State of Mind

I am in a bewildered state of mind of "what to do and what not to do". There I preach sustainability, CSR, and ethical business, but I feel the pinch when it comes to practice. I had thought to be different you know, I should be practicing what I preach. So I thought I should only own a Euro IV certified petrol car. Then why do I feel bad when my colleague boasts of his savings from fuel spending and fuel efficiency from his diesel run car? May be because he and I earn the same salary and get the same fuel allowance, but I struggle with a higher fuel expense with the ever increasing petrol price and he has been skipping that since last 1½ years. The feeling of desperation is more evident when I go to the fuel filling station and the money meter zooms in case of petrol and for diesel as if it does not move... as if to ridicule me, the SUVs of the extra rich vroom with the subsidized diesel in front of my tiny petrol car…. I had thought as socially responsible, I should have subsidized only the poor. You may say Indians have this crab tendency, but I cannot help such thoughts bothering me all the time as I drive my petrol run car. Well, now I have to rush to the petrol pump before it gets crowded as the government is going to announce hike in the petrol price again tonight, sixth time in less than a year. 

I reach the traffic post and stop not for the red signal but for the traffic police who stops me with his hand. Well, that's because the signal lights are not working though they have been installed and re-installed number of times during the last one year. No, don't worry; this is not from your (tax payer's) money, but as a part of the CSR of a benevolent corporate house. In the traffic signal, there are people who walk not for sustainability issues, but because they cannot afford a petrol or a diesel run vehicle. There I see, pedestrians racing for space among the speeding vehicles. Because my city also does not have a pedestrian track like many other Indian cities. I feel bad, but like any other Indian, don't do much. So I try to speed past in my car, but there are other vehicles in the traffic signal that should be going towards the right (direction), but are parked in the extreme left, so those cut across all vehicles and that starts the traffic jam. With great difficulty, I try to escape, but wait... there is this auto rickshaw that is coming from the opposite direction without bothering much about the traffic police's hand signal and my car, naturally, obstructs him. He gives me an angry look, as if it's me who has committed the mistake and not he. Particularly so as I am a lady behind the wheels!!!! 

Next morning I read the newspaper, breakfast companion of any middle class. The rich make the news so they don't need to see it. They will only see it to confirm if the news featuring them or their friends has appeared - they know it anyways!!! Oh, what a great relief, the government has deferred the petrol price hike, but has increased that of diesel after more than 1 year. Should I be happy or sad? Food prices have increased with immediate effect by roughly 10%. Again, the same common man has been hit. But the petrol car owner is hit more than the diesel car owner. Trade analysts are all over the newspapers with their analysis on how the diesel car owners are still better off in terms of the unit cost and fuel efficiency of their engines. Alliances are falling apart at Centre and crores of rupees are flying through this gate and that spectrum - I am still engrossed with calculations Rs.2/3 gain and loss – the petty common man’s mind you know. A piece of news catches attention - a Home Guard has been caught red handed for taking a bribe of Rs. 10, sentenced 1 year imprisonment, and fined Rs. 3000. My eyes lit with a new hope- the dawn of a new era where the guilty is penalized. The perverted common man’s mind again starts its petty calculation - for Rs. 10, a Home guard, a common man more impoverished than me, is charged 300 times. What great transformation will this bring to the society, if we start recovering penalty at this rate from all high profile offenders involved in the multi-million dollar scams. All sorts of thoughts from diesel price to traffic signals to scams are blurring my mind. Well, who cares for the state of mind of a common man?

P.S.: Written midst spate of petrol price increases during 2012