Joys of walking

When I started driving in India (after years of being terrorized by traffic), I worried more about parking than driving. With the proliferation of urban mega shopping havens which can accommodate multitudes of shoppers equal to the population of a small European country, with no laws requiring appropriate parking arrangements to be made by the owners, it is easier to keep moving than to find a comfortable spot to park. I would drive far from the crowded main roads into narrow streets and try to squeeze my car in cramped alleys. Now there is another menace – the not-so-friendly neighborhood parking attendant. It seems that the wise municipal corporation of Hyderabad has declared every inch of space under trees, in front of stores and besides banks, whether paved or not, as MCH parking spots. You have to cough up Rs.10 each time you come to a halt in these spaces, regardless of the amount of time that the vehicle is stationary. Other than placing young guys and girls with a blue or green apron worn over their street clothes with innocuous-looking books to issue receipts, MCH does not provide any other amenity for the parked vehicles, no safety, not even a smooth surface free of debris and stagnant water. While I don’t have a problem paying for parking, I would like to have something in return, a decently paved, marked spot with enough distance between the parked vehicles.

Before I got the nerve to drive, I used to walk to most errands that I needed to be done – ATM, Xerox place, stationery shop, bakery and chemist. I did cover my face to minimize inhalation of particulate matter, and sometimes stepped gingerly around open manholes and jumped over medium-sized potholes as I made my way. That took care of my daily walking quota. I thought it took longer to get multiple errands done since I had to physically move myself on my two feet to the next destination as opposed to hopping in the car and starting the ignition.

“Why no one walks” is a humorous piece in Bill Bryson’s “I am a stranger here myself”, a collection of his witty observations about life in the US, a new perspective after living in UK for two decades. Written in 1999, he notes that an average person in America walks barely 350 yards a day and uses a car for 93% of activities that have to be done outside the home. In a country like USA where the roads are smooth, the sidewalks neatly planned, walking paths clearly identified and the air relatively pollution-free, it is mind-boggling to come across people who drive a car to a gym that is 6-minute walking distance from their home in order to “work out”.

If we could transpose those lovely walking paths to India, I wonder how many of us would leave our cars at home and complete our local business on foot?