Vijay Phanshikar 

 

 

 

THAT morning dawned bathing in fine sunlight. There was a happy feeling in the air. Everybody was smiling and waving happily to everybody else. Out on the street on way to work, people found that horns were not blaring and the traffic was very orderly -- so much so that at no intersection did the loosefooter find people in cars or on two-wheelers not jumping the signals. There were no traffic cops at any intersection, though. Yet, the orderliness of the traffic was a terrific experience. The four-kilometre stretch to office also was an experience of lifetime since the loosefooter did not mutter expletives as he drove an ‘incident’-free distance -- happily. Naturally, in office too, the experience lingered (from the cool feeling of the orderly traffic). The subsequent time of the day and the evening, too, had a similar feel since the whole traffic followed not just order but also demonstrated immense respect to everybody else on the road. In public parking lots, too, that day offered a tremendously cool feeling; everybody parking vehicles in the most disciplined manner. At the Ram Nagar (Baji Prabhu Deshpande) square, it was a smooth experience of being able to park the car without any trouble, going into shops for small purchases, returning to the car and then driving off without any obstruction of problem.

 

At the weekly vegetable market, too, a similar experience extended itself with everybody in the otherwise messy, busy place was conducting self in the most dignified manner. What has happened to my good-old Nagpur, the loosefooter wondered -- to himself and to his friends. Of course, he got no response from anybody -- which, too, felt strange, so to say. Nevertheless, that day really dawned on a great note and went off on a greater note -- of calmness and harmony. Back home that late evening, the loosefooter really could not even agree to eat his dinner since he was very excited and surprised about the smooth -- nay, the smoothest -- day of his life out on road or public places or shopping centres in the city ...! That was also the day when the city’s skies were not afflicted by polluted air, and everybody could breathe freely. !!!

 

A RUDE phone ring, however, was enough to pull the loosefooter out of his slumber in the morning -- when he realised that all this time, he had been ensconced in a wonderful dream about his good-old Nagpur. He took time to understand what was happening. After all, as he realised, what he saw was just a dream -- an extension of his mind’s inner wish for his own city. Of course, such dreams never come true. For, when a city develops a culture of crassness, how can just a dream change it for the better? How he would otherwise wish that that dream of his never ended ...! -- or, on the ground of reality, that were not a dream but a reality!! n