Dear VIP,
Let me outright state that I am in complete agreement with you on the following items:
1. Your time is clearly more precious than mine. On a scale of preciousness, I am recycled plastic and you are African blue diamond.
2. Your desire to feel secure by moving around in a convoy of 30 Tata Safaris with assault-weapon toting black cat guards is perfectly understandable.
3. Your need to block regular traffic for 4 hours before and after your jaunts through the city are perfectly valid.
But you see, blocking traffic is a slightly expensive proposition. Not for you, but for us. Let me show you how.
Let us define a few variables first.
E = Exponentially humongous cost of petrol, diesel and other adulterated fuels burnt while millions of cars, vehicles and autos are idling.
F = Frighteningly large cost in Rupees (and not dollars) of regular people’s time (calculated from salary/regular hours of work x time spent in blocked traffic)
F = Frankly ludicrous cost in Rupees of Policemen’s time (calculated from salary/regular hours of work x time spent saluting at your speeding car and waving other traffic aside aggressively with radio receiver in hand)
I = Insane cost in Rupees of extra medical care required by every person not inside an A/C car, as a result of having to breathe noxious fumes from all the stalled vehicles.
N = Nightmarish cost of missed appointments, opportunities, flights and trains
G = Glaring cost of damages incurred as a result of road rage arising from frustration at being stuck in blocked traffic.
M = Monstrous cost of psychiatrists’ fees incurred as a result of depression arising from missed appointments and opportunities.
A = Abominable cost of alcohol purchased from TASMAC stores as a result of aforementioned depression.
D = Despicable cost of medical fees incurred as a result of frustrated appointment-missing men drinking aofrementioned alcohol and beating their wives back home in the evening.
N= Notorious cost of extra rupees charged by Madras autowallahs who blame the traffic blocks as a reason for charging Rs 200 from a ride from Central station to Ripon building.
E = Exorbitant cost of medical fees incurred as a result of being beaten up by rowdy autowallahs who didn’t quite like your “What saar, You are not making Kaamedy Keemedi no?” at hearing the quoted fare as stated above.
S = Seriously significant cost of lawyers fees incurred as a result of increased divorces as wives start to accuse spouses (and vice versa) of being “a totally stuck-up person”.
S = Sheer cost of irony present in the factor mentioned above.
So as you can see, multiplying all the variables, we get
Total Cost = E.F.F.I.N.G.M.A.D.N.E.S.S
And in fact, it’s so large that nobody even bothers computing it. So before you ignore this post for being yet another rant on VIPs blocking traffic, let me reassure you that, for a change, I have a solution. An elegant solution to completely get rid of traffic blocks. Helicopters. Yes. All your security, convoys and the cost mentioned above are being incurred by the taxpayer in any case. So I suggest that you use helicopters to fly from point A to point B in any city. The cost of a helicopter is about a lakh an hour, I am told. But the key thing to be noted is that
Cost of Helicopters < E.F.F.I.N.G.M.A.D.N.E.S.S
In fact, the only reason I use the modest “<” symbol here is that there is no equivalent mathematical sign for depicting “mindbogglingly small compared to”.
Go ahead, and splurge our tax money on helicopters. Even fit them with saunas and home theaters if you want. And oh, get armoured copters if you wish to feel safe in addition to reducing your commute time by a factor of gazillion. It will still be much cheaper than what you are costing us today. So just get your respectworthy posteriors off the road.
Thank you
A Madras Citizen typing this from his laptop while being stuck in traffic waiting for some VIPs to get from point A to point B.
ps: If you VIPs prefer visual modes of communication, what I am saying is,
Let’s move from
To
