• Recent Posts

    Boozing Traffic

    No sooner Ms. Nooriya Haweliwala rammed her car into a police patrol van, which was specifically positioned to keep a vigil on drunken driving, the Delhi attitude of, if anyone can do something good, we can always do better came to existence. In no time, to compete or to overtake Mumbai on drunken driving, one spoiled brat rammed his car with a vegetable vendor, who was cycling back to Azadpur Sabji mandi for his morning business. In both the cases the results were fatal, only the sorry part was the innocents who lost their lives while the culprits boozed their way to the police custody.

    Ms. Haweliwala
    admitted of loosing control over the car because she has to lift her head up in a desperate attempt to take a sip from the beer can while driving over 100 Km/Hr. By the time she finished taking the sip, the car has already rammed into the patrolling van and to the poor motorcyclist who was strangely giving breath analyzing test. The end result: the poor chap relieved of his breath while giving the breath test and the police SI who was taking the test was later relieved of his breath in the hospital.

    If this was not enough, on the same day an air hostess rammed her car in Kolkatta while driving with the influence of alcohol. Thankfully there were no causalities but the lady is heard to be struggling with her life in a private nursing home.

    Now what all the Haweliwalas tell us? that there is something going grossly wrong with our society where in to be part of the so called modern culture, we are even ready to put our own lives in danger, let alone caring an ounce for others. Some say Ms.Haweliwala is one off case in Mumbai as drunken driving is a completely North Indian phenomena same in line with molestation, which maximum believe is a North Indian prodigy. if statistics to be believed, then definitely the north part of our country contribute a majority chunk to both drunken driving as well as molestation, but somehow I feel it has got more to do with pan India presence. More precisely a metro culture at least. All four metros and the up-coming metros are contributing handsomely to this epidemic.

    Delhi has a long history of producing drunken drivers of highest carder. From millionaires to the DTC bus drivers, it seems Delhi also offers a rare variety for the hapless deceased to choose. Whether he would prefer to die under a BMW or a smelling DTC/Blue Line bus. Sanjeev Nanda infamously did the act sometime back when he preferred to drive his BMW in the footpath than the wide Delhi roads. As a result mowing down at least 7 people on that fateful night. When tests were conducted on him it was figured out that one could have easily opened a pub with the amount of grog Nanda's stomach was containing. Every now and then death of one or the other under Delhi buses has definitely some connection with the Devdases (Strictly in terms of gulping down the liquid) driving them. Guys caught while driving under the influence of alcohol generally get some strong reprimands and most of the time just left Scot free by offering few hundred bucks as bribe. When somebody unfortunately looses his/her life for the bravery of the driver then the media harps over the case for few days so that it comes to the knowledge of all Indians in turn forcing the cops to book the culprit under Culpable Homicide not amounting to murder. The bail for this crime is readily available and the culprit gets off the hook within no time and back behind the wheels with a bottle of beer in his left hand. No wonder the Sanjeev Nanda case dragged upon for close to a decade at the end offering little to the poor souls.

    Authorities around are struggling to zero in on a fool proof plan to curb this menace. Few are even smugging the idea of employing plain clothed watch dogs in front of all those places which serves liquor and pounce on anyone and everyone who comes out with a shaky leg and goes behind the wheel. So to say to nip them in the bud. But this could not be a fool proof plan as there are so many black market outlets present in every city.

    Even if the cops might be knowing their exact location and their owner's name and PAN card no even, they won't voluntarily disclose the details, which would turn few revolving eyes towards them. Banning of alcohol completely would be one option though the idea might not go too well down all those who make a fat wallet out of it. How about formulating a law banning boozing in public places and naming all those pubs, hotels, bars, roadside dhabas, illegal liquor marts as public places, suggested one. Naa.. Not possible, as we would loose quite a hefty amount that we take as gift while sanctioning licences to all those places, replied a babu. So we are back to the same bottle again. The only option left, is to keep on continuing using the breath analyzer kit to see the jaw strength of individual patrons. Please spare me from this exercise voiced the Pappu Kangi look-alike Havildar. If it was not for my once in every half an hour peeing habit, I would have easily been the third casualty in the hands of Ms.Haweliwala.

    Thank god I got the urge to relieve myself at the nick of time. Pappu Kangi looked genuinely grateful, both to God and his peeing habit. How about educating students from early days in colleges about the repercussions of drunken driving? What rubbish. Uttered the Babu in chief. How can we teach guys about drinking when we are not even allowed to show some one drinking in Televisions. This would be grossly against Indian spirit. Last thing I want in the pursuit of curbing down drunken driving is to annoy few folks back their in our Information Broadcasting ministry.

    So the meeting stands cancelled till we get some fresh ideas on our hand. Till that point please continue using the breath analyzer kits, this time keeping a safe distance from all those Haveliwalas and Nandas. If possible get in touch with guys in IT industry like Nandan Nilkeni or Narayan Murthi to figure out if we can have technology helping us doing this exercise remotely without endangering ourselves being in the firing lines of all those spoiled brats who prefer boozing while driving. Get going gentlemen and I want some concrete results soon.

    No comments