community service

Just now read a report about a tanker mowing down people sleeping in foot paths in a north indian town. I know India is complicated with people who have no place of their own , so where is the question of community arises, vis a vis my previous article.
But our community projects have to include them also those individuals who are unfortunate to be in lower stata of society and the middle class and upper class have to be forced to do something about it stopping the blame game.
Since I am drawing all my thoughts to the experience I am gaining abroad , the thought flows are going in that direction only. There are many more methods to go about it but these also I feel can be given a trial.
Here the school grades are connected with the community activity the kids do. points are given for the community service and it is a must for kids of high school to do certain hours in any community activity. For example the work in church is considered as community activity. I saw my friend's child working in the temple. The temple runs a vegetarian eatery profits of which go to the temple fund. So this kid was working there helping taking orders at the counter. This is a honorary work which she did in week ends which added to her credits in school which is a must.
This can be extrapolated , and like shram daan, it can be made compulsory for school kids, especially in the elite schools to do few hours in week ends anything from spending time in an old age home, or teaching kids in the slums, or keeping the surrounding clean. all this if can be done in orderly way with tie ups with many social organization, will help our communities to improve.
I don't know how it will help people still sleeping on the pavements but at least it will make our kids aware of others.

controlled democracy

I always wonder if there is any thing which is called controlled democracy. But I happen to use it many times these days. I see lot of orderliness and best infrastructure in the countries I visit . I feel there is certain level of descipline, and work culuture which is needed for this, in day to day life. This comes only by compulsion or fear of authority which is what I like to call controlled democracy.

In India we feel democracy means the right of every individual to do what he/she wants to do. We feel it is all about the rights of citizens without a care for the duties of citizens. We just are not bothered about the community as an entity and are bothered as individuals and our immediate family and friends.
This can be explained by simple examples which I have seen.

In America one has to keep his lawn mowed and kept properly otherwise any body living in the community in which he lives can complain and action will be taken. This intially made me feel that it is absurd and an intrusion of individual rights and I wondered if it is a democratic country or is it a communist country where you are all the time afraid of the authority for every small thing you do.(that is how I visualize communist country after reading about common people of China and Russia). But when I started thinking about it I understood that our front yard is part of community in which we live and it is the duty to keep it proper.

Similarly, I see people who take their dogs for walks always carryng a plastic bag and a showel with them. This is to clean after their dog and put it in a dust bin. You have guessed it right. If they don't do it and get caught they have to pay a fine of 50 dollars. So you don't have to bother about your neighbour's pet spoiling your courtyard every morning and making you livid.

Any individual can complain about the neighbour being loud with music or simply noise. This is taken care of at basic level. when one is living in apartments the complaints are left with the managing office and they immediately send a note to the concerned people. By and large the problem is solved at this level itself.
This may not be practical in India, but at least we can put a stop to the loud speaker music and loud public addresses.

The houses and apartments can not be painted in some jarring color and has to stick to the basic colors decided by the community. so that is why it appears rather drab for people like me who are used to the variety of color and structure back home.

This point I understood in a place called Sedona in the state of Arizona. It is a tourist spot where they are very particular about being green. (what ever it means) The Mcdonalds chain of fast food joint, was not allowed in that place until they agreed to change their colour in their logo of MCdonalds from yellow to green. They intially resisted and then had to bow to the community pressure and the Mcdonalds is green there and the guide pointed this proudly to us.
The traffic police is quite powerful here. When ever driving, if a car flashing with a blue light is following, then they have to stop in the side of the road. It might be for speeding, or not stopping at signal or any other violation of traffic rule. He will issue what is called a ticket and if it is a first timer he will be let off after he agrees to attend a correction class where they teach about traffic rules. Others have to pay a fine and apart from it the individual's annual insurance fee also goes up considerably with every ticket. I understand after x many tickets the individual's licence can also be revoked.
Compare this with our great Salman khan who killed people without a licence and going scot free and continues to commit greater crimes and is gaining publicity for all this and getting more film offers.

