The discussion on The March

Yesterday was a very interesting discussion brought out by Hema didi. She was talking about The March against corruption and terrorism organized by WAYE (World Alliance of Youth Empowerment – www.themarch.in ) on 1st March, 2009. The aim of this March was to bring people together to raise awareness against the rampant corruption, which has gripped our Nation since Independence. Everybody of us wants to see a change, yet nobody of us are taking a step towards it….The chalta hai or Kya kar sakte hain attitude seems to prevail eternally….

This March was to come out of this shell…to shake up. …And become aware that we together can make a difference….

Instead of a hundred thousand people there were only ten thousand people who were active enough to participate in The March…This included people from RTI institutions, college students, and working professionals…There was a peace march organized where all of them vowed to bring awareness on corruption in the society and bring an end to it….

They all had a noble intention in their hearts…To make India – the Land of Bharata…Corruption free…I am with them…Although it seems an infeasible task we still can make a difference…and that’s what those 10,000 odd youths came out to do….Claps, shabbasis..and all the hails and support to them….

However, I also found that, such an important and conscience provoking event was not covered by media…The media cover could have really made a difference…A small broadcasting on the event could have made a difference across the Nation…I am still perplexed why the Media did not take any action….When they want to make a difference and bring the corrupts to the book….I would like to ask all the Big Newspaper agencies why they failed to cover this news in their dailys…

When Hemadi was discussion this issue, I was thinking on the other levels of corruption that are prevalent in our day to day lives…

Usually I feel very frustrated and helpless when I see a septegenererian man or woman standing in the congested bus and youths of my age occupying the seats oblivious of the very human fact that they should help the old and offer their seats to them. Many a times these oldies are waiting in the bus stops without having a seat for them. And when they enter the bus, they would not be surprised to see a young guy sitting on the seats meant for old people. Although you find some gentleman who realize the fact and vacate the seats, the majority hardly cares…

I have always wondered when this will change…One solution to this is bring the civic sense amongst the people and make them aware of Human values. If not for young at least for the old people who now need a stick to hold their weight.

Then an idea struck suddenly…bringing civic sense is humungous task and might take a long time…a short time and a beneficial idea would be starting a bus service exclusively for the old people. Where only the senior citizens with an accompany is allowed to enter and strictly preference is given to seniors for a seat. Ah..This is a wonderful idea…Why didn’t it struck to the Bus Transport Authorities ?

Now that it has struck me…I would like to make arrangements so that we could implement this…What it needs is a public – private partnership…We the people can act as private agency to build up the will of the public organizations like the Transport authorities to make such provisions. All they need to do is use the regular buses in which a few of them have more reservations for the senior citizens. Example: half the bus capacity is only for the old…and if more senior citizens enter, the others respect their seniority and offer the seats…Working on these lines we could eliminate the inconvenience faced by our senior fraternity who have spent their lifetimes to make our future better…We can give them back a little of their efforts through this activity….

I have a personal request to the BMTC and other Transport organizations to please ponder on this idea…We have senior citizens who have sweated their blood for our future…They have paid taxes in their earning times and run the country…Its time for us to pay respects by making their life comfortable. We can certainly do something to make their commutation easier and hassle free…Lets start a few buses on all the bus routes meant for senior citizens only…This is the way we can make the youths aware about the importance of the oldies…who have been young like them sometime and put all their efforts so that we lead a better life….