Third Position: Nagrika Spring Competition 2021

Manasi Mujumdar is soon to be an engineer by training but a writer by heart. Machine learning and data science intrigue her professional interests. Apart from reading and writing, Manasi also enjoys trekking.

A Hyderabad without Cars

What comes to your mind when anyone utters the word ‘Life’? Air, water, breathing, food, one of these I am assuming, initially life was said to be impossible without the five main elements earth, water, wind, space, and fire, but nowadays there seems to be another element that is added to the essentiality list- fuel! That’s right, fuel for us to move around and have joyrides in all kinds of motorized vehicles, but could there be an alternate universe where the existence of motor vehicles was eliminated or rather, there weren’t any, to begin with?

“Motorized vehicles have come to dictate our lives, how we operate our social lives, design our days and even how we build our cities.”

Imagining life in cities without vehicles seems impossible! No buses, cars, cabs, scooters and scooties, the whole privilege of ‘travel-anywhere-at-will’ would cease to exist. In fact, the ideology of travelling has long gone beyond just joyrides; it is a vital pillar of the modern socio-economic systems. On one hand, it is a source of livelihood for some, while for some, it’s a medium through which they can be on their way to earn their livelihood. Motorized vehicles have come to dictate our lives, how we operate our social lives, design our days and even how we build our cities.

In a city like mine- Hyderabad, where the hustling and bustling of the crowd do not stop even post-midnight, it’s hard to imagine the plethora of places, restaurants, people and jobs that would probably be non-existent had it not been for the motorized vehicles. One of the most hard-hit aspects would be food. Hyderabad’s nightlife, where citizens travel from every nook of the city to taste the finger-licking Biriyani on the streets of Charminar, would never be as popular as it is today. It would merely stay as a story for thousands living afar and not just because they can’t commute till there but also because Swiggy, Zomato and FoodPanda would never be on Google play store in the first place! So sad news, but the whole idea of food delivery would not even find a place in anyone’s wildest dreams.

Hyderabad and many such cities that are popular as tourist destinations would have lost their charm as travel destinations. Imagine the famous Ramoji film city and Choodi Bazaar to be deserted on most of the days because no one can possibly reach there in the first place! How absurd does that sound, right? No queues for your favourite ride, bank or restaurant because it’s impossible for so many people to travel and gather at any place, the ideal social distancing environment in today’s unprecedented covid times. Moreover, no Metros or local trains, otherwise known as ‘MMTS’ in Hyderabad, for people to commute on a daily basis would sound like a nightmare to the lower-middle-class section of the city. You and I would have also saved lakhs on the unused fossil fuels as well, probably use it for buying the highest quality bicycle there is.

The most obvious outcome rather than the advantage of not having motorized vehicles would definitely be towards Nature and ecology. The entire fiasco of greenhouse gasses, depleting ozone layer and air pollution would never come into the picture, especially in metro cities like Hyderabad, where around 11,000 deaths due to air pollution were reported last year. Prominently known as one of the hottest cities in the country with temperatures soaring as high as 45 degrees in the summers, the mercury would definitely stay under 35 degrees with the non-existence of highly poisonous pollutants coming out from the cars. Although nothing can be said about the various factories smoke that leads to global warming as well, the intensity of heatwaves would be neutralized to a certain extent which sounds like a piece of good news to me. Needless to say, the number of deaths in rural areas due to dehydration would also be in control. In a way, this does seem like a win-win situation for both Nature and us.

All the talk till now was about the tangible aspects of not having motorized vehicles, but what about the intangible ones, like the history? So many memorable moments would be lost or, rather never happened. Imagine in the alternate universe of cities without motorized vehicles, Hyderabad’s Saina Nehwal would have never made it to the 13km away LB stadium every day to train with her father’s scooter being non-existent in the first place! In short, the nation would never witness Hyderabad’s iconic sports star and India’s first female badminton star. This would be the case for so many of Hyderabad’s sports figures like PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Sania Mirza. Can any one of us imagine these people not pursuing their sports like they do today just because they couldn’t travel to train? Probably not, history would seem so different, their and our life would seem so different.

Even more interestingly, what if the motorized vehicle was invented tomorrow? Since, till date, our city has never witnessed the birth of a car/bus/bike, would society be welcoming to an integration of a machine that would make our very lives depend on it? Would it hit any roadblocks? Garner complaints from citizens, or would we rule out the possibility of ever riding into a machine due to the dangerous possible outcomes on the road? As humans, we are reluctant to change, but that has led to development and growth. The need to live a faster and better life has been the driving force for the human race, so in my opinion, someday or later, we would include these motorized vehicles in our lives.

Thankfully the 21st century has it all, the utopian and dystopian aspects of having motorized vehicles. Metros, buses, local trains and cars are all present for us to live a seamless life amidst the chaos in the city, so it is not just hard but unimaginable to live a life in the absence of any of them, in fact with the pace at which we are developing who knows there might just be another class of motorized vehicle waiting for us, something more creative and innovative that would help us continue the mobility within our cities impeccably.

This piece is part of Nagrikal, a platform for citizens from small cities to share their experiences so that they be channeled into policies.