This I see in singapore also that even if you just pluck a flower in a public place you are liable to a fine. and you can imagine what will happen if you violate traffic rules and other basic stuff.
In Malaysia I see lot of private buildings making way for public transport system, seemingly smoothly taking alternate sites. There may be some legal tiffs which is not publicized but it is solved quite fast in favour of public interest unlike our country where a stay order from any court can stop any public work.
This fact keeps emphasised in my mind when ever I travel in the east coast road from chennai to pondicherry where the road has to take a bend as there is a huge property of some influential person who refused his land to be taken away for the road to be straight . That place is accident prone because of the sudden narrowness.
when are we going to learn to give importance to public interest over and above personal interest.
This can happen only by controlled democracy when we are afraid to commit day to day small offences like not following road rules, and not follwing basic community rules and there is an authority to question it.

library

Well today I could get the books I wanted from the local county Library. This is the system I like in United States of America. Each county has its own nice libraries with lot of books and it is all free. All the taxes paid (as for as I know house tax and what other tax I am not very sure) goes to the maintainance of local roads, schools and the libraries to name a few facilities for each county. (such a great decentralization) schools are also free, but it is indirectly paid for by the residents who are living in that county. Each city is divided into counties, the size of which I am not aware. Each child living in that particular county (the home address falling within that county) has to be admitted to that particular school.

Back home kids are un necessarily travelling a long distance just because parents feel a particular school is prestigious. and it is becoming such a dangerous thing as so many kids are crowded in any old van or worse an autoriksha.

Now coming to the original point of library, few of the libraries I have visited in different parts are so good and stocked with such good books and so neatly maintained.

I remember in Blore, the district libraries used to be good but now I am not aware how it is, but i know that we need many libraries so as to have a library easily accessable by all citizens . There is one place called World Culture (we call it that I don't know what is the full form as even now people call it by that name) near krishna rao park in basavanagudi, which I remember visiting as a young girl and sitting there quietly with so many lovely books around me and not knowing whcih one to read and being quiet itself for usually boistrous children was a great experience.
I think each locality has to come up with some good library as reading is so important that it opens an window to the world outside.

standardizstion

I happen to read an article in readres digest, how in certain states people can grow other than grass in their front yard and no need to mow your lawn which can be replaced by some wild flowers or anything you wish. This set me to think which I have been observing from my few visits to this country.
Americans are so used to standardization that any house any where has proper places for everything.
their washer drier for example. all properly set water out let etc and just fit in and hey and presto everything is ready which ever corner of states it is. compare this with back home where we have different type of washing machines where it is a pain to fit in different type of houses, (i call it custom built or random built or what ever,) everytime you move you check for the proper place to keep the washing machine and where to fit the outlet and if you go for another model then it is a bigger pain everything has to be changed from the start.
same with the cots and beds. it is all so nicely standardized that it fits like a T when ever you buy a new addition or a separate cot or bed or bed linen. compare this with home furniture. you have thousand and one or more dimensions to cots and it is a big pain to match the cot and the bed and many houses manage to stuff some stuffing so that the bed looks proper!! on the unmatched cot size.
this standardization i was able to observe in malaysia also. The most amazing thing i felt though it might appear trivial and silly the mops and the bathroom plastic brooms fitting like should i use again the phrase T. which ever breaks the handle or the broom just go and pick up the other part and it will just fit in . you can just pick it up from any place from local store to the big supermarkets. I think we Indians take the beauty in diversity to extremes and two mops will not compliment with each other even if you buy from the same store and some time same model.
so far so good.
what I am coming to is the standardization being dragged again to the other side of the pendulum.
So when you go to the chain of stores like say Walmart which we are shortly expecting to open shop in India, has all the goods stacked in the same order in almost all the place. Like people here drive cars by rote, I think they will also shop like this, go in, turn left , fruit section, straight ahead sugar , grocery, further down milk , and so on.
Even if it is little changed people get impatient and want their routine to be not altered at all. So all houses also have same color, sort of similar interiors with few variations and every thing has to be same and very userfriendly.
I find it kind of wierd and after some time you do get bored and want to see things differently. If you have seen one you have seen them all kind of feeling crops up. shopping especially in such places becomes a real pain though a necessity . you dont enjoy shopping you just do it as you have to do it.
I remember how i felt seeing chandigarh for the first time . i felt it was so drab and looked an extended military colony.
let us learn some useful standardization and stick to that.

confused

well this is my first attempt to post my thoughts in electronic book. it is so easy to write in a paper. hope i become used to typing my thoughts into computer. hope to have a great time with this.