Inconsiderate India: monkey see, monkey do

Documentary footage of Indians celebrating their first Independence Day with smiles on their faces and little more than rags on their bodies made the biggest impression on me

Inconsiderate India: monkey see, monkey do

Documentary footage of Indians celebrating their first Independence Day with smiles on their faces and little more than rags on their bodies made the biggest impression on me. For a lot who had been suppressed for about two hundred years, some who had lost everything and the rest who who were displaced or had become refugees in their own country, it was a profoundly sweet moment watching their tricolour flutter even if the future looked bleak.

This drives me to ask the question, what legacy are we leaving for our children? The answer lies in the way we live our daily life our non-adherence to road rules, our total willingness to cut queues, our want to be made an exception for what is normal practice, our unwillingness to make way for women, children and the elderly in crowded buses... in short, our complete disregard for others.
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Our urban traffic planners have visited modern cities world over for ideas to implement in our country. Yet, it is entirely baffling to find bus stops near intersections. So called freeways been cut into numerous intersections. Lane discipline seems to be far too complex a theory for us to grasp.

Here is my humble thought: Much of the money we wish to invest in these so-called smart solutions may well be paid to the hard working policemen. If that lowers their temptation to be bribed, even better. Cancelling repeated offenders' driving for five years wouldn't be the dumbest idea either.

It isn't necessary to have the most hi-tech ideas for problems that can be solved with simple common sense. What we aspire to teach our children somehow passes us by with our counter productive behaviour because as the great saying goes, "monkey see, monkey do".

I quizzed some friends on the five most important things they want to teach their children. It surprised me that not one of them mentioned 'being considerate to others'.

It is frightful that we seem to steer away from reason as we develop as a nation. There is also little wisdom and hope for people who would rather be Tamilian, Maharashtrian,u00a0 Punjabi or Kannadiga than Indian.

Only when high living and simple thinking become the norm will our children will be our true reflections.

Shibu Arakkal is a city-based photo artist who has shown his work in India and around the world over the past fifteen years. Shibu is also a regular at the Indian contemporary art shows circuit