Underage Driving

Drunk driving and underage driving have been a part of our society and continue to be so. And as a routine it takes either a celebrity or a very gruesome accident to open our eyes to bring out such issues in public eyes. In this case it was Aamir Khan.
Looking back had it not been aamir khan, this issues of underage driving would have never been exposed. So we are all thankful to aamir for 2 reasons, First for taking the time out of this extremely busy schedule and helping out the 83-year old victim and second for being "The Aamir Khan".

Just picture this - If it was someone else offering help to the 83 old victim- Would it appear on the front page of Mumbai Mirror? Would there be such wide coverage in the media? Or Would we have this very blog in the first place? Answer is obvious to all.

This blog is not about celebrities and their role in our society. We need more celebrities like Aamir khan. But on the same token we as individuals should be equally responsible.

Chetan Bhagat in his Mumbai Mirror article has rightly pointed out the 3 reasons for underage driving. 1)The frequent need for a certain kind of excitment in life 2) The ever growing desire for independence and 3) Dependency on peer pressure. I agree with his justification for the 3rd reason, that being a youngster's decisions are not taken by himself/herself; more often than not, it's the friends deciding for them. This is why the problem cannot be addressed at the level of an individual;it must be dealt with at a group level. So true.

We in our individual capacity could counsel or advice all such youngsters.

Wish you safe commuting and Happy New Year

Another eventfull year has gone past. Hope all of you had great fun.
Thanks to the diligence of mumbai traffic that 800ish new year revelers were caught for drunk driving. All those who tested positive for alcohol were put behind the bars. What way a creative way to start new years!
I went for a drive from bhyander to bandra and was pleasantly surprised with the number of security check posts. This is a quick post to wish all of you a great year ahead and wish you success. I will continue with my story in my next blog. Have fun !

Early days for Roadmannerz.com

Ok guys, I need to confess sumthing here. Work on roadmannerz started almost 4 months back, goes back to early august. Today is the 16th of december and looking back I feel i could have dedicated more time towards roadmannerz and made it go live asap. But in the inital stages life was very difficult. I had sent heaps of emails to every web designer, developer and other creative guys from mumbai, chennai, all over india. My email spoke to them about the intentions of roadmannerz, its vision (at this stage vision was blurred coz even i wasnt clear in my head) . I was really surprised with the responses i had to my email. How much would you pay me? What can i expect in return? Why should i get involved in this project. Sorry I am too busy for this and the list goes on & on.
Of the countless emails that i had sent, i hesitantingly had emailed a guy from UK, i dont know why i did this , but looking back i m thankful to myself that i did it. Thankful coz, this guy from UK ( His name is Jack Learner, well known professional designer) replied to my email and he was eager to know more on roadmannerz.com. Now this was completely unexpected. Why would a guy be interested in knowing what plans i have for mumbai let alone india. He is a full time designer by profession so obviously he wouldnt have time to get involved in Roadmannerz (RMZ). Anways after discussing with jack, he offered to help me with rmz. He didnt promise me but he said he would try to work in his spare time. And remmember guys, there was no monetary benefit involved for Jack and he was made fully aware of this fact ! Jack not only designed the positively fantastic logo for Roadmannerz, he went on to design the webpages.

Now here is jack, based in Uk, helping out a guy from mumbai, for a cause dedicated to mumbai traffic, for mumbai people and making the life of mumbaikars a touch easy. I am both disappointed and happy, disappointed coz when i was desperately expecting help from indians no1 offered to help (now these indian designers were creative, probly creative with the excuses they offered) and happy coz jack offered his services, his time and was fully commited towards roadmannerz. I would have been happier had even a single indian soul extended his/her help. My disappointment from fellow indians didnt last for long though ! Next blog - more on conditional indian support :)

First Blog on Roadmannerz

While travelling from home to work and on my way back, I always criticised the infrastructure, roads, pollution, traffic congestion,faulty traffic lights (list is endless). And not to my surprise, I wasn't the only one frustrated about traffic in mumbai. There were and still are hundred and thousands of daily commuters like me, who would just talk about list of things that Mumbai RTO should do ! Nothing has changed and nothing would change if we just talk and do little about it.

I thought maybe I can try something different - say, give something back to the society by reducing the traffic congestion and in a way cut down on air and noise pollution. So i thought of Roadmannerz.com. And soon i realised that transformation of a thought into action is not an easy task at all ! Next blog, i will share the initial challenging stories of this interesting journey :)