MERI MARZI!


Ok, now this is something I just don't understand. Or maybe that's because I am soft in the head just like the foolish Pune Police force who has many-a-times tried but horribly failed to enforce the helmet rule.

What is it with the Pune public refusing to don helmets when driving their 2-wheeled chariots, for their own safety? Are their heads as hard as their hearts, providing them protection from all kinds of injuries, physical and psychological? Or has God bestowed on them a boon, a few fools such as me are unaware of.

Wearing helmets leads to spinal problems and hair loss they say. These brave hearts are also unable to drive properly because the helmets are heavy and do not let them hear anything. According to most, if people ride slowly on local roads, they negate the chances of accidents, and the need for helmet laws.

The logic is indisputable. Hair loss, hearing loss, spinal issues can destroy a person, his family and his happy life. So, when experts say that even at 20-30 kmph, a 100 kg scooter with a 70 kg human on board has more than enough momentum to cause serious head injuries and brain damage, or kill them, they are only spewing bullshit. Because, now again, remember, if you are killed or sustain serious brain damage, it can't destroy you because you won't remember anything, would you?

Such brilliant insight leaves me stumped every time I stupidly advise a friend or acquaintance to drive with a helmet on. Now, these are educated (literacy does not equal education BTW), well-off people who think nothing of driving around with their infants and toddlers and children with no protective head gear at all. As for the so called uneducated, poor class able to afford 2-wheelers, I have no words at all. They have not learnt their ill-fated lessons and refuse to do so till their last dying breath, because poverty they believe, excuses them from everything.

Born and married into the defence forces, where rules such as these are strictly enforced, I can't imagine driving a 2-wheeler without protective head gear. I have driven a motorcycle, and a scooter when younger but have yet to experience the agony of the heavy helmet on my head.

So, while on the one side we lament the loss of our soldiers and pilots due to faulty equipment, lack of institutional and government support, we are very happy losing the entire population of Bermuda - twice over - every year on Indian roads. We are a democracy and no one, absolutely no one has the right to force us into anything.

I bemoan the scarcity of common sense, I seriously do, but I can't help but salute the daredevils who are the true heroes of our country undaunted by the cruel world of traffic mismanagement, speeding and uncaring motorists, bad roads, and most important of all, remain gallant even when facing the idea of death and injury like only a true soldier can.


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