Malthus oh Malthus !

India's population - Some facts

Observations

Living in an Indian City : I studied in a city in southern India called Madras, now called Chennai. My parents lived in a small town 300 miles away from Chennai and so I stayed in the college hostel. Most of the people in Chennai commute using the public transport buses that ply the city. During my college days that was my mode of travel. The seating capacity of the buses is 40 odd passengers and 15 odd standing passengers. At peak hours a typical bus would carry about 40 seated passengers, 80 standing passengers and 15 hanging passengers. Chennai youth and college students usually displayed their courage and valor by hanging to the steps and windows of the bus. But many people hung on because they could not find a squeeze hole to penetrate the crowd in the bus. I travelled like this for 7 years. Many veteran Chennai citizens have been travelling like this all their lives and will continue doing so resigned to their fate. Sometimes it used to occur to me that travelling in overcrowded bus is the stupidest thing that people could ever do. Risking your life to go places ?! This is terrible. Well, now I understand it was not a matter of choice. It is the way of life in many metropolitan cities in India. I have heard stories about the crowded trains in Bombay, now called Mumbai. Population, a society mostly made up of low income groups, an unplanned city that never anticipated what the millions that live in it may need, corruption in governing the city, political apathy, the previleged few's indifference towards deteriorating living conditions of most others.... I have to force myself to stop listing the reasons. I have not talked about city slums yet. The bane of modern India. The Indian ghetto that has gone into oblivion for most Indians but is still an everyday reality for those who live in it.

Literature