Stuck in an immovable traffic jam, just when your legs fight to find some legroom on the streets, pungent smoke irritates your two important sense organs—the ears and the nostrils. You adjust your scarf/mask to check the amount of what-not gases and then another sense organ gets terribly affected—your ears—by the incessant honking of the horn by (I would say) 'insensitive' people.
Already our capital badly suffers from bad traffic system—with narrow roads, abundant street vendors and scarce sidewalks--on top of that people pretending to be blind and not realizing the vehicles ahead cannot move until the vehicles before them don't move, adds woe to it. They, no matter whether there is space for the vehicles to move forward or not, blow horn, assuming as if the 'noise' they/their vehicles make petrifies the rider/driver ahead to clear the road.
Why have a 'don't-care' attitude? Lets respect such signs.
Now here, think for a while and lets be honest, haven't we done that before? Haven't we seen no-horn signs/zones before? How often have we paid respect to it? Haven't we, ourselves, been irritated by the ear-piercing pressure horns? You must have heard the two popular pressure horns that have the tunes of the Bollywood hits—Kajra Re and Dhoom Macha Le?
And one more thing—have we (let's be real honest) ever thought whether people were carrying babies on their rides/drives? Did we then think, those fragile ear-drums could be affected by the high-decibel sound that our horns produce? If you were really honest, you must have an answer by now. I don't want to sound preachy, but I really think we, the 21st-century civilized people should be enough thoughtful and wise to not irritate others and play with others' audibility. I am on a campaign—"I don't honk", are you with me too?
Hope such a situation does not come!
3 comments:
we live amidst 'insensitive' people and we are surrounded by smoke exhaling monsters... shortened roads and flooding mass walking just below the overhead bridge for crossing road. I'd be dreaming if i think of Kathmandu, noiseless and blowing fresh air... it'd be my heavenly town if i get back home or reach destiny even being captive of traffic jam...
will we be able to live is such dream land...???
lets be optimistic Binju...maybe if we all bring back that sensitiveness in us, then maybe we could change the situation. and also, you could join this campaign..
I respect your views regarding smoke and noise pollution in Kathmandu. Even though it is easy point out that matter, it is very difficult to implement it in a society where it has become a norm of using horns frequently. This would not be the case if people just followed basic traffic rules. At the core level, I feel that it basically comes down to the mentality of a person. I wouldn't categorise people as being 'insensitive' as you have mentioned above. However, I agree with your views regarding excessive honking and its effect on us. I'd be more than willing to join your campaign and hope many others follow your lead.
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