How not to have common road sense

Kolkata seems to revel in the chaos on the roads, as if that represents a unique character of the city to feel proud of. It does reflect a uniqueness that is symptomatic of diseased minds. I doubt you’ll find perfectly intelligent, cultured decision makers indulging in mindless activities on the road anywhere else as you will in the city.

Let’s take some examples.

First on the list is the most privileged group of businessmen, the street hawkers. They occupy the pavement, spill on the road; they earn the ire of the people who face them on the road everyday, they earn the wrath of the court who directs the government to remove them. But alas, nothing happens.

Let me turn to another enfant terrible, the 3-wheeler autos. The only good thing about them is that they have become a necessity in many parts of the city. Everything else is bad about them, including the traffic chaos they create, the harmful fuel they burn, the uncouth behavior they exhibit, and so on.

The third on my list is the abysmally casual approach with which the traffic movement in the city or the lack of it is planned by powers-that-be. A few instances will tell you how.

Quite a few flyovers have come up in the city in recent years. They are built well but the ones on AJC Bose Road or at Park Street crossing do not have arms between 2 ends to disperse traffic more effectively.

Then there is the growing impasse at the EM Bypass. This new arterial that shows every sign of burgeoning traffic every passing day has 2 strange roadblocks in the form of traffic islands at Ruby and Science City.

It feels so strange that the intelligent planners they think they are failed to imagine only a few years back as to what may result if the traffic islands remain when the traffic increases. Lately though there are plans to make the Bypass drive-worthy.

If you survey the scenario impartially, you’ll be left shuddering to know that these same men are planning city’s future 25 years hence.

Kolkata presents a picture of anarchy, and it’s a shame on us that even though the city has many inner strengths, it is still looked at with derision and indifference by the visitors from outside.

Is it any wonder then that Germany’s Nobel-winning author, Günter Grass once famously said, “Why not a poem about a pile of shit that God dropped and named Calcutta..“