Group Think!?!?

Pune has become very crowded in the past few years! Even I can feel that difference when I was young and today!
With the increase in the traffic, there are increases in the accident rates too! I was traveling back home yesterday at about 9.15 p.m. and there was this huge traffic jam on an over bridge that happens to be on the way to my house! Now usually, this bridge is not at all crowded! But since I was in a hurry to reach home, I took another route which takes me from underneath the bridge.
And then I saw a huge mob standing beneath the over bridge, with a lot of police around and glass smashed and spread all over the road. There were a few public transport busses standing there with all the glasses broken. I immediately recalled a similar incident that had happened on the same road. Of a college girl who had been hit and run over by a Public transport bus. It was horrifying that time when after the incident the entire residential population there had come on the roads and had almost destroyed the bus!
It was a similar situation yesterday, I thought!
This was confirmed by the news paper in the morning.. a 12 year old boy had been hit by the bus and died on the spot. Only that it was a private bus this time. The angry residents again had gathered on the road and destroyed 2 public transport busses. Now I really don’t know the fault of the PMT’s.
If you consider a different perspective to all this, after this kind of incident, is it worth to destroy a public transport bus? I mean to say that, finally who is going to be affected by this kind of an act? The government??.................. I don’t think so!
The affected are going to be the tax payers of India from whose hard earned money, these busses run! Ask the people individually, they will agree, but when these people are with a mob, their thinking power seems to seize and they enter what we call the mob mentality! Then for them nothing is wrong. What they are doing is correct and justified!
I don’t know if there are any solutions to this mob mentality or group think as we call it! But shouldn’t it be stopped? Shouldn’t the police or we try and do something about it? Or it will go on and on like this for ages to come???

Diwali - The festival of lights

When I was young, diwali always meant loads of goodies to eat and lots of crackers to burst! When I grew up, sometimes I feel angry towards my elders as to why they didn’t stop me from bursting crackers?
But why must I blame them? It is an individual decision, isn’t it?
I need to confess to myself that I didn’t stop bursting crackers because I thought of all the pollution that happens. But it was an incident that made me feel, that probably diwali is not at all about just bursting the crackers! Later on, eventually, I came on the level to think about the amount of pollution it causes…
I was a kid at that time. Where I lived, it was one of the busiest streets in our city. Right in the heart, there are all the residential complexes in that area. In all the excitement of diwali, there was a sudden yell! Everyone rushed to the building exactly opposite to ours.. And there lying was a boy in whose hands, by mistake, a cracker had burst and his hand was burnt! It was a very painful sight…….
And then it dawned on me that all this excitement can suddenly turn in a dreadful nightmare to which there can be no end. So many people may get hurt because of the crackers. So many people might be suffering because of the immense noise and the smoke that they have to breathe. Simply enough, they do not have a choice over the air they have to take into their lungs day in and day out
But we as individuals do have a choice of not polluting it!
I always tell people whom I meet that please don’t burst crackers as far as possible. First question they ask me, “Why not??”. At first I used to be shocked to get this reaction! I mean, even after so much of awareness created of the pollution that the crackers are causing, people ask this kind of question! I really spend a lot of time on this issue every year, simply because even if I can convince one family per year, I think it is worth it!
And we as citizens of this world, must do whatever is in our hands. And this is my bit towards it!

Blogs!!

Blogs!
I used to read the blogs of my friends & acquaintances. Many write the technical things in that and many the personal!
Frankly, I never understood why blogs are for? May be for sharing ideas, may be for sharing happiness, may be for sharing sorrows and gain sympathy or just for making new friends! Isn’t it easy to share your views to the people whom you don’t know? Sometimes talking to the world, just makes you feel better! And probably that’s what the blog is going to be for me! A source to let out my feelings… so that at the end of the day I know I have told the things to someone which I cant tell my near and dear ones for the fear that they might get hurt!!!
I hope my ideas, my way of thinking is useful to atleast a handful of people. And if it is, trust me, the pleasure is all mine!!
So that’s that for the first entry and for the cause of finally welcoming myself to the world of blogging!