Column

There is tony school in Juhu, beloved of those who own multiple cars and meltdown-resistant stock portfolios, that attracts 600 cars in half an hour.

That period relates only to the time when the scholars are dropped for a day of worthy instruction. If you take into account the surge of cars that overwhelms the school’s surroundings at the time of the pick up — you get 1,200 cars choking a neighbourhood in just an hour!

Now, nobody would be mean enough to grudge the hardworking students of modern mathematics a comfortable ride. Of course, those who are stymied by the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs are also entitled to a relaxed passage.

But it must be said that if you take 10 tony schools like that, and maybe just 20 posh office complexes, you get a pretty picture of Mumbai; that is, if you can see beyond the haze of noxious fumes.

Car-pools have not caught on, so that’s one solution driven to into the cul-de-sac crammed with good intentions. School buses are still in use, thank God. But when Nano eventually joins the fleet of aspirational icons on Mumbai roads, I anticipate that many parents will volunteer to drop their ladlas to schools and then proceed to augment the clutter in office parking-lots.

Unfortunately, every neighbourhood does not have schools that can offer the standard of education that is imperative these days. So the drive to reach out to the places begins with a commute to the right school.

And parents are pragmatic about it; no use telling them to send their kids to nearby schools only because they can walk down to them. The parents realise that colleges don’t consider carbon credits while selecting students. Being pragmatic is not immoral.

After all, the US rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which aims to reduce greenhouse gases, arguing that it would hamper the growth of American business. India, Brazil, and China have ratified the protocol, but have no obligation beyond monitoring and reporting emissions.

In other words, it seems perfectly fine to cut a few corners from green initiatives if the eco-alternatives to routines are not entirely feasible. Or if they turn out to be more expensive for individuals than the standard ways of doing things. This is where the government must step in.

The cost of regulating rules for operating school buses, for example, is going to be infinitely lower than, say, bailing out AIG! And if there is a long-term plan for boosting education infrastructure, and ensuring that the rampant establishment of new institutes is bound by propriety, then students will not have to criss-cross the city to find a good school.

That is a sort of a thing my granddad did in 1930s, swimming across rivers and walking several miles to attend the only school in his district. This is 2008, there are no rivers, and most kids would be half-dead after half-an-hour in a non air-conditioned setting, so forget swimming!
raghu@dnaindia.net