Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Indefinite Strike strikes again!

Private bus owners in Kerala were definitely on ‘Indefinite strike’. Well, Yet again! And No – This time it’s not over the mounting gas prices. They were protesting against the Supreme Court order of putting speed governors in the bus. They had affirmed that this court order was gross ‘injustice’ to the work ethics of their ‘very quick’ community. Their points were very legitimate and I feel that government and justice should not haunt these poor bus owners with ‘inhuman tactics’ like speed reduction. Let them contribute further to the nation.

These were reported to be their contributions to the nation as mentioned in bus owners/operators petition to the government:

1. We, the peaceful bus operators, know the worth of time. We made a decision - for our country, for its GDP rise, with nothing other than ardor in our mind – that we will risk our own lives to take our passengers at 120 km/hr so that time is not lost. Sometimes they don’t reach the correct place, but they still reach a place where they should reach eventually –Mortuary! See – We deliver the passengers early, sometimes by years.

2. While many research scientists in US are trying to crack the speed of light, we regularly shatter it with an extra 100 passengers through a special skill called ‘matsara ottam’ (competitive racing) in a special environment that can hardly be termed as road. You guys will realize our worth only when we get the Nobel Prize for this remarkable achievement next year.

3. All the big people made their mark by knowing the difficulties in life, and then climbing the ladder to their destination. If you see our bus in the morning, we train a lot of guys to become excellent people by making them climb the ladder behind the bus, and take them to destination. Some fall by, some reach there – but hey, that’s life!

4. When governments and police are trying hard to evacuate roadside shops in the midst of all these mobs, we easily manage to evacuate them by running into these shops every now and then.

5. We are able to envisage the future. Many a times, in traffic signals, we get the intuition that the signal will turn green within a minute, through our sixth sense. As described in point 1, why squander time when you know what’s going to happen – so we set an example by racing our bus immediately! Some idiots driving their vehicles seeing the green signal, without being able to predict their future signal to be red, become ‘futureless’ in the process. Very natural indeed.

6. Major aim of our nation is to reduce population. Leave the implementation part to us. Trust us, we will deliver. We do a CMM level 5 business. Maybe we will come up with some service license agreements with national population control forum.













As I was coming home sometime back, I saw a couple of flashily colored private buses full of people from North Kerala whizzing down NH47 for NCP-DIC merger, and prompty swearing in the most uncivilized language at a family with little kids in a car, for the heinous crime of stopping at a red signal. The merger is unquestionably heading to be a huge success for its 'humanitarian values', not to mention the liquor bottles that were circulating freely on the bus. And, just 2 weeks back, I saw a private bus running in Aluva-Ernakulam route overspeeding and jumping the HMT Signal, hitting an old man driving a scooter. As the man was lying in a puddle of blood, the private bus driver didn’t even show a bloody human emotion to stop and see if he was alive. Thankfully a flying squad came flying, and the man (who happens to be a shopkeeper near my place) escaped just in the nick of time.

It’s high time that some one jumps in and does something about these ruthless rogues. The callousness needs to be snapped by the décolletage. Be it through speed governors or through modern ‘Anniyans’!!