Of cars and ‘car-archy’

It was an uneventful Sunday evening and my aunt and I were on our way back home after running some errands. Just when we were about to make our way through a narrow intersection, a big black car, with a green number plate, stopped in front of us, right in the middle of the road.

With infuriating pomposity, the driver stepped out of the car. We honked and told him to park the car on the side. In response, he gave us an indignant glare and made a hand gesture signifying that we were obliged to wait. We lost our calm and bawled at him. Unaffected by our ranting, he continued to wait for his employers. After a few minutes, two women walked out of a salon with their children. To our surprise, the women scowled at us and took their own sweet time to sit in the car. Of course, two wrongs don’t make a right, but we reciprocated the anger and I feel no shame in accepting responsibility for my own folly.

See, here’s the problem. Had the car owners been respectful and simply said the one-syllable magic word ‘sorry’ for causing us inconvenience, I wouldn’t be writing this piece right now. Norman Rockwell’s painting, “The Golden Rule”, tells us to ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you’. How often do we follow what is rightly called the golden rule? We whine over the prevalence of injustice, but do we stand united to fight it?

As if social hierarchy wasn’t enough, we are divided into what I call the ‘car-archy’. The bigger the car and its protocol, the more leverage one has to break traffic rules and cause others trouble. A red or green licence number plate gives one the licence to treat others as second-rate citizens. In my eyes, no one is a VIP (Very Important Person). Only humanity is a VIP (Very Important Phenomenon). And nothing as inanimate as a vehicle number plate should subdue it.

The first step towards addressing the injustices around us is to address the self-righteousness that lies within us. We cause others inconvenience, but why does it take so much for us to apologise? We preach righteousness, but how morally upright are we ourselves? We criticise politicians for being corrupt, but how honest are we ourselves? Let’s take note of our own follies before we fling dirt at others. Let’s self-reflect.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2013.