Just wanted to take a moment and salute all the Mumbai policemen and Traffic police cops....I do know that some of the things that anyone of us would think of, the moment someone mentions "Police", is usually all the corruption, brutality, harassment and probably numerous other unmentionables. But gradually I also realised how difficult their jobs must be.. how tough it must be to handle so many people, to stand guard and protect us through various terror attacks to simple thefts... manning the various check points, nakabandis, traffic signals, through heat of the summers to the pouring rains, through the raising pollution levels to harrowing peak hours....24/7.... and most of the times being even ill equipped themselves...( it does make me think how cozy our jobs are and yet we still have people cribbing about ACs and company buses and canteens )... So next time you see a lone traffic constable desperately trying to manage the huge peak hour traffic, at least give him a smile and a say a small thanks to all such guys in your heart.... and so it goes back to my basic principle in life...we cannot always look at the bad things in life or negative part of anything...We got to believe that there is always a positive side to everyone and everything...!
As Ajay( my son) and me stood there in the balcony feeling the lovely drizzles of Mumbai's very own "Mungaru Male", Ajay suddenly said..." Ma...Auto rickshaws are so cute na... small and little and going so fast in all the directions "... and then I realised looking from our balcony up there, with their yellow and black colours and 3 wheels rotating, the autos on the road did look small and cute.. ... and whizzing past here and there.. and it made me realise that I never thought of autos in that way before. I always thought of them as a means of transport when I am not driving, cursed the auto drivers when they refused to come to the destination that I wanted to go, hated them when they criss-crossed and almost scratched my car ..etc.
And then we started counting the number of Autos going in one direction and we were amazed to note that we saw 84 Autos in exactly 4 minutes and this was at 8.30 in the night. It definitely made me wonder how many Autos must be plying in this huge city and how many commuters must be using them to reach nooks and corners of Mumbai city and how many families of these Auto drivers must be surviving on our daily transportation... and the numbers seemed staggering when I considered it proportionately. We also wondered what that would mean in the entire country when we put all the numerous cities, towns & villages that use Autos...and how many other countries in this world can compare with these volumes of mini transportation. Are there even many other countries using Auto Rickshaws like how we do in India? .....Next time on the road, I would probably look at the Cute Little Auto rickshaw with a new found interest and respect :)
