NARA'S NOTEPAD

CROWDED WORLD

Very often we all used to say – crowded cities, crowded trains, crowded buses, crowded streets, crowded schools and colleges – Yes indeed! We do find large groups of people aggregate everywhere. The number of people in a crowd varies from thousands to millions. As the human population goes up, the size of the crowds also increases. Few people cannot form a big crowd. They may meet to chat or play cards or join for an evening party. We may not call it a crowd. Small parties for birthday, family and friends get together. Such small groups of people really enjoy the occasion.

Generally large crowds are seen in political rallies, sports events, travelling, religious festivals and celebrations, big marriages, shopping, scientific seminars and the like. These crowds will not escape our eyes because they are planned in advance and announced all over through media and advertisement channels.

The political rallies are common in a democratic and even in autocratic countries. In a democracy rulers are elected by the people of the country. So rallies are organized to gather people’s valuable votes. Elections are held once in four or five years. Before such elections political parties – hundreds of them in every State of India – may be little less in other countries-organize rallies with the top leaders. Crowd pulling is not easy nowadays; still because of high unemployment problem, people are available to participate in rallies. These people are paid, fed and transported to the venue of the rally by the crowd pulling agents. Well organized indeed! We see such in TV channels live.

Sports events are another arena people aggregate in large numbers. We often see live the sports programs in TV. Stadia – big and small – are constructed in major cities of a nation with modern facilities to attract large crowds to watch the sports. It may be cricket, tennis, foot ball, athletic events and the like. The sports-crazy crowd pay to watch such sports. Tickets are sold well in advance on line nowadays and the crowd gather on the stipulated date in a given venue. Sports events extend for hours together. People stay shouting and supporting their country-teams and also enjoy and appreciate the talents of the sports persons. Such crowd ia mixture of all age groups. At times clashes occur between the team or the team supporters especially in foot ball matches.

Travelling has become a necessity for humans nowadays. Travel relieves tension and anxiety. So many people travel with their family during school and college holidays to far off countries. People are crowded in airports, railway stations and even in hotels. If a flight is delayed or cancelled due to unavoidable reasons, you can see the angry crowds all around. So also, in and around railway stations. One has to book the tickets well in advance to reserve the journey. Often we see the crowded trains, buses and flights during festival and summer holidays.

There are umpteen numbers of religious festivals at various places in the world. Christmas at Rome, Huj at Mecca, Kumbh Mela at Allahabad, Makaravilakku at Sabarimala, Durgapuja at West Bengal, Bramhotsavam at Thirumala, Shivrathri at Isha Centre, Coimbatore – oh, hundreds of festivals all around the world attract crowds and crowds!. It’s an every year feature of crowding up.

Marriages of rich people also attract crowds. They like to invite as many people as possible to the marriage of their kiths and kins to show their popularity. In fact, in such gala marriages the crowd enjoys meeting the relatives and friends and also the sumptuous food. Crowds are seen in marriage halls that accommodate thousands of people. These halls are modernized and air-conditioned. Marriage crowd is for enjoyment. Even a small family marriage nowadays is crowded sufficiently with hundreds of people.

Shopping has become a fashion. All want to shop for dress, house-hold items, gifts, electronic goods etc. People flock the shopping malls, bazaars and super-markets. Although we have on-line shopping still the physical crowd on the street is not yet reduced.

Finally I have to mention the crowds in scientific seminars. Professional seminars – national or international ones – are held annually around the world. One such is the famous Indian Science Congress. Apart from this i have seen large crowds attend these seminars for a short period of 3 to 5days. Once one of my students commented that these seminars are like big marriages where people go, eat and meet their friends as we do in marriages. I agree with her.

Looking at all these, we are witnessing crowds all around us. As the global population increases, the crowds will also go on bulging. The need to control and manage the crowd has given rise to the study of crowd psychology. New ways and means have to be designed in future. The size of today’s crowd will be multiplied many fold in future. The future generation has to face. - NARA