Street Lighting & Other Fundamental Rights

You are all going to have to forgive me, before I even start. Because I'm starting with a quotation from Oprah Winfrey.

Apparently Ms Winfrey once said that "running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it." 

Now I do not wish to bore all the non-runners out there, but I am going to take Ms Winfrey's idea and run with it, as it were. And yes, the pun is most definitely intended.

If running is a metaphor for life, that might well — by extension — mean that it is also a metaphor for the world in which one lives…as in the city where one lives…you see where this is going, right?

Having just returned from 2 weeks in Dublin and London to Delhi (my forever home, I hasten to add), I am struck by many, many things. 

Way beyond the heat and dust clichés of India, is the undeniable fact that we — the citizens of India — are poorly served by our civic infrastructure. 

We pay our income tax and our house tax and our property tax and service tax and a cess on this and a cess on that and God alone knows what else, but there aren't a whole lot of obviously tangible results.

And, before you start protesting — I'm not being greedy or ambitious here. Absolutely no pie-in-the-sky-ism.

I am not asking for my tax rupees to be spent on running tracks or cycle tracks, or on new parks or swimming pools — wonderful as they all would be. Nor am I am asking for new art galleries or theatres or museums — wonderful as they all would be. And as for all more schools and better public hospitals and yet more schools…

Nope.

My wish list as a tax paying citizen is way simpler than all of the above.

I am simply asking for street lights that work.

I am asking for dustbins that are not warped or broken and that are never emptied. I'd like more bins, too, come to think of it. Many more.

And more than anything else, I would like the pavements back (footpaths, if you will) so we can walk on them, rather than in the middle of the road.

Bas. Surely, that's not such an impossible list of demands, is it?

Out walking in London and Dublin, one is struck first and foremost by the cleanliness of the streets.

I cannot and will not get into the whole issue of "swacch"-ness (or lack thereof) in India right now. I'll get way too angry and probably borderline offensive, and alienate everyone, but it is a topic that definitely needs revisiting. Suffice it to say that India's littering is incomprehensible, all-pervasive and (trust me) makes the most God awful first impression.
But let's leave that issue there for now and move on.

Let's look at something way less controversial like street lighting, shall we? How can anyone's safety be assured when our roads are dark, and when the street lights don't work?

Fix them. It's not that difficult, surely. Nor that expensive, surely. 

When I walk in my supposedly smart Delhi 'hood, there is hardly a square inch of pavement free to walk on. Not one. Cars are parked on the footpaths, guard huts (with their attendant coolers) are built on the pavements, lawns have even been planted and fenced off (such brazen cheek) and there are stalls and shops and vendors and workshops galore.

So one is left with no choice but to walk on the road, usually the middle of the road because of the cars parked and double-parked.

At night it is worse, with the absence of proper street lights.

I am the first to admit that yes indeed, I choose to go out running on our Indian roads, so yes, I must therefore accept whatever passes for infrastructure. No-one forces me out running at 9 pm on those unlit roads.

But there are millions and millions of our fellow citizens who are not out walking and running for their health, but because that is how they get around, and why the heck should they be marginalised and pushed onto the road because of a guard hut or a luxury car, swathed in protective covering against the dust? Why should they have to dodge traffic and feel unsafe walking down dark streets? 

This is where I want my tax rupees to go, please. Improving the infrastructure that is there, but that is neglected and shoddily maintained.

These are quick fixes. But ones that would make such an immediate difference to us all.