‘WE’VE MADE UP OUR MINDS’
Pallavi and Rajeev Singh
Mumbai
Pallavi, a communications professional and Rajeev, a marketing professional, are parents to nine-year-old Vidita. “On both sides of the family, people want to know when we’re having another, and how we need a son to take care of us when we’re old. We’ve learned to just respond with ‘We’ve made up our minds. One is enough’,” says Pallavi.
That’s all the conflict there is. Because between them, they’ve been clear they wanted one child. “Neither of us has ancestral property or family wealth. We’re living on our earnings, our terms. And we want to give Vidhi the best, not compromise,” Pallavi says.
Pallavi has five sisters and while they’re well-educated and in good jobs, so many siblings meant fewer luxuries. Vidhi takes dance, yoga, music. But she has to earn her privileges by doing well at school. “Ten years ago we’d have worried that she would be lonely. But only-children are so common now. We’re just happy that she’s confident,” says Rajeev. of such regulations necessary. The public was strongly in favour. One newspaper report from 1911 defines a jaywalker as “an alleged human being who crosses the street at other points than the regular crossings”. Another writes: “Jay Walker i s a pt l y named – he remains uncoonvinced that traffic ligghts apply to pedestrrians.” A 1937 New York Ti mes articcle sneers, “In manny streets like Ox f ord Street, forr instance, the jayywalker wand e rr s c o mpl a - cenntly in the very mi dd d l e o f the roadwway as if it was a counntry lane.” Autommobile companies popularly used this term in variouus anti-pedest ri an adverrt i si ng campaigns.paigns
For instance, John Hertz, president of Yellow Cab and the future founder of the country’s leading car rental firm, declared, “We fear the ‘jay walker’ worse than the anarchist, and Chicago is his native home.”
The campaigns worked: in the US, the automobile companies won the right to use of roads and restrict pedestrian access to them. Jaywalking is a crime pretty much everywhere in the US, attracting severe fines.
There are laws against jaywalking in the US, Singapore, Poland, Serbia, Iran, Australia and New Zealand. However, in many countries in the world besides India, it’s perfectly legal to cross any road anywhere you like, whenever you judge it to be safe to do so. Ironically, many advocates argue that jaywalkers tend to be more careful when crossing the road than those who are crossing in officially designated crosswalks.
Still, even in the US, jaywalking is seen as referring to a relatively insignificant crime. As in, “compared to the man in the Oval Office, his principal rival has done little wrong, nothing more serious than jaywalking”.
However minor it may be, don’t try jaywalking in the US or Singapore. Ignorance of the law, the police in those countries insist, is no excuse. I know: I’ve been caught there.