The Primrose Path to the Everlasting Bonfire: Roads in Hyderabad.
A major problem afflicting this city is the problem of traffic. This problem, which haunts city dwellers everywhere, is more acute here given its small size. Hyderabad is a rather small city as compared to other metropolitan cities in India. The city has developed and expanded rather rapidly in the last five years, given the IT boom. A sudden increase in investment from foreign companies has resulted in a large section of people finding they have a lot of money to spend. Hence the chains of Reebok and other name brand showrooms, hotels, clubs and pubs, and a lot of privately owned vehicles. However, the rate at which the roadways and traffic organization are expanding, is not at par with the rate of social change. This disparity is best evident in the confusion on the roads morning, noon and night.
The roads of Hyderabad seem to have been suddenly overwhelmed by the deluge of drivers rushing post haste to all these new places of interest and entertainment, not to mention the offices in the IT hubs on the outskirts of the city. People reminisce about the times that their lanes and alleys were unclogged with parked cars and motorcycles, when a visit to areas like Madhapur was a small trek of sorts through vast expanses of unpeopled wildernesses. People in these places even remember seeing wolves and foxes at night, even three years back. With the onslaught of this Industrial Revolution, all wild animals have been forced to evacuate their hitherto peaceful abodes and seek refuge in clumps of intractable stony land that constructors have skirted around, wandering out by chance only to scare drunk partygoers and unwitting labourers and to make a meagre headline in the dailies.
Lucky animals them, since the plight of the average city dweller is a sorrier one. Everyone everywhere seems to be in a hurry. They cannot be blamed, since they will not get anywhere on time if they are not in a hurry. Whether owners of small cars, or larger ones, of motorcycles, bicycles or just two legs, the road is a scene of daily riots.
Add to it a bewildering array of drivers of rental cars, auto rickshaws and the occasional horse carriages, and we have a grand carnival of stuntmen and stuntwomen with death wishes on the roads of Hyderabad.
There is no peak hour - every hour is a peak hour. The roads have no respite from the constant flood of traffic. Plus, the most interesting phenomenon is the total apathy to the neatly drawn white lines that divide the road and seem to say something by being there. Possibly the need to look ahead is taken rather literally by the drivers and pedestrians as implying “Do not look left or right or even down, just look ahead”. The bad road sense largely results from this indifference to the concept of driving in lanes. On the whole, it is a problem of discipline – a problem that is characteristic of most cities in this country. The idea of driving in lanes is bypassed by the ingenuous concept of squeezing into gaps, which seems to be the only applicable concept on the roads of Hyderabad. Lacking adequate supervision from Traffice police, every individual assumes the title of ‘King of the Road’ and seeks to make full use of the benefits of his royal status.
The remedy to this affliction, as can be said of every other affliction in general, lies in the hands of the people. Firstly, one has to acknowledge that the other person beside us, in some other (maybe larger and better looking) car, is a human being with some feelings and commitments. He or she too has a family to look after, a train to catch, a meeting to attend, or a surgery to undergo. In this city, it is wonderful to notice how the normal pedestrian too contributes his fair bit to the increasing confusion by walking as if the whole road is (a) empty, or (b) his garden. White lines on the roads are not mere designs and pavements are not merely to enhance the look of the city. The Traffic system has to change too. Traffic rules have to be imposed with more stringency. Fines ought to be levied at every instance of misconduct around the year, not merely during the end of the month periods when the Traffic Police are roused out of their sluggishness to detain and book a few miscreants to show their superiors that they have been working. Fines ought to be made more than empty threats. And posters such as ‘No Dunken Driving’ must be corrected. Every man on the road has to become aware of his responsibility, rather than just his rights. And when this awareness does not come from within, it has to be imposed from without, at least till the time the circumstances change for the better.
