I see him every working day. He stands there at the same spot. He is regular and punctual and goes about doing his ‘job’ sincerely. I don’t know whether he ‘works’ on weekends because I don’t have to go that way during weekends. I didn’t think much about him when I saw him for the first time. But I saw him the next day, and the next day and the next and I have got so used to seeing him that whenever I reach that junction and someone’s blocking my line of sight, I crane my neck and look around to check whether he’s there or not, much to the irritation of my wife who thinks I am ogling at other girls. Now, before I let your thoughts go wild about my fascination for a ‘he’, let me clarify.
My daily morning trip to office takes me through a few major intersections of the city. I don’t recall the faces of all the traffic policemen who man each one of those junctions, even though, unconsciously, I see them every day. I do remember an old traffic police man who is posted at a junction near to a school and I have seen many a times, the awe with which little kids look at him and gather around him like a flock of ducklings and he keeps checking their count like a worried mother duck. And when he feels that quite a few of them have gathered, the superman police uncle walks into the middle of the road and raises his hands on both sides to stop the inconsiderate traffic and the kids tumble over to the other side. Other than him I don’t recall any other traffic policeman whom I ‘meet’ everyday, except of course, that silly fellow who challaned me for jumping a red light. I can pick him out from a battalion of his species any day.
But ‘he’ is different from all of them. He stands alongside a traffic policeman in the middle of a major intersection and helps manage the traffic. He looks like he would be in his forties and has an obvious paunch. He wears his religious cap and civilian clothes…wait a second…Religious cap and civilian clothes and manages traffic??? That’s what caught my attention about this ‘duty bound’ Miyan. The first day I saw him assisting the policeman while engaging him in a friendly chat and breaking into smiles every now and then, I thought he must be a friend of the cop and they must have met up after a long time. But it happened again the next day, only this time, the cop was a different guy. I guess nobody can blame me now for my interest, or rather, inquisitiveness about this Miyan at the junction. I have always wanted to find out why he was doing what he was doing and many times I have contemplated on walking upto him and asking him who he is. But on second thoughts, reason prevailed over curiosity.
One lazy Saturday evening some train of thought took me to that Miyan. Again the urge rose in me to explore the identity of that Miyan. While I was still thinking about strategies to successfully undertake “Operation Miyan Identification”, a flash of thought struck me. Let’s say for argument sake that I come to know who he is; but what after that. In case the reason for him being there turns out to be less interesting than what I had envisaged it to be, I would be disappointed. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if I involved more minds and came out with myriad possibilities of who he could be and what he could be doing there? And hence began my small project and the results, as expected, were very interesting.
“Koi pagal hoga yaar”; “Must be a cop who hates uniform”; “Maybe he’s from an NGO or a social worker”; “Maybe he lost a near or dear one in that junction”; “Could be some criminal sentenced to a term of social service”
Human thought process is sometimes unpredictable and very fascinating. A simple Miyan in civilian clothes assisting traffic turned out be everything from a lunatic to a convict to a respectable social worker. Even though it was interesting to collect these beads of thought, the social worker possibility struck me as being pretty close to reality because I was reminded of a “Traffic Baba” in Noida. Sector 18 in Noida is where ‘Noidans’ flock whenever they get free time. In the midst of all the snazzy cars and glitzy showrooms, a nondescript old man wearing a white cap, a white flowing robe which has turned brown because of the dust and smoke, can be spotted slowly walking in between the vehicles which have stopped at a signal. He hangs two large placards on his neck with one facing front and one facing back. The placard neatly lists down the most common traffic rules and precautions that we follow, or rather, we don’t. He also has a hand held microphone with a speaker with which he ensures that he gets his message across in case someone wants to look the other way..
People and local media reports say that he is from a well to do family and does this part time because of his heightened sense of responsibility to society. Whoever he may be, I have seen even the toughest and the most rowdy looking motorists relenting to his pleas when he comes beside them and requests once, twice, thrice and as many times as he can, in a tone which comes close to begging, to either buckle up or wear a helmet or stop behind the white line. He is least bothered about the sneers and taunts that some ‘normal’ mortals pass about him. Nothing stops him from doing his rounds of the traffic signal everyday and getting rebuked by many, just to ensure that roads are safer for everybody using it.
Whenever I think of people like the Miyan and the Traffic Baba, I feel a vacuum in my heart. I have read a zillion cases of people starting cancer foundations because they lost a near or dear one to cancer, of people plunging into charities because of some tragedy. Is it necessary that a tragedy has to trigger our sense of responsibility to our society? I don’t subscribe to a general feeling that to be socially responsible has to do with starting an NGO or donating millions to a cause. Putting a piece of waste into a dustbin is social responsibility, switching off computers when not in use is social responsibility, following traffic rules, standing up for a legitimate cause, giving and taking respect and a million other trivial actions such as these amount to us being socially responsible.
