In the recent Marathi movie Ventilator, there is a scene where the protagonist is financially unable to continue to put his father on life support and is discussing with his relatives if he should take a call on shutting the life support off. It is Ganesh festival and a death in family would mean the festival has to be called off. One of his uncles who opposes this decision justifies - "Arey Ganpati mahatwacha ki Baap?" implying "How can you prioritize your father over the Ganpati festival?" The dialogue was meant to ask a question to the society - 'If we have to choose, would we prefer God and religion over human life?' I was unaware that I would get the answer on my way back home.
Post the movie I took the Hyderabad-Mumbai Highway and there was a huge traffic jam near Chanda Nagar bus-stop. As I moved ahead slowly, I realized that there was an accident on the road which led to this jam. I approached the site of the accident and saw that an an 8-seater auto rickshaw was lying overturned on the road blocking the traffic. Ahead of this vehicle was a mob surrounding a victim of the accident. It was a lady lying on the road with blood pool around her head. I parked my vehicle a few paces ahead and came back to the site. The driver was severely injured and others in the auto rickshaw had a narrow escape. But this fateful lady was declared dead on spot.
The road is a highway which leads to Pune and Mumbai. It gets huge traffic jams during morning and evening hours due to the office going vehicles. To make matters worse, there is a temple at the center of one side of the road between the road divider and the footpath. This temple bifurcates the one side of the road into two small lanes from where a maximum of one four-wheeler can pass through at a time. I overheard the injured driver telling the traffic cops that the auto rickshaw was passing beside the temple when a car tried to overtake it. The driver moved the auto rickshaw closer to the temple. The auto rickshaw ran over the ramp adjacent to the temple and got overturned. The lady unfortunately was sitting at the corner on the back seat and her head banged on the road when the auto overturned. (pictorial representation below)
And this is not the only site in Hyderabad where we have a religious buildings right on the road. The Paradise flyover ends at a mosque which reduced the width of the lane. The high speed road between Habsiguda and Uppal which has heavy moving vehicles running has a long temple right at the center of the road. The church at Mettuguda occupies half of the road which leads to Secunderabad railway station. And these are just a few sites. And to add to the mayhem we have an unending phenomenon in the form of Metro construction at all these sites. And there are no efforts or plans to move these religious buildings to a side of the road since the fragile sentiments of people will get hurt by this. Surprisingly these sentiments never get hurt when liquor shops are named like Balaji Wines or Sri Krishna Bar. This again proves The Great Indian Hypocrisy which finds reference in my previous blogs.
While we all pretend to believe in various religions, we all follow a common religion - the religion of convenience. And there is nothing wrong in tweaking religion for ones comfort as long as it doesn't harm anyone. In fact every religion must reinvent itself frequently enough to align itself with the fast moving technology and human lifestyle. Ultimately religion is something that came into existence due to the need to people to come together and co-exist happily. But when something related to religion comes in path (figuratively and literally in this case) of humanity or threatens human life, there is a problem. Every person can save at least 10-20 minutes of time a day if not for the jams at such sites. And imagine the amount of fuel wasted per vehicle due to the jams. With the threat of global warming looming over the world, we cannot afford to spoil the nature even one bit. Every molecule of carbon emitted in the atmosphere is leading the world to it's end.
The accident could easily have been avoided had the temple not been there. But sadly God takes priority over human life. We, all of us, believers and non-believers have to take a call on this for the sake of humanity. Let us choose logic over religious sentiments. Let us support anything that helps human life. Let us avoid opposition in the name of religion to development. Let us not fight for demolishing a mosque or building a temple unless it assures saving at least one life or feeding at least one hungry stomach. When we can move the statues of our national leaders from the center of cross roads to a side, we can and should be fine with the movement of religious monuments as well. And trust me, God won't be offended with this step.
PS - Posting a modified version of this blog as a letter to Hyderabad Traffic Police.
