From the 1st of January 2019, believe it or not, one of the most parochial towns in India, Pune, was forced to accept a major change in the lives of her two wheeler riding citizens, which basically means anyone and everyone above the age of sixteen....You won't be called a legitimate Puneite if you don't own at least one two wheeler! The citizens were finally told that, after many a court battle and many a long struggle to resist the head gear, (the length and ferocity of which would actually put India's freedom struggle to shame), helmets would become mandatory for all and sundry, no exceptions!
People reading this from other parts of my beloved country and even other countries of the world, are probably blinking at this and shaking their usually helmet protected heads in disbelief...What, a mini metro, a smart city at that, took SO long to implement this very basic self preservation rule? What is wrong with this city? A lot it turns out..but hey, we are trying to modernize as fast as we can....which is a bit tough, given our ultra conservative, 'I know better than you', Brahmanical origins...
In my own case, I began using a 50cc two wheeler at the age of sixteen, a moped, which was just one up on the bicycle, to drive the seven odd kilo meters from home to college. But the first thing my mother did was to take me to the Army canteen, so we could buy a good quality helmet for me, at a reasonable price. This was way back in 1992, twenty seven years before my city FINALLY implemented the helmet rule. And I found nothing odd or unique in this as my mother had always used a helmet and my Dad, being in the Indian Army had no choice but to use one, for the Army made the helmet mandatory for its personnel long before I was even born...
In fact, one of my Mother's favourite stories, to drill the importance of using a helmet into our heads, was this one: It so happened that at one of the places that my Dad was posted to, an officer went out on his motor bike without a helmet. And as bad luck would have it, met with an accident and died on the spot. Army rules, at least in those days, (I do not know about today, since I am referring to an incident that occurred close to forty years ago), made it clear that the proceeds from one of the very few government insurance policies would not be given, in the unfortunate event of the death of a helmet less rider, whether officer or soldier. My Mom used to often relate how a helmet was bought, smashed with a stone, and laid down near the officer's lifeless head, just so the widow and children would get a few lakh rupees more in hand, at a time when faithful and honest officers of the Indian Army were perpetually strapped for cash...Everyone in authority turned a sympathetic blind eye to this farce but to us, as little, impressionable children, it drove home the point that a head, without a helmet, was of no use to anyone...
One of the major rules in my own children's lives is that neither my husband nor I ever took them out on a two wheeler and do not do so, to this day. Before my daughter was old enough to start school, I learnt how to drive a car just to ferry her around and the matter ended there, because India, unfortunately did not even manufacture good quality kids' helmets more than eighteen years ago, let alone pass laws against toddlers dangerously hanging on to two wheelers...I wonder what the scenario in Pune is like today, with the new law in place...I'm quite sure the toddler riding pillion on Mom's lap or strapped to her back, papoose style, in case the modern, liberated woman is driving the vehicle herself, remains without a helmet, but I shall know for sure the next time I go home.
But not allowing my children to sit astride a two wheeler did not prevent me from emphasizing the importance of using helmets to both of them, right since the time they started becoming aware of their surroundings. I discovered just how well I had driven home the point, when during one of our sojourns home, this is what I witnessed my son doing. Since I continue to drive in India, every chance I get, my son and I often end up stuck in heavy traffic. He must have been nine or ten years old, (he just turned fifteen), when he suddenly lowered the window and yelled at the person on the two wheeler next to us, to start using a helmet immediately, before rolling up the window! I do not know who was more shocked, me or the person whom my usually very polite and impeccably mannered child had just ticked off in public! But when it happened again and again, I had to tell him to stop doing this, because, I explained, he might shock someone so much that he or she would probably fall off the bike, right on to our car, and their helmet free heads would get a really hard knock! While that would probably drum some sense into their heads about using helmets, we couldn't risk getting into trouble...But to this day, when we are back home every June, he feels very tempted to roll down his window and belt out some road safety rules to strangers...I am hoping that next time around, we will see a sea of helmets in our dear but obstinate Pune.
To all those, who for many years, stubbornly refused to use helmets on the grounds that 'we always drive very carefully and slowly', I would just like to say, read up on some Physics laws. Even if you are travelling at ten kilo meters an hour and a car hits your vehicle at fifty kilo meters an hour, guess at what speed you will go flying off your bike?
