My salute to the Undisciplined & Impatient Indian:

Based on general observations & various incidences that I stumbled upon, one thing that would characterize an Indian is lack of discipline garnished with impatience. Personally, I feel that it is impatience that leads to being undisciplined.

To support the above observation, I reckon some incidences:

The only incidence that strikes to me is when I was riding with Ashish on his bike, waiting at a railroad crossover. We waited for about 15-20 minutes for the “fatak” to open. It was basically at that time, when I decided to pen down this article. During that time, we saw innumerable number of people, sneaking below the rod with their two wheelers. Some simply tilting their scooters while others had to do lots of adjustments to shove their bikes, so as to pass through the closed “fatak”. What was surprising here was that the whole act was being done with so much of confidence & courage, as if no train would be passing & the “fatak” had left closed, mistakenly. It was done in most simplistic manner – approach the “fatak”, the pillion rider, if any, would automatically step down, the rider would tilt his 2 wheeler, bend so as to pass through below the rod, walk with the vehicle over the track, again bend the vehicle when they came across the other side. Once having crossed it, they would earnestly start the scoter / bike & just vroom away.

Another interesting point to make here is that most of these two wheelers had their rear view mirrors removed so as to pass through the “fatak” without much of hassles. Probably they must be passing through it regularly. So, basically, in order to pass through, even though when it is closed, they risk their & other vehicular class lives, when riding amidst heavy traffic (recollect those lane cutters, who blame it on lack of mirror, when confronted with).

Being a Mumbaikar myself, I realised that it is not only in Mumbai that people are worried & concerned for every minute. In Mumbai, the aforesaid behaviour is evident during peak hours. While some are fighting their way to board the 7:04 train to Dadar, others use their elbows to shoo away the slow movers, so that they can take the timed BEST bus to reach office. Agreed, in Mumbai, if a person misses his scheduled train, it may affect his entire day.

This particular attribute is not applicable to the average Indian only during travelling, but even in other aspects of life. Be it during dealing with the municipal or governmental authorities or searching for alliances for their son(s) / daughter(s).

It is this impatience, which leads people to spit at the nearest corner, thereby proving to be undisciplined, rather than spot a nearby spittoon. It’s the same impatience that breeds indiscipline or corruption (as in case of bribing “Chai-Pani” to the “havaldar” – the need to scuttle way freely even after violating the traffic rule, to avoid the hassles of touring the police station, in case the license gets seized). The impatience which leads these people to cross a heavy traffic area rather than waiting near Zebra crossing or using the designated subway or foot-over-bridge. The same impatience plays major role when you see an Auto rickshaw nosing his way in a T-Junction or while steering a U-turn.

There are many other characteristics that may be ascribed to being impatient – callousness, indecisiveness, and indiscipline, but in root, impatience qualifies to be the major culprit.

If you are an Indian who’s reading this & if you want to differ on my viewpoint, you may very well comment on this. If you agree & still if you would like to comment, please do so.

Waiting Impatiently for your comments…