I wish 10. Cats at Indian Traffic Signals

I wish we have traffic signals where cut-out cats pop-up on the road. No more plain red lights. Let me explain.

To anyone who has travelled on Indian roads, this should be pretty obvious; to others, it might sound fatally amusing. One thing that vehicle drivers in India seem inherently incapable of doing is stopping before the white lines drawn at traffic signals (that is if they decide to stop in the first place).

Thankfully, there is ONE thing that can stop almost all of them: cats. A cat crossing ones path is considered inauspicious (to put it mildly) and Indians would do anything to avoid being crossed thus! A larger animal's cut-out; a cow's for instance, would have been eminently more visible, but that would not have served the purpose since the holy cows are considered very much a part of the road ecosystem and people are adept at swerving right past them.

Note: No animals were harmed or intended to be harmed for this post. The cut-outs could very well be made of indestructible silicon, latex and fibreglass sheets.

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects. 

I wish 9. Cloud suckers!

I wish (rain) clouds could simply be sucked up from one place and spewed out in another. This should be the most efficient method to provide (rain) water where it is required the most and moving it from where it might be in excess.

Water is and will continue to be the most sought after human necessity. Our best attempts at solving this issue have been restricted to creating massive dams (thereby destroying habitats) or installing expensive desalination plants or creating canals and diverting or joining rivers or drilling them out from the underground reservoirs. All these methods seem pretty intrusive and intensive.

We all know that there are some places which experience floods due to excessive rains and not far from these would be places that experience drought! Also, we human beings have been 'moving' water for thousands of years. Now, conceptually, it appears that moving water in the vaporous state (clouds) should expend the least energy and encounter the least obstacles (clear skies). That's exactly how nature has been doing it since the rain-cycles ever started on this planet! What if we could hook up airships (or drones) with some suction mechanism and literally move the clouds to wherever they be most required? Once there, they could be seeded for rains.

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects. 

I wish 8. Rubber bodied cars

I wish cars would be built entirely out of rubber, atleast most of their outer shells. This is something I've been dreaming of since my college days and I just got reminded of it recently by someone else.

Imagine, never having to worry about scratches or dents! Imagine you crashing in to the car in front and all that both of you do is smile, wave at each other and drive off (dodge-em cars :)! Imagine, most of the car made out of a bio-material (rubber)! Less use of metal and plastics.

I know the material is a challenge to work with and may not have all the characteristics required to be an exoskeleton, but that does not make this implausible!

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects. 

I wish 7. Sloped toll-booth roads

I wish the roads leading to toll-booths at toll-plazas would by design be inclined at say 15 degrees. The slope (and suitable awareness drives) would enable folks to just switch off their engines and use their brakes to cruise in to the toll booths, pay up, fire their engines and zoom off!

Now, I know a few toll-plazas in India are pretty crowded and some people get stuck for upto half an hour, in bumper to bumper traffic, just to reach the booth and pay the toll. In a toll booth close to where I am, there are 16 lanes each in either direction and at peak traffic time, atleast 20 cars crawling in each. On an average, lets assume 15 minutes queue time. That's 32 cars x 15 mins worth fuel wasted every minute. Not getting into the exact math here (it would be great if someone could fill in here :), but I guess that would result in significant fuel savings, not to mention the value of time saved, headaches avoided and pollution reduced!

I know the ideal solution would be to not have the toll-booth itself or to be able to bill cars as they simply travel, but that's some time off in the future. Till then?

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects. 

I wish 6. Parking the homeless

I wish all the covered parking spaces/ multi-level parking places (malls, office complexes, metro stations) would become paid sleeping areas for the homeless in our cities.

Most of these parking areas shut down for cars and vehicles around 1 PM (movie theaters) and around 10 PM otherwise. These places re-open for public by around 9 AM the next day. They say that on an average 10 people die on the streets of Delhi (dated) due to the extreme cold in winter and the harsh heat in summer while the rest of us enjoy a good night's sleep in the comfort of our homes, our cars sleep well in our garages and the glitzy shopping center parking areas are simply locked down.

I wish for a paid service where those who don't have a home can walk in to a parking lot, pay 50 rupees, get a parking ticket, rent a mattress, a blanket and park themselves at a spot where a car would have. Volunteers and social workers could co-ordinate basic amenities, cleanliness, law and order. Morning alarms  would wake them up and help them leave and clean up. This could be CSR for the property owners and a lifeline for thousands of homeless. The least our society can do is to treat them on par with our cars! No need to waste money trying to build the so called 'night shelters' 40 miles outside the city. Here's a bonus; should one of the rich-drunk-bmw-driving kids 'accidentally' miss the road and drive over a footpath, they would most likely end up killing their own motors and nothing else.

Further reading:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2261809/Dying-cold-Lack-night-shelters-puts-Delhis-homeless-risk.html

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects. 

I wish 5. Satellite set-top-boxes and dish antenna

I wish all the TV Satellite STB (Set-Top-Boxes) would lose their dish antenna. Its a pain (and a cost) to drill holes through walls, get mounting permissions, point and mount the dishes outside with thick co-ax cables sneaking (especially while shifting residence). Increase the surface area of the STB itself and build in the antenna on its surface or maybe come up with some new array based antenna design.

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects. 

I wish 4. Throttle controlled ignition and engine shutdown

I wish there would be a retrofit gadget which would automatically turn off (not just 'idle') my vehicle engine when I take my foot off the pedal (and the vehicle is stationary) and give a silky smooth ignition as soon as I put my foot back on the pedal (and the car key is still in the on position ;). Will save us all a LOT of fuel (and money) especially on urban roads with stop-and-go traffic.

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects. 

I wish 3. Lights auto-off

I wish all the electric and electronic indoor and outdoor light sources like florescent lights, incandescent lights, led lights and halogen lights would have inbuilt ambient light sensors that would automatically turn them off when not required (when the ambient light is brighter than a threshold).

Just screw a light bulb in and it should simply work as described with nothing else required. Would save a lot of electricity and obviate the need for people to turn off lights in the morning ;)

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects.

I wish 2. Tata Nanos & Auto-rickshaws

I wish Tata Nanos would replace all auto-rickshaws in India. I wish some intermediary would get into the business of putting up some replacement offers. I know many people who wish this were true!!

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects.

I wish 1. Motor-bikes & helmets

I wish bike manufacturers would consider and design helmets as natural extensions of the bikes they make and sell it as a part of the bike. It is a natural means to extend the bike's design identity, to stress that the bike considers rider safety important and will result in helmet innovations.

The 'I wish' series will be short posts highlighting simple, interesting, innovative and useful twists to daily random routines and objects.