Convenience is killing us!

Convenience is everywhere… the modern world is full of conveniences. The convenience of plastic bags… we don’t have to remember to carry a bag ourselves. The convenience of picking up a pack of “healthy” biscuits for a snack between lunch n dinner. The convenience of canned fruit juices… don’t have to mess around with buying fruits, cut them, juice them, clean the juice, dispose the waste… phew!

However all these conveniences come with a price that we pay in terms of environmental impact and personal health.

I have been using public transport for the past 8 years to commute to office. So 5 days out of 7, my car sits in the garage and I feel good that it doesn’t contribute to the endless sea of traffic that I am accustomed to seeing everyday. Sitting in the bus that takes me between home and office… I type away at my work or using the time for gazing in to wherever my mind takes me or watching the latest episode of GoT or any movie or reading articles or any other thing that gets caught in my aimless drift, which is so much more awesome than being in a car thats stuck in traffic.

The illusion of convenience

In one such aimless drift, my gaze settled on the people in cars, stuck in the same traffic as my bus, wondering about why they actually use their car. What makes them pick up their car to commute to work, despite knowing that they will be endlessly stuck in traffic. Is picking up the car keys and taking the car a subconscious act that doesn’t register in their minds till they are stuck in traffic… Till they are submerged in this endless sea of bumper to bumper traffic.

And then i wonder whether it’s about convenience… The strange aura of convenience that people perceive, of walking out of homes and in to the car.

No inconvenience of having to go to the nearest bus stop 2 kms away like me. Or having to change multiple buses to reach the destination unlike me. However this convenience probably gives away to boredom and eventually despair when the car is stuck in traffic for most of the time. Getting pushed and jostled for space on the road is certainly not a great feeling.

Drawing a parallel

A couple days back a few people in my apartment complex complained to the apartment committee that someone from the apartment below is smoking in the bathroom and the smoke is entering into their homes through the common shaft. They voiced their concerns about the deadly cigarette smoke and wanted the committee to take immediate action to stop this balant violation of human rights.

On one hand I see people concerned about cigarette smoke and then I feel why aren’t the same people concerned about vehicle exhaust… vehicle exhaust is as bad as cigarette smoke, if not worse. You will die early in a room full of vehicle exhaust than of cigarette smoke.

Here is a recent report of air pollution in Bangalore

I wonder whether people who complain about cigarette smoke also grapple with the thought every morning of whether to take the car to office or use the public transport and reduce their impact on the environment.

Most of them do give in to their convenience, as most of the car parking spaces are empty on a weekday :) Each of these personal conveniences contribute to the sea of traffic and spew vehicle exhaust a hundred times over than cigarette smoke.

We can all spend less time on the road… only if…

Meanwhile I’m sitting in the bus jotting down these strands of thoughts and not having to worry about the shortest path home. However I do worry about having to be stuck in traffic and lose time which I could have spent with my family. Or I worry about the fumes from the exhausts all contributing to a nauseating feeling, simply because the bus has to open and close the doors very frequently and the air filters aren’t good enough. I look at the people in cars who are breathing relatively cleaner air, however they have have to concentrate on traffic and can’t do anything else.

I also wonder if they don’t use their cars and use the bus to commute to office then we can all go home much faster and leave a decent bit of clean air for our children.

And thinking about it, I wonder whether the title of this article should be “Your convenience is killing me” :)

Btw what are the other conveniences that are killing us and our planet… do comment! :)

Isabelle Thye thanks for the push to put up my first blog post :) The text seems to be lots of thoughts just splashed out… :)