Wednesday, September 12, 2007

12 seconds

If you are a pedestrian in Bangalore, that's all you've got to cross the road -- 12 seconds. No matter how wide the road is, how many lanes it has, whether it is one-way or not. You have 12 seconds.

But with motorists being as disciplined as they are, don't depend on those 12 seconds. Even after the red light goes, there will be the signal jumpers who will take up at least another 4 seconds. Then of course there is the other stream of vehicles waiting for the green signal. And they start even when the countdown has just about touched 5. That leaves you with three seconds to actually do your crossing.

So all you can do is to be ready with running shoes and sprint as soon as one flow stops and the before the other starts. If you are lucky, you will get at least half way through and to cover the remaining distance you will have to negotiate with the motorists, who may take pity at a sweating panting you and pause.

1 comment:

Abhipraya said...

Its a shame that despite all this practice we haven't managed too many gold in athletics!