Hi-Tech fury

During my visit to Swiss, the best thing I liked about the country was the public transportation facilities. You can travel for hours in them without getting tired. I always wondered when we are going to get such hi-tech and clean buses running in our country?We didn't have to wait for long because BMTC did introduce hi-tech Volvo buses, similar to the one I had traveled in Swiss, in an effort to improve public transportation in Bangalore. These air conditioned Volvo buses have very comfortable seats, they play FM music , have uniformed staff and hence obviously come with high price. Price is almost double the regular fares. What I really like about them is the large clean windows and watching through them is a pleasure. They have been a fair success since number of office going people would prefer traveling to their office sitting peacefully in the bus rather than driving their cars in the peak hour traffic.

The Other side of the picture is that they come as an evidence to existing large income gap. For the people who can't afford these price , its a mobile statement of their comparative poverty. One can see looks of envy when they see people traveling in such buses. Clearly this explains why mob set a Volvo bus on fire when it was involved in an accident on airport road last week. When I saw a news channel interviewing the people near the accident spot , I saw couple of them making this statement on the TV- "Just because the driver had an hi-tech bus how can he be so careless while driving and neglect the common people on the road?". Agree the bus driver was at fault, but was there a need to set the bus on fire? Would the people have reacted similalry if the accident involved a regular BMTC bus? I don't think so.

We have seen a similar mob fury on the hi-tech buildings across our city during Dr.Rajkumar's death. They start throwing stones whenever they come across a glass building. Clearly it shows that people are trying to take out their frustrations on these so called hi-tech buildings, buses, cars whenever they get an opportunity.

I do sympathize with these people since they dont have access to these buses, but its no way right on their part to attack public property either in mob or in isolation. I wish more action was taken on the people who are involved in such incidents.