Our President Abdul Kalam explains it so well.
He asks how is it that Indian behaviour on matters of hygiene, courtesy and integrity changes over night when we arrive in Singapore ?

The answer. my friend, is not “blowing in the wind” but in law and order enforcement !!

George

Your forgiveness is all that matters

Dad

I didn’t even know you had written this piece – just happened to be surfing the Net as I was jetlagged and couldn’t sleep.

As always your article was very interesting and as always I have my 5 cents to add..…..

I absolutely agree about chaos in most circumstances and I was glad to hear that your Independence Day celebrations went off enjoyably & peacefully. While I submit that it is nice to have at least a few disciplined & peace loving people around, it is my firm belief that in most cases chaos exists because the authorities allow it and in some cases even encourage it. (e.g. Bombay riots in the early 90’s) I recall you wrote about it in a TOI middle.

I always wondered why there is so much more order and discipline here in the US as well as in London & other European cities I have visited. Even my mother commented on it when she first visited us in San Francisco about 10 years ago and later on her subsequent visits to the US. I am sure you have been abroad often and visited Europe as well as America and must have noticed this too. Was it because the American & European people were just born with better genes and that is why were better cultured. Was it really possible that even though we are all human there could be such a big difference between the races? I reluctantly admitted that this was true till August 2005. Do you remember Katrina and what happened in Louisiana? Do you remember the absolute chaos and confusion in New Orleans including the robberies, looting, raping, child molestation etc that went on?

Now, how do you think this could happen in the US, land of the superior & disciplined people?????

The answer was obvious of course…..
It was because there was no law enforcement there during those days. For reasons that are not quite clear, the authorities failed to respond and once this was apparent, it was not just confusion & chaos, it was absolute anarchy.

Do you recall something similar happened in Bombay at the same time? I’m sure you remember the heavy rainfall and flooding in Bombay. Well, Bombay had it much worse than Louisiana, Mississippi and all the other affected places put together. The rainfall was around 10 inches in LA while it was over 37.5 inches in Bombay. There were a lot of people displaced too in Bombay just as it happened here, but Bombay did not experience any looting etc. In fact I believe people were being very helpful and hawkers were offering free vada pavs etc to people displaced by the flooding. This was one of the few times I was proud to be a native Mumbaikar.

This got me thinking again and I realized that the superiority of the white race was a myth, as also the difference in genes and that Indians inherently possess bad genes. People are the same everywhere irrespective of whether they are white, brown, black, yellow or anything in between; and unfortunately there are those that shamelessly disregard the law and give everyone around them a bad name.
If there was better law enforcement in Bombay & the rest of India, there wouldn’t be so much of chaos & confusion around. If there were fines for littering, spitting on the road etc, Bombay would be much cleaner and last but not the least, if there was more traffic control, it would be much easier to drive in Bombay. I drove for almost 6 years; when I lived in Bombay but now find that impossible. The traffic gets worse every time I come down.
Here in the US if you as much as change lanes without signaling, you could get a ticket.

When I first arrived here, I had a hard time breaking in as I was so used to driving in Bombay without any rules and got a couple of tickets in the first 6 months. You probably know the consequences of a ticket here. First of all, you have to appear in traffic court and pay the fine, then your insurance rates go up and as if that is not enough punishment, I get a firing from my husband which lasts for about 2 weeks.

All we need is good law enforcement and then discipline will follow automatically.

Sheila Titus
Houston