With my eyes still burning and begging to take a nap due to jet lag and date/night change, I couldn't control my fingers to stop lingering at the keyboard. They just wanted to start back up on my blogging with loads of interesting things still fresh enough in my mind from my recent trip to Chennai - India. The month long vacation to home land will never be enough with too much stuff to do in a short duration. It just vanished like a second, leaving some memorable and unforgettable moments.
Busy highway traffic than ever with all types of vehicles, new model cars from all over the world struggling to float thru local streets, construction all over the city making a city traffic a nightmare during peak hours, pizza and burger corners all around the town, increased number of call taxies and autos adding to the chaos, new malls and multiplex movie theatres for fun, busy shopping complexes and TNagar streets with more heads than ever with loads of stuff in their hand during the weekdays.
It might be an usual sight for the chennai residents but its new for visitors like me. Before I like to write all about good and memorable moments, I am more tempted to blog on some of the interesting but frustrating instances which I experienced in this visit to chennai that hit me right on lifting my eyebrows high enough. Does all these changes made an attitude shift/change in people mind?!
Being a witness to this evolving change on and off in this city, I would say "YES" to that boldly. Its losing its friendliness with a big attitude change of "DON'T CARE ABOUT OTHERS". Some might not agree with me but thats the true fact. Let me sketch out few instances which I faced during this trip.
I was at the big shopping complex POTHYS which stands at the center of TNagar(chennai) between Pondy Bazaar and Pangal Park. Its one of the busiest shopping complex at all seasons. I was shopping some trousers and shirts with my wife who is also shopping for her. In that shopping complex, every floor has its own cash counter and you have pay it each counter separately if you are buying different items in each floor.
First of all, there is no Queue for the cash counter. You have to wait in magic line at the cashier desk to pay in each floor to get your stuffs. I was next to that cashier desk to pay my bill waiting for the guy ahead of me to finish up. Cashier is busy counting to make sure he got the right amount for the bills and didn't care to see the next person in line. But I was hoping to be serviced next since I am the only one standing.
In a blink of a second, couple of other people got in the magic line in front of me cutting me thru by stretching their hands with their payment long enough to the cashier to crab his attention. I didn't say anything and still waited patiently, hoping that the cashier will get my payment after finishing up with the guy.
After finishing up with guy ahead of me, cashier took the payment from the hand which stood next to his eyes from the other person who cut me thru the magic line. It totally blew me off right there since I was the one waiting in that line long enough to be serviced. I immediately took it on with the cashier shouting to express my stand.
He tries to defend himself saying he can't see who is next because he is busy counting the money. I told him that there is no proper process to pay the payment. There should be a queue system or cashier should be smart enough to notice the next person in the magic line. I would mainly blame the people who just cut me thru without any courtesy to see that there are already others waiting in line to pay. After asking about it, cashier immediately took my payment and serviced me.
There are couple of things which wasn't right. First of all, there is no "Q" system or any process to make the payment easier. This is always the case in most of the shopping complexes. There is no proper payment counters or queue system in anything. The complex owners has to be blamed for it. Secondly and most importantly people need to have courtesy to see who is on line and try to let them pay first and wait for their turn instead of acting in urgency all the time. I did find the suggestion box to write my suggestions hoping they will read and implement it. After all, they advertise themselves has Perfect Service Shopping complex.
Here is the another one which happens in all the small streets in this big city. After some bizarre million cars getting exported and produced every day in our country, you see them in great numbers all over the city nowadays. But the city streets were built to handle only bikes and carts not this big cars. They get flooded and choked up with traffic all the time. Car drivers just try every way to maneuver around the city streets without worrying about others.
With less street space, only one car can go at time in most of the city streets. One time, we were going to my relative place in my in-laws new Ford car and hit on this small street which has only enough space for a car. There is already auto rickshaw parked at the end of the street blocking the way to get out to make it worse. We were waiting for the auto rickshaw to clear off the street faster so we can get out.
While we were waiting, the car which came behind us just wouldn't care and over took us trying to get out. He was not able to move being the auto rickshaw is still blocking the way. Why can't he just wait for it to clear and for us move and he can proceed?! There is no patience, every body wants to move fast in a urgency and its always me and me first.
It again blew me off. We are waiting and this guy just cut me thru making it worse. So I immediately came out of the car and asked the same question to the driver. He didn't car and some how maneuvered himself to get out of it. After the auto rickshaw got cleared, we were able to get out and move on.
I was so disgusted to see these things just because people don't have courtesy or friendliness to care for others. Its all about the them and that's the shift in the attitude. Nobody cares about what others things and nobody likes to ask about it. They just accept and go with it.
These are just few instances of many which I faced during my visit last month which totally changed my mindset about this evolving city and my own city. It is losing its shine on friendliness with change in people attitude...
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