19 Jun 2005

Cars And The Decay Of Our Institutions

Institutions continue to crumble. Look at this post from a Bangalore company's electronic bulletin board (sent by sj):
Law and order situation in Bangalore is really pathetic. Yesterday me and two of my friends went for the night show in Symphony theatre. We parked the car in the theatre parking itself. But when we returned after the movie got over the car was not in the car stand and even the stand attendant was also not there. The car is dark blue coloured Maruti 800 and the number of the car is XXXX.

If anybody sees the car somewhere please inform me.
Time was when a theatre's parking lot in Bangalore was as secure as a safe deposit locker of a PSU bank. No more. The former is no longer a stranger to theft, PSU banks are becoming more and more like private banks, and my wife refuses to believe that a safe deposit locker in either is safe enough for her comfort.

With due apologies to the aggrieved person, apart from the quick impulse to laugh triggered by the last sentence of the post, it set off a few more thoughts. The writer evidently does not overly count on the police to recover lost belongings. Like him, many more don't, probably. The writer does not believe people will put themselves out too much to help him. So all he expects is probably a simple phone call. No approaching the shady person and demanding justice or setting the police on him. Then the picture of the car and its owner - the one lost and zipping around the city with an alien hand at the wheel, and the other forlorn and pining away. And finally, why does he call it a car-stand?

The episode reminds me how my uncle lost his car. He had an old white-coloured Fiat. Since he was hardly using it, he decided to sell it. He put an ad in Ad Mag. It did not set the car market on fire, but sure enough someone eventually called him up and came home. After discussing the terms and related matters, he took the car for a test ride. He has not returned till date.

PS: Anyone who spots a white box-type Fiat please send me an email.

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