Everybody has their nightmare. Mine is taking the public
transport in Goa. I dread those steps I take towards the already crowded bus
preparing to hold my breath for a long time. Goa’s public transport system
offers you the unique experience of how sardines feel when they are packed in a
tin. It doesn’t help that some of the sardines have gone bad (if you know what
I mean).
Hanging on to dear life I watched incredulously as the
conductor tried to fit a family of five inside the already full bus. Oh no! He
spied a tiny space left for a child to breath and he assured the family they
would fit without any complication. Unmindful of the din the other travelers
were making he managed to squeeze five of them and himself in the tiny space
while the poor child was squashed against the window. Congratulations to the
conductor but how the bus managed to move will always remain a mystery to me.
To top it off there stood the “11 standing” sign, clear as day as if to mock
me. Another thing the conductors are experts at is rounding off! If the bus
fare is eight rupees they round it off to ten if it’s eighteen they round it
off to twenty and so on. God forbid the person who asks to return the change!
After all this ranting I do not get off such buses. I take
it twice a day and I am a silent sufferer to the squeezing, shoving, pushing
and suffocation. And why is that you may wonder? Me, like the others have no
option but to stick it out as the conditions are the same for most of the other
buses. The numerous potholes and the narrow width of the road do not do any
wonders for our stability and sometimes our sanity. The authorities seemed to
have developed a blind eye towards this blatant flouting of rules and do
nothing about this. The entire concept of road safety is a farce here with
little or no concern for the rules and regulations. Just having a road safety
week celebrated once a year is not really of much help because it is not
something to be practiced or publicized for a week. A solution needs to include both the public
authorities and the people themselves.
Widening of roads, imposing strict sanctions against overcrowding of
buses, running the buses on schedule etc would go a long way in solving this
problem.
Next time, think twice about entering an already overcrowded
bus or if you can point it out to the concerned authority and ensure an action
is taken. Public transport is supposed to make the lives of people easier not
become a death trap travelling to hell.
No comments:
Post a Comment