Despite the law, I read every week without fail, in the on line version of my city's paper, about students dying in road accidents because they thought that since they were travelling at night, no policemen or women would be around to catch them and fine them for lack of a helmet...I can only imagine how much their parents must be wishing today that they had drilled some sense of obedience into those young, hirsute heads, which refused to put on helmets...Sometimes fatal accidents happen even with a helmet on, but at least those you leave behind know you tried your very best to protect yourself, because you cared about them and about yourself too....
People reading this from other parts of my beloved country and even other countries of the world, are probably blinking at this and shaking their usually helmet protected heads in disbelief...What, a mini metro, a smart city at that, took SO long to implement this very basic self preservation rule? What is wrong with this city? A lot it turns out..but hey, we are trying to modernize as fast as we can....which is a bit tough, given our ultra conservative, 'I know better than you', Brahmanical origins...
In my own case, I began using a 50cc two wheeler at the age of sixteen, a moped, which was just one up on the bicycle, to drive the seven odd kilo meters from home to college. But the first thing my mother did was to take me to the Army canteen, so we could buy a good quality helmet for me, at a reasonable price. This was way back in 1992, twenty seven years before my city FINALLY implemented the helmet rule. And I found nothing odd or unique in this as my mother had always used a helmet and my Dad, being in the Indian Army had no choice but to use one, for the Army made the helmet mandatory for its personnel long before I was even born...
In fact, one of my Mother's favourite stories, to drill the importance of using a helmet into our heads, was this one: It so happened that at one of the places that my Dad was posted to, an officer went out on his motor bike without a helmet. And as bad luck would have it, met with an accident and died on the spot. Army rules, at least in those days, (I do not know about today, since I am referring to an incident that occurred close to forty years ago), made it clear that the proceeds from one of the very few government insurance policies would not be given, in the unfortunate event of the death of a helmet less rider, whether officer or soldier. My Mom used to often relate how a helmet was bought, smashed with a stone, and laid down near the officer's lifeless head, just so the widow and children would get a few lakh rupees more in hand, at a time when faithful and honest officers of the Indian Army were perpetually strapped for cash...Everyone in authority turned a sympathetic blind eye to this farce but to us, as little, impressionable children, it drove home the point that a head, without a helmet, was of no use to anyone...
One of the major rules in my own children's lives is that neither my husband nor I ever took them out on a two wheeler and do not do so, to this day. Before my daughter was old enough to start school, I learnt how to drive a car just to ferry her around and the matter ended there, because India, unfortunately did not even manufacture good quality kids' helmets more than eighteen years ago, let alone pass laws against toddlers dangerously hanging on to two wheelers...I wonder what the scenario in Pune is like today, with the new law in place...I'm quite sure the toddler riding pillion on Mom's lap or strapped to her back, papoose style, in case the modern, liberated woman is driving the vehicle herself, remains without a helmet, but I shall know for sure the next time I go home.
But not allowing my children to sit astride a two wheeler did not prevent me from emphasizing the importance of using helmets to both of them, right since the time they started becoming aware of their surroundings. I discovered just how well I had driven home the point, when during one of our sojourns home, this is what I witnessed my son doing. Since I continue to drive in India, every chance I get, my son and I often end up stuck in heavy traffic. He must have been nine or ten years old, (he just turned fifteen), when he suddenly lowered the window and yelled at the person on the two wheeler next to us, to start using a helmet immediately, before rolling up the window! I do not know who was more shocked, me or the person whom my usually very polite and impeccably mannered child had just ticked off in public! But when it happened again and again, I had to tell him to stop doing this, because, I explained, he might shock someone so much that he or she would probably fall off the bike, right on to our car, and their helmet free heads would get a really hard knock! While that would probably drum some sense into their heads about using helmets, we couldn't risk getting into trouble...But to this day, when we are back home every June, he feels very tempted to roll down his window and belt out some road safety rules to strangers...I am hoping that next time around, we will see a sea of helmets in our dear but obstinate Pune.
To all those, who for many years, stubbornly refused to use helmets on the grounds that 'we always drive very carefully and slowly', I would just like to say, read up on some Physics laws. Even if you are travelling at ten kilo meters an hour and a car hits your vehicle at fifty kilo meters an hour, guess at what speed you will go flying off your bike?
Despite the law, I read every week without fail, in the on line version of my city's paper, about students dying in road accidents because they thought that since they were travelling at night, no policemen or women would be around to catch them and fine them for lack of a helmet...I can only imagine how much their parents must be wishing today that they had drilled some sense of obedience into those young, hirsute heads, which refused to put on helmets...Sometimes fatal accidents happen even with a helmet on, but at least those you leave behind know you tried your very best to protect yourself, because you cared about them and about yourself too....
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