Musings of an Idiot

Benji - one of my good friends, sent me this link which showed a sample of driving in India and I rolled over laughing. The video is still very sane though - not too much traffic in the video I would say. Traffic in India is chaotic harmony - everyone beeps their horns all the time and everyone just makes up their own rules. In my 25 years in india, I can remember only one occassion where I saw the use of a portable speed mesurement device in use and I think I have probably been fined about Rs.300 {about NZ$ 12} in total over the 10 year period for any traffic offences and comparing it to New Zealand - I have paid about NZ$ 400 in 2 incidents of exceding the speed limits (and trust me I don't drive that fast at all) in just over 3 years - so it just makes me wonder on what the true agenda of traffic police actually is in NZ. One of the things one most commonly hears is that it is a major revenue earner for the government and it just upsets me a little bit that a government can so blatantly earn more money from people. It kind of equates the social welfare system they have here - it is more like paying out free money to people without jobs while earning that money from people who work for it. So who is to loose??? The people who work!!! Now thats a random chain of thought.

The myth of NZ being a safe country has also been busted in a recent report which shows that NZ is No.2 in the world crime rates (for every 1000 people). It kind of makes you wonder as to how a perception is created and lingers on in people's minds. As to how I came across that stats - I was reading the reader's views in response to a series of articles which dealt with immigration and one of the readers pointed the article out. You should have a look at the series of articles - which provides for a really interesting read. Visit the section HERE.

I went for a meeting yesterday evening (related to the movie) and there were a fair few snapshots I wanted to take but somehow I did not stop to take them as I was rushing to get to the meeting. I did get a couple of shots on my walk back and here they are. The thing I noticed though is that the city centre looked pretty dead for a Wednesday night...maybe people are just tired after the long holiday weekend. Got more more meetings lined up for tomorrow and it is shaping up to be a really hectic week.


I feel a bit like the person walking home alone..maybe I need to get some sleep.

Bye for now,
Amit