I had a wonderful trip to Bandipur with a great group of friends…but of course this post is not about that! On the cycling group I belong to, someone had said that someone on a cycle had yelled at him (while he was in a car) to stop wasting petrol, and added a rather delightful word to quality the statement. Someone added that many people use the car to go to the shop down the road. My response: “ I am not disputing that there ARE EAC (Evil Anti-Conservationists) of the type you have mentioned above…..I am just saying, you cannot assume that everyone is of the car-for-crossing-the-pavement category! Eg, I often take senior members of our apartment complex, or student of a blind school nearby, for medical checkups and so on. They need to be taken by car, they are often frail and in bad health. At these times I will certainly not use the cycle, or ask them to do so. I may have a large amount of shopping to do, which I may not be able to do on the cycle. I will definitely use the car at such times. “Actually the increasing jams are having a good effect on our worthy citizens. I find so many people now saying, “We take the bus because driving and parking are such a hassle”….so every cloud does have a silver lining! “A great source of entertainment for me is…. let me give you one scenario. The lady of the household said they had gone to attend a wedding. “The traffic was so bad!” she exclaimed. “First my husband went to the reception in his car, he had to park so far away. Then I went with my driver in my car, and he had to circle around four times after dropping me. Then my son also brought his car and he didn’t find parking at all!”…. They never see that they ARE part of the problem. I was once advised, when I wanted to walk about 3 km to Marina Beach in Chennai, “The traffic is terrible…you will be unsafe..take the car.” The person saying it had no clue of the irony in his words….he was genuinely concerned for my well-being.” When people realize that when they are complaining about the traffic, they can try and do something about it at least on a few occasions, our snarls may start improving!