Why are we so entitled and uncivil? - Mega Rant

So just now, I am in my car at a signal waiting to make a legal U-turn. There are other cars and autos behind me waiting to do the same. There is a divider to my right next to me with tall shrubs planted. It’s one of those intersections where on green, the opposite traffic flows, and I have to make the u-turn when I see a break in the oncoming traffic which flows at quite a speed.  At appropriate time, I make the U-turn only to collide with a two-wheeler which is driving on the wrong side and that too almost hugging the divider on their side. No one’s hurt, nothing serious, a fender-bender. 

Tamasha time. 

These two guys right away get down from their bike and start abusing me. I try to pull to the side so that we can resolve the matter and also the traffic behind me and the oncoming traffic can make way. They block me. So now my car is half-turned, sideways occupying more road than necessary. Soon crowd gathers. There’s honking, cars, autos going around, chaos. The signal changes, so the traffic from the other side charges in, only to be stranded in the middle of the intersection.  Even though I am shit scared for my life, I get down and consciously being polite, I ask them to move our vehicles to the side, but no go. I understand, by being aggressive to pre-empt me pointing out that they are literally on the wrong side of the road and that they’re at fault. Don’t need to go into more details, as we have seen these incidences. A tall hefty shopkeeper, who must have witnessed the whole thing, comes to my rescue. He starts off with maa-behen gaalis to those guys, goes 2-inches close to their faces and I am thinking he is going to thrash them.  They back down and leave. 

What happened here? A law abiding citizen, following traffic rules came close to getting extorted for money or worse get beat up for absolutely no fault of theirs. I am not naive, I could understand them extorting money if I was at fault. What shook me up is them being riding illegally on the wrong side and still had the audacity and balls to publicly take an offensive stance. You need 8 pair of eyes to drive in India. Because it is yours and yours alone responsibility to not only safeguard yourself and your vehicle but also save other people’s lives, their vehicles, their emotions, their pride, their misplaced self-importance and attitude.

Before anyone says “India is not for beginners”, I am born and brought up In Mumbai. Yes, I made a mistake of going abroad to study and work for a decade. And then made another mistake of coming back. I can honestly say, all the civic sense, common courtesy and collective responsibility (especially on the roads and public places) that I have learned, I have learned abroad. I should be punished for following that in my own country.

After I migrated back, I would show indicator for every small turn. A childhood friend mocked me “Oh you are so American now! Nobody looks at indicator here!”, I told him, “I have learned few good things abroad and I will keep following them” I was laughed at. So we also have this mentality of not only will I not follow rules and regulations but also put others down who do follow.

Who taught everyone to drive in the middle of the road and then have this attitude of “You go to your left if you want to avoid collision. I will drive in the middle!” It would be funny if it was not dangerous. I call it Raja complex. This is generational trauma of everyone wanting to be the Raja and but remained praja.

If I have a meeting at say 11:00 a.m., I will reach there by 10:55. Of course nobody else is there on time.  And this happens every time. So much so that one time, the person setting up the meeting said that I reach there on time and have to wait, so he called everyone else half-an-hour early. So say 11 for me and 10:30 for everyone else. I reach there at 11 and STILL nobody is there. Once they trudge in, they jokingly suggest that I am a lukkha and have nothing else to do so I am always on time. This is systemic folks. Arriving late at the meeting is seen as a power play. I literally feel like crying while laughing. No you are not he powerful person here, you are just a vendor, and should be thanking me.

During Covid, children in our housing society would play in our open parking compound in the evenings.  My wife and I would go for mini strolls downstairs at times. And I see football getting bounced off cars, including ours. Kids are putting badminton rackets, water-bottles on it, they are leaning on it. Not just our car but 3-4 cars. So I request them to not use car as a table. I even lugged down a folding table for them to use but no, they kept at it. Eventually and as expected, side mirror got damaged. So I complain to the chairman and secretary of the society. And because they have been living in the society for many years before us, they think they own the society and how can the kids not play in their society? Okay, at least tell them not to damage other people’s property. No, no one else is complaining, why are you? Blah blah. I gave up.

This is not just about cars, recently did renovations of a flat and employed a contractor, got bedroom doors made through is carpenters amongst other things. One door is noticeably tedha. I can see it is leaning on one side, the contractor refuses to accept it. There are 10-12 workers in there, I ask them to tell me its not tedha, they all look at me like I am stupid, like they’ll go against the contractor who gets them work. So I ask them for a leveller. They bring this concoction of a thread and some water thing and says, the door frame is tedha. Boss, you only made the door frame. Oh shit, he realises, measures again and with straight face tells me the flooring is uneven. Him and his workers sate at me straight face, like I am a ch**ya. If I ask the builder, he will say the earth soil is tedha. This was one such instance amongst several for the whole flat. The guy never miscalculated or did anything except perfection as per him. Never accepted any mistake (there were several glaring ones). It is draining, exhausting and one gives up after a while.

Last week went to buy some chocobar at a local Kirana store. His guy picked out the bars. I check them and almost all are broken inside. So I tell the owner that they should not accept such broken ones from their supplier. Legit he takes a bar, over the plastic he brings the two broken pieces inside and joins them, “Keep it in the freezer for half an hour, it will become one piece” he tells me. But that’s not the point, I am paying you full price of a chocobar that is supposed to be a one single bar. I walked out.

And it is not just uneducated or illeterates, but also educated and well off people. Few years back, we were taking a train back to Mumbai from a small town in the north. Since it was a last minute thing, my MIL drove us to the station. We are at the ticket counter in men’s line, my wife is in women’s, whoever gets their first. My MIL comes after parking the car, straight away jumps the women’s queue and buys the tickets in 3 minutes flat. My wife and I are embarrassed, my wife is scolding her mother. That is all well and good, but the astonishing thing was, nobody, not a single person objected. Yes, I am sure some of it was because it was a woman, but none of the 10-12 women in the queue said anything. Basically, when it comes to us individuals or our families, if needed we all will take advantage of others because “Once in while it’s okay yaar!”

I was seeing off a friend. He got on the 2-wheeler, his 6-year old son on pillion. I was telling him, exit the gate, go left, make a u-turn and then go straight. Well he saw there is another cut towards his direction, but for that he will have to go small distance on the wrong side (similar to two guys on the bike from the beginning). I told him there’s usually a policewala at the corner. He laughed it off saying, If he catches me, 100 rupees is all I need to get away. Now, his 6-year old son has subconsciously learned that not only it is okay to break a rule, but if caught, it is okay to bribe as well. He went wrong side just to avoid going around a bit.

People cross streets like they are strolling in a park. They legit don't look sideways. It is everyone else’s responsibility to make sure they are not harmed/ 

I know we all have all gone through struggles like these, but it’s been 11 years since coming back from abroad and in that period I find we are becoming worse. This post is not about how west is better than us etc. This is not political either. Increasingly, there’s absolutely no accountability, no regard, or fear or respect for rules, regulations, laws. No fear of repercussions, it seems like there is bitterness in people that’s just wants to scam or punish others. I don’t know. It is sad actually because we will never change. 

Now I understand why we can’t produce global products, why it is so dificult for Indian companies to become big globally. It is exhausting to get anything done correctly.  

That’s it. End of the rant. Thanks for reading.

TLDR: Accident due to others driving wrong way. People cover up incompetency with attitude, uncivil behaviour in public places, entitled behaviour, ready fight always