Faith Restored

This city is full of traffic jams, absolutley choc-a-bloc. I took a Blue Bird, from Gatot Subroto to go to Menara Kadin, about 3 km away. At 1.00pm in the afternoon, when you would expect all the good denizens of this city to be taking a siesta, it took me full thirty-five minutes. But atleast there's no honking. Weird, in my four months here, have seen so many traffic jams, but hardly have heard any honking. Contrast with Hyderabad where every son-of-a-gun , considers it his fundamental duty to give off a honk, at every signal, overtaking, turning or on spotting a fair damsel.
Weird, are we suckers for noise pollution or our tolerance levels are zero. Or maybe traffic sense is a mandatory reading in school. Have not seen a two-wheeler rider(and pillon one also) without a helmet , though they are as speed happy as our nawabs back home. Also pedestrians are given right of way (not to the degree as in US or Singapore) and, car drivers stick to their assigned lanes.
It's enough to trigger of a barrage of self..no rather national-flagellation. How the hell can we aspire to be a developed country, when we don't even have basic civic sense. ? How do we aspire to levels of the western world, when we are so far behind our Asian brethrens?

Then i see a tempo driver (with a blatantly over loaded truck) coolly plam a 50k note to a traffic mamu, who lets him pass without a blink. Thank God. My faith in humanity is restored. Atleast the mamu's are bribable as in Hyderabad. Hee Hee.