How To Park On An Indian Street: The Story Of An Ignorant Mass

Most of us love to drive and with the government finally looking into the plight of us commoners, roads are steadily turning into a delight, its in fact a pleasure now! At times, few of us have to even drive to live, when chased down by a psychopath or on occasions by the law, but as always we aren't here to judge anybody. Although we might begin to criticize, when one takes an eternity to park their wheels or if one leaves their vehicle stationed like a douche or worse when there isn't any place! This doesn't go well most times and that's why we are here to talk about it. 

An Introduction:

If you have taken driving lessons from a decent driving school, then it'll be fairly easy to line up your car irrespective of where you're trying to. But if you have picked up your driving skills from your boyfriend while returning from that cute date or from your bestie while y'all return from a shopping spree, then chances are you'd turn out to be a pain in the neck whilst you position your brand new whip. It must be fun and games for you, but the person waiting behind you might be planning your murder already! It still might be okay if you're in a first world country considering somebody law abiding is waiting on you to finish but if you're struggling to position your car in an Indian city, the one waiting on you might not have the patience to wait for you after all! Now I am not saying we Indians are barbaric wherein folks cut each other for taking too much time to pull-up, but the paaking scenario is such that even the pope might loose it, if he decide to drive and later settle his Porsche on a street of India!

                                                                     
The Situation:

Lately India has seen a boom in economic growth and population. This has evidently led to a surge in the number of four-wheelers on the road. Every household owns a bunch of cars, held by every member in the family. Conditions are such that there are more number of automobiles than humans and cows on the streets! Currently India stands at the eleventh position among the automobile businesses across the world. With such a ranking on an anvil, more and more cars gets introduced on the asphalt daily. According to a popular estimate, now India will be the third largest automobile business in the world by the end of 2021. There was a time when there were limited options for car buyers in the country,but come 2019, they have been left spoiled for choice by the automobile makers. Be it a metropolitan city or a small town like I live in now, the situation of the streets plagued with automobiles is pathetic as it comes. The predicament gets worsened when we look at the state of affairs of the parking space for this deluge of cars.

                                                                 
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Conditions:

A recent study across cities in the country concluded, an average driver spends between 15- 20 minutes searching for a storing spot. From another study executed within a buzzing metro, a driver spends on an average of 75 hours while driving for more than 240 kilometers looking for a place to stick their wheels. Now, these figures are just as alarming as the balance needed between the number of cars plying on the routes and the seating space required for them.

As of now, almost 38% of the roads in India are occupied by vehicles parked haphazardly. The rest of the avenues are bursting with traffic jams and cows, so if you happen to be on one of these ways and after you do manage to steer out off the sheer madness, you'd be greeted by a nightmare at the lots which will leave you thoroughly drained.
                                                                     

Planning gone wrong:

We might want to blame the urban planners as all these cities and towns were never planned to handle this flood of automobiles moreover, folks leave their cars the way they wish as the places are not even suitably designed and hence congestion ensues.

When we talk about a planned city in India, theres one city that can't escape your mind, which is Chandigarh,the city beautiful. French architect, Charles Edouard Jeanneret, famously known as Le Corbusier was the mastermind behind the fine mix of urban planning and modern architecture of the city. But little did he knew that his intricate planning will be brought down by a sea of four-wheelers parked carelessly at every juncture of every sector. Residents picking fights over it has become a daily routine for every vehicle owner. Even my cute girlfriend seems to be loosing her cuteness after being heckled down by her crazy neighbor for want of a place for her hooptie! As such she suffers random anxious and high tempered moments which her delicate baby like personality is not built for et all! This isn't just the story of my adorable sweetheart but lakhs of Chandigarians and millions of Indians!

                                                                       

The Plight of the apartment residents:

The saddest part of this giant mess is that people never plan for a standing space even before they buy a car, as such streets and the infamous Indian narrow lanes are crammed with cars wall to wall. People with private buildings tend to ensure they build facilities for their rides, like how my family have 2 garages for our respective bucket of bolts, but it turns into a total confusion for people residing in apartments within housing societies. The societies provides a single car placing for every apartment but undeniably every apartment owner has more than one ride. This results in one resident taking over another's slot and hence befall name calling, fist fights and worst, weapons drawn on each other. No wonder i am worried about my sweetie who has to face confrontations every other day as she resides in an apartment building too! Her folks being highly educated are too civilized to get into a mere altercation but the vicious neighboring auntie doesn't hold herself back to pick up a lame argument over plonking her Honda!

