Are our cities bursting at the seams?
Are our cities bursting at the seams?
A ground near Mackenzie middle school, Gulzar Bagh, Patna
Ashok Rajpath, Sabzi Bagh, Patna
Lives in cities are moving fast but speed of traffic is getting slower and slower. The situation is almost similar in all third world countries. Indian cities are not exception. Though there has been regional tinge and local flavours that mark little difference. Every year thousands of cars and vehicles set out onto roads. These motors flood markets, roads and other open spaces. Planners are struggling to stretch the city land. Hide-&- see-play is very common between city administrators and encroachers. The poor and homeless resort to streets and roads as their lost heavens. Moreover, they also sometime feel the touch and weight of BMW when they come under it.
Nano is now a big challenge to these street and homeless city dwellers. Those who manages motor bike could manage to keep nano-darling. The car could shower some sort of prestige to lower middle class besides providing little ease and comfort, and help them to step into their big brothers’ shoes. So, a competition between nano owners and homeless citizens is about to begin.
Think! What will happen when you have to rush(god forbidden) to hospital in an emergency? In patna I see every day ambulances honk but others don’t budge a single inch. See the traffic situation in the photograph of Ashok Rajpath. There is no place to give pass to ambulance. Every one is struggling to squeeze other and budge ahead. It is really difficult to remind about morality when you are stuck in the traffic jam in these cities and you do not know whether you will take an hour or whole night to reach to your dear one.
This is not an outcome of a day or a year. It is accumulated consequence of faulty developmental processes and socialization. Developmental activities had always been oriented towards providing services. However, some efforts had been made to organize society through developmental activities but it did not pay the dividend. For example, ‘community development programme’, social forestry, etc. tried to inculcate social responsibility but its spirit is shunted to the background both by ‘executive’ and targeted beneficiaries.
Step-motherly treatment of rural folk has bled their hearts, and they seek solace by changing their loyalty to urbanity. They migrate to cities & towns and consequently their burden is also carried on to the cities and towns. Calcitrant city dwellers, who could otherwise be managed, have also made the city ride miserable. In Patna, we see that only a few riders/drivers create havoc by violating the traffic rules. The more shocking is that no body objects such behaviour and consequently the whole traffic is thrown to stand still. The grip of regulations, rules, etc. are loosening every minute.
There could be many reasons for tumbling the society into the plunge pool. But dearths of open spaces/parks/playgrounds in cities also help in diluting the conviction of rules, regulation, laws, etc. and leading to chaotic situations. Playground is something like workshop for children. It provides them opportunity to translate the values and morality into practice which they learn in their class rooms. This is done through various means like games or other extracurricular activities. They learn to realize the importance of rules though various awards and rewards. However, with the increasing demand of English-medium-education, schools are cropping up like any thing. Most of them are unregulated and are having dearth of basic infrastructures. Their main concern is to mint money and hence playgrounds remain the least bothered item in the list of desirable needs. and so children are denied of a healthy school environment.
Moreover, the open spaces/parks are similarly workshop for grown up persons as well, where most of the social activities take place. These places further enforces the social norms, values, rules, regulations as the healthy social interactions take place viz. marriage, party, pass time, etc. Besides, these places also provide opportunity to demonstrate the rules of interactions to the young one. Therefore, playgrounds/parks/open spaces should be visualized in proper way.
However, the burden falls on the educationists and social scientists to find the interface between strong conviction of values/customs/rules and open spaces/parks/playground.