As long as we consider the Miyan at the junction and Traffic Baba as lunatics and convicts, I guess we have a long way to go before we can sleep peacefully without any fear of an impending crime or injustice that may victimize us.
My daily morning trip to office takes me through a few major intersections of the city. I don’t recall the faces of all the traffic policemen who man each one of those junctions, even though, unconsciously, I see them every day. I do remember an old traffic police man who is posted at a junction near to a school and I have seen many a times, the awe with which little kids look at him and gather around him like a flock of ducklings and he keeps checking their count like a worried mother duck. And when he feels that quite a few of them have gathered, the superman police uncle walks into the middle of the road and raises his hands on both sides to stop the inconsiderate traffic and the kids tumble over to the other side. Other than him I don’t recall any other traffic policeman whom I ‘meet’ everyday, except of course, that silly fellow who challaned me for jumping a red light. I can pick him out from a battalion of his species any day.
But ‘he’ is different from all of them. He stands alongside a traffic policeman in the middle of a major intersection and helps manage the traffic. He looks like he would be in his forties and has an obvious paunch. He wears his religious cap and civilian clothes…wait a second…Religious cap and civilian clothes and manages traffic??? That’s what caught my attention about this ‘duty bound’ Miyan. The first day I saw him assisting the policeman while engaging him in a friendly chat and breaking into smiles every now and then, I thought he must be a friend of the cop and they must have met up after a long time. But it happened again the next day, only this time, the cop was a different guy. I guess nobody can blame me now for my interest, or rather, inquisitiveness about this Miyan at the junction. I have always wanted to find out why he was doing what he was doing and many times I have contemplated on walking upto him and asking him who he is. But on second thoughts, reason prevailed over curiosity.
One lazy Saturday evening some train of thought took me to that Miyan. Again the urge rose in me to explore the identity of that Miyan. While I was still thinking about strategies to successfully undertake “Operation Miyan Identification”, a flash of thought struck me. Let’s say for argument sake that I come to know who he is; but what after that. In case the reason for him being there turns out to be less interesting than what I had envisaged it to be, I would be disappointed. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if I involved more minds and came out with myriad possibilities of who he could be and what he could be doing there? And hence began my small project and the results, as expected, were very interesting.
“Koi pagal hoga yaar”; “Must be a cop who hates uniform”; “Maybe he’s from an NGO or a social worker”; “Maybe he lost a near or dear one in that junction”; “Could be some criminal sentenced to a term of social service”
Human thought process is sometimes unpredictable and very fascinating. A simple Miyan in civilian clothes assisting traffic turned out be everything from a lunatic to a convict to a respectable social worker. Even though it was interesting to collect these beads of thought, the social worker possibility struck me as being pretty close to reality because I was reminded of a “Traffic Baba” in Noida. Sector 18 in Noida is where ‘Noidans’ flock whenever they get free time. In the midst of all the snazzy cars and glitzy showrooms, a nondescript old man wearing a white cap, a white flowing robe which has turned brown because of the dust and smoke, can be spotted slowly walking in between the vehicles which have stopped at a signal. He hangs two large placards on his neck with one facing front and one facing back. The placard neatly lists down the most common traffic rules and precautions that we follow, or rather, we don’t. He also has a hand held microphone with a speaker with which he ensures that he gets his message across in case someone wants to look the other way..
People and local media reports say that he is from a well to do family and does this part time because of his heightened sense of responsibility to society. Whoever he may be, I have seen even the toughest and the most rowdy looking motorists relenting to his pleas when he comes beside them and requests once, twice, thrice and as many times as he can, in a tone which comes close to begging, to either buckle up or wear a helmet or stop behind the white line. He is least bothered about the sneers and taunts that some ‘normal’ mortals pass about him. Nothing stops him from doing his rounds of the traffic signal everyday and getting rebuked by many, just to ensure that roads are safer for everybody using it.
Whenever I think of people like the Miyan and the Traffic Baba, I feel a vacuum in my heart. I have read a zillion cases of people starting cancer foundations because they lost a near or dear one to cancer, of people plunging into charities because of some tragedy. Is it necessary that a tragedy has to trigger our sense of responsibility to our society? I don’t subscribe to a general feeling that to be socially responsible has to do with starting an NGO or donating millions to a cause. Putting a piece of waste into a dustbin is social responsibility, switching off computers when not in use is social responsibility, following traffic rules, standing up for a legitimate cause, giving and taking respect and a million other trivial actions such as these amount to us being socially responsible.
As long as we consider the Miyan at the junction and Traffic Baba as lunatics and convicts, I guess we have a long way to go before we can sleep peacefully without any fear of an impending crime or injustice that may victimize us.
what about 'operation miyan identification'? debriefing awaited...
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