Past chaos looms large

mayawati’s forthcoming tenure as chief minister, born out of the cynical union of political expediency and lust for power, is being viewed with misgivings by many. particularly, the common man, who knows from experience that he will be at the receiving end of a system governed by the whims of an anointed leadership. two instances will serve to demonstrate the point.in 1997, lakhs upon lakhs of her supporters swamped the state capital on ambedkar jayanti. the vast influx, unlike anything witnessed in living memory, threw traffic out of gear and rendered movement not only extremely chaotic but also infuriatingly slow. so much so, that it took a distraught colleague some five hours to reach mahanagar from charbagh. besides, all modes of transport, too, just vanished off the roads. on yet another occasion, hoping to catch the shatabdi to delhi, an acquaintance left for charbagh well on time. midway, road blocks forced the vikram operator to dump passengers unceremoniously. mayawati happened to be addressing the year’s independence day rally, smack on the city’s main artery. the 50-plus man had to run the remaining three kilometres to charbagh as fast as his old legs could carry him, under the blazing summer sun. when two minutes were left for departure, he rushed into the executive class and collapsed into his seat, panting. some dress sense ask the schoolgoing children to spell out their pet peeves and topping the list sure enough would be their school uniform. whosoever designed those smart looking tunics, blazers or ties surly never consulted the kids and in any case had scant regard for their comforts. how else would you explain the tradition of donning a knee length skirts or tunics for girls in the bitter cold of january when venturing out of the warm quilt early morning is by itself no mean achievement? only time the school authorities agreed to a much needed “cover up job� was the dengue crisis a few years ago. why the students were allowed the concession of wearing salwars of legging was a different issue altogether as driving force behind the move was the fear of the much dreaded mosquito bite rather than the dreadful frost bite. and with summer comes the perennial woe of ‘tying the knot’. only the wearer knows the agony of wearing a tie in a congested class room with poor or no ventilation and one rickety fan during the sweltering heat. most school authorities definitely do not. and to think it is one issue where the the interference of governor vishnukant shastri, who incited the schoolchildren to ‘discard the colonial shackles’, also yielded little result, shows how strong the bandage actually is! return to smoke when it comes to commercial gains, other things can wait. what if it is a serious matter like environment? ask the zoo officials, who after banning the entry of vehicles into the zoo premises a few months back have decided to start it again in the coming week.launched amidst media hype and touted as concern for animals by zoo director uma shanker singh then, the drive to keep the smoke emitting vehicles out of the zoo has been shown the door since the director now feels that it is better to earn money than to appear environment conscious and animal lover.and, so as the entry to the zoo premises begins next week , the zoo director has tried his best to do the balancing trick by making a hefty increase in the entry fees of vehicles, now pegged at rs 150. the short-lived environment consciousness has already raised the hackles of wildlife lovers who are accusing the zoo staff of being publicity hungry. (contributed by manjari mishra, sudip talukdar and mohit dubey; illustration by syamal das)