Thursday, June 16, 2011

Reality strikes

Yesterday, June 15th was the reopening day for all schools in Tamil Nadu.  Coimbatore too was no different. For two months now, the roads especially in the mornings between 8:00 and 9:00 have been traffic free. And then, overnight everything changed. The entire stretch on Avanashi Road starting from near the Anna flyover all the way to the airport was screaming with children and their parents in all forms and shapes of vehicles. It is nice to see kids on the road, cheerful and going to school. Usually, on a normal school day, this road has heavy traffic but nothing like yesterday. So, caught in the jam and knowing that there was no way I was going to reach college on time, I decided to enjoy the jam. I started looking around, analysing how many people were travelling in each vehicle. I was alone in mine(we, my husband and I travelled together till our work places were diagonally opposite). Most cars had a parent and kid, or a driver, parent and kid. And there was tension, on the drivers and parents face. Most of the kids were unfazed by the turmoil around. Kids were dressed all in new - new uniforms, new bags and there was a certain calm in their faces maybe after the long period of vacation.

Back to the point, the whole cause of so much traffic was parents being sentimental and wanting to drop their kids personally on day one. So, instead of going by a school bus, or an autorickshaw, here they were closeted in a car and taken safely to school. In the midst of all this, there were people who were vomitting on the road - no not children, but parents. They are not used to this chaos and I guess it was too much for them.

So reality strikes me then. After two months of luxury on the roads, it is time to get back to normalcy. This is how it is going to be till the next vacation. There's no chance of seeing a vacant stretch on the roads for sometime now.

2 comments:

Reynald Susainathan said...

Exactly, one can witness the effect of over-population. The traffic signals are highly crowed, leading to increase of CO2, which could be higher than 10,000 ppm. People become uncomfortable waiting for the traffic signal. Its dangerous to inhale air containing CO2 greater than 600 ppm, as it combines with the hemoglobin making the blood freeze. This effect of CO2 on hemoglobin is an irreversible process, leading to paralysis. Its high time that the government realizes thee need for effective town planning to control higher traffic and implementing better means of pollution control.

Reynald Susainathan said...

Exactly, one can witness the effect of over-population. The traffic signals are highly crowed, leading to increase of CO2, which could be higher than 10,000 ppm. People become uncomfortable waiting for the traffic signal. Its dangerous to inhale air containing CO2 greater than 600 ppm, as it combines with the hemoglobin making the blood freeze. This effect of CO2 on hemoglobin is an irreversible process, leading to paralysis. Its high time that the government realizes the need for effective town planning to control higher traffic and implementing better means of pollution control.