Modern life has essentially come to be about pace and competition. Whatever you do or desire to do you want to become the first. In the process most of us have thrown civic sense out of the window.
The most scarce commodity in your life apparently is time. You just have no time at all and you need to do all the things that supposedly make you lead a modern life successfully. Doesn't matter if you are just taking your pet for a walk providing all the toilet facilities available on the road or if you are just chatting away eternally on your pc and mobile or if you are queuing up endlessly for a movie ticket; because, all such activities are must-do on your time calendar.
Contradictions are and have to be only the rule. You are ready to chat endlessly, but get terribly annoyed if you don't get connected in the very first try; you are ready to wait endlessly for a movie or theater or match ticket, but you seem to be in a great hurry and want to be the first to alight once the show is over; you are ready to spend the full evening before your television set, but get terribly annoyed if your friend keeps you waiting for the same reason; you are ready to partake, but get terribly annoyed if someone overtakes.
Basically, you want to be the first in everything you do because you have no 'time'. Chivalry also becomes passé as 'ladies first' no longer seems to matter. The fields of activities that suffer worst in this process are public utility services, roadside manners and driving.
We would like to focus here specially on driving because this particular activity is fast becoming a nightmare in every congested city or metropolis.
Every single driver wants his/her vehicle to just zoom past always irrespective of the traffic conditions or problems faced by others. And mostly, every driver is obsessed with his/her vehicle and that s/he is always right whatever happens.
Well, the time-constrained drivers have some unique problems too. Like some parking at will, bikes crisscrossing all around you, some driving talking to their sweethearts, some pedestrians who seem to have all the time in the world crossing roads at great leisure even after seeing cars racing towards them and so on. But these are only highlights of the same malady of 'first' achievers.
Many of us know the classic tale of the two obstinately foolish goats who tried to cross the bridge at the same time leading to unfortunate consequences. Now, this 'goat mentality' may be termed as the basic reason for the turmoil in modern human life.
Hardly joking! That day in a vital link highway in Mumbai, traffic was at a standstill both ways. Crawling and creeping and cursing every inch of the way ultimately the partakers found the reason why. Two cars-one coming from the right lane and the other coming from the left-locked their horns in the middle trying to zoom past in opposite directions at the same time.
Historians are silent on exactly when-in proper chronological period- the two goats locked their horns. But considering the manifestations, demonstrations and orchestrations it seems very much to be a modern-day phenomena!
Chinmay Chakravarty is a professional specialized in the creative field with over two decades of experience in journalistic writing, media co-ordination, film script writing, film dubbing, film & video making, management of international film festivals and editing of books & journals. Proficient in providing professional services in these related fields. Presently working in Mumbai Doordarshan as a News Editor.
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