Safety in Sabhas

[Svaapana]

Just returned after attending some concerts at the Chennai music festival. I thought I should express my concern on the safety at these places. There is a separate thread on the Chennai sabhas but I did not find any reference to safety as such, so this thread.
I feel sad to say that it (safety) is well below par in some of the venues. I have chosen three sabhas, that attract large audiences, as examples.
In my opinion Parthasarathi gana sabha at vidhya bharathi ranks pretty low. There in only one entrance/ exit to the make shift pandal. For major concerts there is a big rush at the entrance to get good seats. There is a canteen adjoining the hall. The entrance to the venue is through a narrow road with cars parked on both sides. God forbid, any fire in the vicinity will lead to serious consequences.
This narrow road “approachâ€

[vageyakara]

Swaapna ji, You have sounded the timely alarm signal.
I think immediate steps are to be taken , BEFORE MUCH WATER HAS FLOWN OVER THE BRIDGE.
LET THERE NOT BE ANY RECURRENCE OF KUMBAKONAM.
Ramaraj

[cienu]

Very Good Observation by Svaapana

I am happy that atleast one Rasika Member has looked at Safety as an issue. There have been discussions on Canteens , Sound Systems and toilets in an earlier thread wherein Rasikas made excellent observations and gave valuable suggestions.

Maybe along with every concert review, we could have a one liner from Rasikas , if possible , on safety in Sabhas

[Nick H]

This is not a Sabha problem it is a cultural problem.

Is the situation any different in theatres or other halls, malls, shopping centres, public places in general?

There is no point in appealing to the sabhas when their committee members arrived on a bike with no helmet or in a car with no seatbelt.

We'll get clean toilets long, long before this issue is addressed

[arasi]

Nick,
You hit the nail on the head. Let us not point our fingers at the sabhas alone. In every public venue, whether it be a sabha, cinema theatre or a circus, we see that safety measures are completely overlooked. How about the roads which lead to them and the so-called pavements, if they exist at all? Gaping holes, uneven surfaces, exposed wires, trailing cables--are all hazards to pedestrians. For a senior who lives away from India most of the year, every time, I step out, it is like an adventure--I feel as if I am indulging in daredevilry. ..

[Svaapana]

Let us not mix issues. Cinema halls, malls, and several other public places are frequented often. Safety inspection of these places, as far as my knowledge goes, is mandatory (If the owners fail to compy with, one should put the blame on the enforcing authorities). Let us also not confuse the issue on hand with the wearing of safety seat belts in the car and wearing of helmets while driving two wheelers. There are laws prohibiting these. Violations can be brought to book and it is the laxity of the enforcing authorities that make people go unpunished.

The issue here is completely different. Music concerts of the “Chennai typeâ€

[Nick H]

Gerneral cultural attitudes towards safety have everything to do with this issue --- that is where it arises. Local organisers do not see anything wrong, nor do local audiences.

I think your assumptions about the sabhas and the premises are also wrong. Music concerts of the chennai type, as you put it, are not at all a rare phenomenon: they are occurring every day of every week, bar a few of the hottest days of the year, when whoever can get invitations and bookings are roaming on their world tours.

Music in Chennai is not a December activity: it is an all-year activity. What's more, some of the auditoria used by these organisations are attached to schools, where we should be able to find the absolutely highest regard for safety. We don't: we find what passes in Chennai. Others are used for public functions of different kinds.

If it were not for foreign visitors, I doubt very much that this issue would ever be noticed.

This is not about complacency: it is about every-day life: potholes, pavement encroachment, missing manhole covers (lethal during rain), uncovered electrical boxes carrying 3-phase current, transformer structures built with jagged edges at head and eye level. Did you ever notice a fire escape on an apartment block? Far from it, Chennai style, the windows will be barred; it will never even have been thought of.

There is, simply, a very low standard of public safety here, and it is an area in which, I am afraid, Chennai will not change any time soon for the sake of its residents. Even though they may come here with greater wisdom and better practices in this area, I'm afraid it will certainly not change for the sake of its visitors

[cienu]

The way the responses have been forthcoming , one seems to wonder whether raising an issue of safety in Sabhas is something not worth it. I am sure things are not going to change overnight , but the fact remains that in a rasikas forum , dedicated to Carnatic Music , raising an important issue of Safety in Sabhas devoted to such Music is certainly a very pertinent point . Maybe safety or lack of it is a cultural problem. 10 years back , people used to mock at seat belts , today a lot of people in India do wear. (Ironically in safety conscious Europe, Princess Diana was not wearing a seat belt at the time of her accident).Today we have workers on construction sites in India wearing helmets and safety hooks ! No doubt the change is happening very very slowly to make an impact, but we should not be so pessimistic about bringing to the fore such issues , just because one assumes that people will never change.

[Nick H]

Please do not misunderstand me: I am very happy to see the issue raised. Who knows but one small change made by someone reading this thread might save lives one day.

I am pessimistic enough to think that the general level of every-day hazard in this city is so high that it is unlikely to be the sabha committees leading the way into a new era of Chennai Health and Safety.

Consider the dreadful New Year tragedy at Savera; a fairly modern, star hotel.

Whilst Diana may not have been wearing a seatbelt, the vast majority of Brits obey the law to do so, and do it willingly, just as the vast majority of motorcyclists would not even go to the end of the road without a helmet.

The vast majority of motorists here do neither, and even the cyclists who wear a helmet render it useless by not fastening the chin strap. A man who does not realise the necessity of fastening a helmet chin strap is not going to consider what might happen, in case of a fire, because of the extra chairs he is putting in the aisle. We who grew up in, or live in, USA or Europe have had all this stuff almost beaten into us most of our lives. I could not fail to notice that the door mat, at a restaurant I attended yesterday, extending beyond the step, was a trip hazard. Such things come 'naturally' to me, though perhaps increasingly less so as Chennai ways take me over.

There's no way I'm trying to hold up one country as an ideal: my mother country is far from it, having become a place where insurance-claim paranoia has taken over from common sense and personal responsibility, and one is prohibited, "for your own safety" from doing almost everything!