarantee that you won't be bound to hear bhakti-geet at 6 am.

[lazy]

Well......completely relate to all that is written here.

About 13 years ago when I finished my Engg, I did not follow the herd and decided to stay back in India, my country, pay my taxes and be a good citizen.
However, this country has become worse, much worse since then - lawlessness, corruption, no prompt medical facilities, no honest policing etc.

And while I took the decision to stay here and suffer, why should I make my little kid also suffer the same ?

A rational mind would emigrate to better-safer country. I am working on starting to think rationally.

[somitra1981]

Originally Posted by Trojan

Selfdrive gave a very good suggestion about cops, 'Name Dropping' does work.

This is the time tested method which even our parents use to survive in our small towns. But in urban context with white collar workers like us, it doesn't really help. I switch locations on an average every 2-3 years. So realistically do you think every 2-3 years you can build relationships with the cops/netas and use their names. I don't think so.

Originally Posted by Trojan

If I can't stop it, I won't contribute to it either!

Try to do good deeds, believe me it really helps in feeling better. We all should strive to do something good I don't know about the society but it surely helps in making our lives better.

Agree with this. You stick to your values, the circumstances should not change you.

[Guite]

Originally Posted by lazy

And while I took the decision to stay here and suffer, why should I make my little kid also suffer the same ?

A rational mind would emigrate to better-safer country. I am working on starting to think rationally.

I missed the bus but my son will not. He has already developed a dislike of the mess around. This is without any prompting from his parents. Just by watching Caillou, Noddy, Tayo, etc, he knows and yearns for the civility of other countries. I just have to keep him safe and patient for the next 20 years or so.

[vindrider2626]

I would suggest we change the indian penal code and introduce a new set of rules which are suited for our times. We are following the old and stale set of laws introduced by the english in accordance with the situation prevailing at that time in our country. Sadly even in rape cases we are not still able to impose capital punishment and the guilty goes scot-free. In my state recently the police have resorted to cancel the driving license of two wheeler drivers not wearing helmets and the move has imposed almost 99% compliance. This shows that we should resort to the hardest measures to make our people comply with the law.

Mod note: There are several punctuation/space errors in your posts. This negatively affects the forum experience for other readers. Please take care henceforth.

[GrammarNazi]

Nope, we don't deserve a single darn thing. We're fools to be taking risks, working our backsides off, TRYING to make ends meet so our 'Dream' comes anything close to reality!

This is an Automotive forum, so I'll put it this way :
When we buy a car, we're buying into an experience right? but then we pay for,
+ Exise Duty
+ Entry Tax
+ Value Added Tax
+ Premium for Latest Cars
+ Finance Charges
+ Road Tax
+ Cess
+ Surcharge
+ Toll fees
+ Expensively & Extensively Tax Laden Fuel
+ Traffic Policemen (Legal & Non-Legal Charges + Hassles)
+ Entry Permits (Legal Charges + Hassles)
+ Expensive After Markets (GPS, ICE, Mods etc...)
+ Expensive Maintenance Consumables(+ Hassles)
+ Driver & Cleaner Salaries
+ Driving License (Legal & Non-Legal Charges)
+ DEPRECIATION of the Vehicle Itself
+ our ALL IMPORTANT TIME & ATTENTION
=
What do we get back? A label saying, "You're the PRIVILEGED class, you don't deserve what you have".

Honestly, I believe atleast 60% of the TOTAL COST of OWNERSHIP (TCO) of a Car goes as illegal collections to the corrupt system we call the Government. Sad.

Edit : All this because we can't formulate to be a Vote Bank that can leverage itself to "BUY" Reservations against Votes. Call me crazy, but why not claim 'Automotive' as a Religion/Political Party & declare someone from here as our Party Leader!

[drsingh]

Although I have witnessed the incidents mentioned in this thread,the craziest incident I encountered happened as follows:

There was a truck getting fueled at a petrol pump and a big SUV was behind it and I was behind the SUV.

It took quite some time to fill the truck and the guy in front of me was honking pretty bad at the truck, The truck driver was waiting for some kind of receipt from the attendants.

Suddenly the Guy in front of me comes out of the SUV and points a pistol at the truck driver and grabs his collar. The truck finally moves out the way.but it was a pretty bizarre experience for me and happened in a flash.

A couple of my relatives who carry weapons always respect the weapon, and they always say they never point even an empty weapon out of rage.


I haven't seen weapons being pointed in public often, just the fact that you're carrying is deterrent enough, I was pretty dumbfounded that day and thankful that we have comparatively strict gun ownership laws in our country.

Anything can happen on our roads

Be prepared to take a hit on your car and respond smartly to the situation.It'll be easier on your mind if you put aside 10% of your car OTR mentally and be prepared for emergency repairs.

On a related note, don't escalate matters verbally at all unless you have a substantial amount to loose.

And don't expect people to follow road manners /rules. Keep your vehicle at speeds /positions to account for traffic violations.

We know how most drivers get their licenses in this country.You can't compare our country with Europe /America.

I guess you have to find your place in this chaos.

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by somitra1981

This is the time tested method which even our parents use to survive in our small towns. But in urban context with white collar workers like us, it doesn't really help. I switch locations on an average every 2-3 years. So realistically do you think every 2-3 years you can build relationships with the cops/netas and use their names. I don't think so.

It took me 20 minutes to strike a conversation with the cop, including time to get to and from the police station. You only need to mirror what the cop is feeling without sounding condescending. Just remember it is a meeting of equals. You are not there to salute the cop neither do we expect him to do that. One suggestion - please be dressed well. It makes a lot of difference if you go there as a decent middle class fellow who speaks to the point than as a bachelor type (floaters/ torn jeans etc). Yes they stereotype people, but we stereotype them too.

You only need to say enough for him to remember your face or name. In my case its easier because I speak decent Marathi for a non local sounding last name. That is usually my trump card as it breaks their barrier. You need to find your own.

Whether your effort is worthwhile is totally subjective. Normally I use it as the last resort. Usually I call 100 where they help out without throwing names. We just need to know that things are possible. There are hundreds of flats in my neighbourhood where people choose to crib and bear the nuisance. I choose to complain and it helps.

Originally Posted by Guite

I missed the bus but my son will not. He has already developed a dislike of the mess around. This is without any prompting from his parents. Just by watching Caillou, Noddy, Tayo, etc, he knows and yearns for the civility of other countries. I just have to keep him safe and patient for the next 20 years or so.

sorry to barge in, but it should not take 20 years for him to go. You could choose to move right away. the fact that you are still here indicates that there are some other reasons you may want only him to go, perhaps to college. But please also know the sooner he moves, the better it is for him to integrate. Otherwise there is whole new set of issues there too. Just check the immigration thread (to immigrate or not) here!