                                                                       

                                                                         
Ignorant everybody:

In conclusion its quite safe to announce that the major cause of this unending Indian trauma is Ignorance. The authorities being oblivious to the plight of the people for lack of ample spaces for their cars whilst they plan the cities and the towns. Cost cutting as the areas are been drawn, so the funds extracted from the government goes right into their deep pockets, leaving the common man high and dry with barely or no space for their wheels. The ignorance among the cows on the roads prompting accidents, congestion  and holding spots meant for cars, as they stare deep into our souls whilst they chew and insure the fear of religion remains instilled. And the shallowness and disregard among the residents for one another while they encroach on other's property for the sake of parking for their wips. Makes you mad but then one has to stay and act within the law of the land and most importantly, maintain their peace of mind. The same advice i pass on to my baby girl so she doesn't kiss her mind goodbye and run over her ignorant mental neighbor!

Ramifications:

With 1.3 billion Indians driving 200 million gas guzzlers on an area of 3.287 million sq km, there is bound to be congestion and pollution.  And when all these folks decide to position their respective wheels everywhere, then it leaves with barely any space to accomplish anything constructive. This space, if not, could have been used to build cowsheds or for an array of conducive activities which would have aided the very same people to build a better future but here they are, left tired, stressed out and nursing severe headaches. Due to minimal accessibility our country is slowly turning out to be one of the worst options viable for a livelihood. Moreover, as the oil burners stands at a spot, various pollutants gets washed off from them which further pollutes the water table dead on.

Everyday while we struggle to locate the perfect spot for our machines, we seem to neglect the fact that we are wasting a lot of fuel and adding surging emissions in the air thus affecting the environment directly and also causing health damages to the general public breathing the very same air. This is how Urban Island effect gets a firm base within bustling cities. Also, severe respiratory and cardiovascular damages occur to innocent citizens who be minding their way to work, as they unknowingly inhale the polluted air day in day out. It's like a slow death, you just never know how it is killing each one of us steadily and with an accuracy.

The Solutions:

3 years ago, our government had offered a proposition wherein every prospective car buyer was supposed to declare that they own an area for an automobile before they could even invest in a new ride. Although this recommendation sounded appropriate, it is yet to be implemented. We need a similar concept in conjunction with a robust transport framework throughout the country to deal with the current problem and consequent pollution. Amidst the thriving  number of four-wheelers on the roads, we promptly need to control the figure at its earliest. A state of the art transport system with easy accessibility, swift navigability and adequate comfort features will inevitably help convince a private vehicle owner to ditch their jaunty jalopies and use an effective public transport not just for their convenience but even for the sake of a cleaner environment and a better tomorrow.

                                                                         

Building non stop havens for an unending number of vehicles is never a viable solution. Instead we need to transform our public transport to entice a common private car owner to use it daily. As such locations thronged by visitors for sightseeing, culturally significant sites and malls, where scores of people congregate, needs to be kept restricted for private cars and promote the use of sophisticated public transport only.

Further new and improved techniques can be taken up, like multi- level facilities including both standard and programmed, also smart sensor based paaking, parking meters and mobile pa(r)king application.  Adopting such mechanism will not just enable cutting down time, pressure and pollution in the environment but even remove cash based transactions thus promoting digitalization which even our current government is extremely keen on encouraging and rightly so. It is about time the notorious on- street parking in India gets completely banned so we can manoeuvre with the roads and our mother cows and not through a sea of stationed cars.

Ours is a developing country, yes even after 72 years of freedom we are still bringing about the changes we need to stand toe to toe with the Chinas and the Americas. Our previous governments left us struggling but now with a strong and confident leader we are on the way to a successful nation where we'd have enough par(k)ing spots for every household and every cow. To be clear we are okay with our beloved mother cows on the roads as we have tuned ourself to let them be where ever they chose to be. Jai Hind!