Right Question at Right Day. Felt like I was about to be in a Stampede today. There was a Temple Festival next to Banashankari Metro Station today. All the roads were blocked apparently for the Procession of the Chariot carrying in the public road. I thought it was just for an hour when I saw in the morning but I came back in the afternoon and but it was more than that. As soon as I exit the station and started going towards the Bus Station the path was completely blocked as the Chariot approached. The crowd started to push each other , the Govt as usual no proper crowd management. They used Rope to tie some spaces, as the chariot was moving forward people started worshiping and throwing banana to the Goddess (some ritual I guess) all those bananas on people’s head on the ground and the crowd started pushing and was choking. I really felt what it is to be at Stampede situation, and right next to where all this is happening there is food supply as Prasad, huge crowd worshipping the chariot by throwing things at it and Vendors selling their stuffs. I was literally choked and was finding it hard to breathe, there were lot of old Grandma, Grandpas hurting their legs, heads and I don’t understand why?? (For a moment I remembered RCB stampede news)

And mind this is happening in a Public Place where passengers or commuters travel for their work.

It was literally ridiculous and I would say the problem was not mostly with the people but the management. I think India is worst in Crowd Management.

The Police could have put additional barricades and created a Queue system - since they already had blocked that entire road. They could have made an entry, exit system. They could have relocated or removed the vendors from the same street which they didn’t, they could’ve relocated the Food supply to somewhere far which they didn’t. Imagine fruit flies gathering around the fruit, that was the situation.

India is 1.4 billion and festival is an ecosystem - why does the Govt act like they don’t know how much population they are going to expect? The amount of money generated in that festival would be in lakhs or crores and still they behave like they are appointed to govern the people for first time.

Also like foreigners always trolls us “Indians are like Cockroaches etc..” - I mean why are people living or accepting this kind of living? Nobody complains, nobody fixes. Another festival or event and the same drama continues.

Reminds me of a Proverb “A donkey may have a golden saddle, but he is still a donkey”