Ok. I’m pissed and I need to vent some steam. My room mate had borrowed my helmet and I needed to go to a close by (not close enough that I could walk) shop. This traffic cop stops me and slaps a nice big fine for riding without a helmet. Ok. So I broke the law. But my question is why should there be a law?
I know the benefits that wearing a helmet gives. It was just that I took a conscious decision due to the prevailing circumstances. Is that a crime? “Yes, it is” says a friend of mine. Criminals are not born. They are made, goes his argument. Ok. Maybe I cant generalise the statement. Let me rephrase. The government says that I am an adult since I am over the age of 18. But it refuses to treat me like one. If I chose to not wear a helmet, though it is for my own safety, why should they bother? Why should I be fined for CHOOSING to disregard my own safety? I am not a child that needs to be taught what is right and what is wrong.
Ah…. There in lies the problem. Everyone tells you to grow up and behave like an adult, but they refuse to actually believe that you could. How do you expect people to behave like grown ups if you keep treating them like kids?
A friend of mine is attending one of the reputed coaching classes for CAT. He was telling me how half the students in his batch are attending the class only out of fear of the coaching center calling up their houses. Our future managers are not considered mature enough to take their own decisions AFTER having paid close to 15,000 to 20,000 for the course?
No. this is not a isolated incident. A friend of mine is studying at IIM – Indore. He was narrating how there is a ten o’ clock in time. Though we might be tempted to brand it as just “one of those rules” which no one takes seriously, it wasn’t so. Two students came in late one night and gave the guard a name of two of their classmates who were in another country taking part in an exchange program. The whole final year batch was called in and were told that placements would be on hold until the culprits confess.
“Culprits”???? If faculty at the premier Indian Institute of Management Indore cannot trust their students to decide how to manage their own programs, how do they trust them to take decisions that will affect not just corporations but the society at large? And if this is the attitude of IIM – I, I can’t even begin to imagine how the other “Management” schools treat their students.
Yeah. I guess I need to grow up to the fact that the rule makers will never be able to treat me like a grown up since they haven’t grown up themselves to know the difference.
7 comments:
Well, I believe that's precisely the reason why Indians don't seem to be innovating of late! They are soooo hung up on following rules and regulations, that thinking beyond what has been told, seems like a taboo to most.
I believe that things like helmets, "in-time", should be guidelines and not hard and fast rules.
But I suppose our administrators like being deterministic all the time. They just want to make sure that their ass is safe. They can always say "See, he was the culprit. He violated that golden rule".
Such idiots!
arbit rant! :P
@ random walker
actually i was thinking more in the sense of, if u treat them like kids, they will look at ways to break the rules. If u treat them like adults and give them responsibility maybe they will behave themselves. i mean compare the length of our laws with those of other countries. we go to great lengths to define everything so that some one finds a loop hole. And when the loop hole is found another law is made to plug it. instead if we were taught to honour the spirit o the law, maybe it would reduce the number of cases pending in our courts.
@ srav:
maybe. maybe not. But i'm entitled to my opinions on my blog and so are you. :)
i have been thinking about this for quiet sometime now.
rules fail to impress me big time!! i cant reason with them.
and imagine any of us have to break the rules or laws!
i did not like the way my company functions(again the terms and condition stuff) so i ended up resigning.
what options do we have if we are to break the laws of land? is there any place on this earth where we can make our own rules??
@vinayak
i guess not. wherever you go, rules follow. unless u go to parliament i guess.
hmm, i guess they r hoping to tun us into a society like the US which has everything controlled by rules, regulations n laws n they r all accepted unquestioningly :)
it would make like very easy for the "powers that be" if they could turn Indians into a billion drones/zombies!
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