Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Social Sense

Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses play a vital role in my daily life; since they are my only means of commuting from home to work and back. It's such a 'pleasure', 'fun' and 'adventure' traveling in BMTC buses, one can realize it by personal experience alone. If you ain't traveling in BMTC, you definitely are missing the cruise of life for sure!

I always try to keep myself calm and relaxed while in city buses, in spite of all the drama happening around; mostly ending up falling asleep* (*if at all I get a seat to sit). Many a times I do wonder, how on this earth am repeatedly ending up sleeping in a crowded public shuttle? that too in BMTC! Does this effort of mine deserve an applause??

It was probably 6 months ago by now and an early morning when I (as usual) managed to (literally) jump into one of those speeding buses busy running a 'rat race' towards their common destination. Hardly I could find a few other passengers in the bus, who were still showing signs of discomfort recovering from their adventurous act of getting into the bus. Though the tupperware box getting burnt by the hot rice packed by my wife inside bag needed all the air gushing in from the window, I luckily could slide shut the glass shutter with ease (sometimes the windshields seldom move and some would have no handles, while few others might have went missing!).

While numerous PHP codes kept on dancing in joy for me being unable to put them right into the logics, a guy in his mid-teens gave a blasting entry with his cell phone singing aloud an old Kannada 'melody' - PREETIYALLI IRO SUKHA GOTTE IRALILLA.. HUU ANTIYAa? UHUU ANTIYAa..?? With this, my PHP application trying to find a way in executing the given logic crashed at once.

"Excuse me.." I spoke instantly
The guy looked at me, in response
"Can you please put your headset on?"
"I don't have one.." he complained
"Then, please mute the sound"
"Why should I?"
"Don't you think it might disturb others around?"
"Now a days drivers have FMs playing loudly in buses, would you go objecting at them too?" - an elderly-'looking' man interrupted and advised me "You cannot control things in public places.." while the song was still on and loud. Following this, couldn't even think of debugging my crashed codes for rest of the day; I was (sort of) upset.

It was only yesterday, I saw a notice displayed in one of the BMTC buses, which read:
Translation: BMTC, Head Office, Shantinagar, Bangalore - 27. Notice for passengers & students: Playing music loudly from mobile phones in buses causing noise pollution and inconvenience to co-passengers is prohibited. It is a punishable offense. Please co-operate.
On reading this, I felt more unhappy than happy; for in this modern educated world, people tend to forget, neglect and never try to understand even simplest things unless enforced by law; the need of the hour seems to be 'social sense'. Sigh..

8 comments:

  1. SIgggggggggh Applause applause for you first of all for traveling by BMTC it needs lots of courage!!!

    hmmm people seldom follow rules :(
    And good u wrote about it I dint know it was a rule!!!

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  2. Thanks so much, Ramya, for the applause :o)

    Even I wasn't aware it was recently made a rule?! Anyways, it's good.. yet bad too..

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  3. Hah, after reading your note, I remembered by college days traveling in BTS bus (It was BTS then). It used to be a good one hour sleep (both ways).

    I agree with you on Social Sense, another example would be driving on Bangalore roads. There is complete lack of discipline on driving in single lane, speed limit, Honking, Over taking etc......

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  4. Vivek, very true.. can never forget 'those days' you traveled in BTS/BMTC. It's a lifetime experience for sure :o)

    Right! I strongly feel that 'social sense' is lacking everywhere in our Society. Also, it's the right time for youngsters to 'wake up' and bring about a 'change' in everything.

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  5. ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಕಳಕಳಿ ಮೆಚ್ಚುವಂಥದ್ದು. ಈ ನಿಯಮದ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ಸಹ ತಿಳಿದಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆ ಮಹಾನುಭಾವನಿಗೆ ಜೋರಾಗಿ ಗಲಾಟೆ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡು ಹಾಡು ಕೇಳುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಕ್ಕ ಸುಖ ಏನೆಂದು ಗೊತ್ತೇ ಆಗಲಿಲ್ಲ.. :-)

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  6. ರಾಜು, ನಿಮ್ಮ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವುದು ನನಗೆ ಸಂತಸ ತಂದಿದೆ, ಧನ್ಯವಾದ :o)

    ಹಿಂದೆ ಇದ್ದ 'ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆ' (common sense) ಎಂಬ ಪರಿಕಲ್ಪನೆಯನ್ನು ಈಗ 'ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆ' (social sense) ಎಂದು ಅರ್ಥೈಸಿಕೊಂಡರೆ ತಪ್ಪಿಲ್ಲವಲ್ಲ?! ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಜೀವಿಗಳಾದ ಮಾನವರಿಗೆ ಇದು ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಅಗತ್ಯ ಹಾಗೂ ಕಡ್ಡಾಯ ಎಂಬುದು ನನ್ನ ಕಲ್ಪನೆ.

    'ವೈಯಕ್ತಿಕ ಸ್ವಾತಂತ್ರ್ಯ' (individual freedom) ಹೆಸರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆಯನ್ನು ನಿರ್ಲಕ್ಷಿಸಿವುದರಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಅರ್ಥವೇನು? ಎಂಬುದೇ ವಾಸ್ತವದಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಮುಂದಿರುವ ಬಹುದೊಡ್ಡ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ.

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  7. ಮೊಬೈಲು ಬಂದಾಗಿನಿಂದಲೂ ಈ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ ಇದೆ. ಇಂಥ ವಿಷ್ಯಗಳು ಹೇಳಿ ಕೊಟ್ಟು ಬರುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ಐದಾರು ಸಾರಿ ನಾನು ಜಡ್ಡು ಹಿಡಿದು ಜಗ್ಳ ಆಡಿ ಬಿಡ್ಸಿದಿನಿ.

    ಬೋರ್ಡಿನ ಐದನೇ ಸಾಲನ್ನು ಗಮನಿಸಿ: ... ಉಂಟುಮಾಡಿ,... ಅಂತಿದೆ. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಮಾ ಬರುವ ಕಡೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೊತ್ತು ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಕಳೆದ್ರೆ ವಿರುದ್ಧ ಅರ್ಥ ಬರತ್ತೆ. ಎರಡೆರೆಡು ಸಾರಿ ಓದಿ ಅರ್ಥ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕಾಯಿತು.

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  8. ಶ್ರೀಕಾಂತ್ ಅವರೇ, ನನ್ನ blog ಗೆ ಸ್ವಾಗತ :o)

    ನಿಮ್ಮ ಮಾತುಗಳು ಸತ್ಯ.. ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನ ಬದುಕಿಗೆ ಪೂರಕವಾಗಬೇಕೆ ಹೊರೆತು ಮಾರಕವಾಗಬಾರದು. ಇದನ್ನು ಅರಿತು ಅಳವಡಿಸಿಕೊಂಡವರೇ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞರು.

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ಖಂಡಿತಾ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆಗಳನ್ನು ತಿಳಿಸಿ. ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳು!
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