The Phalanx

Now of those, who dare, abiding one beside another, to advance to the close fray, and the foremost champions, fewer die, and they save the people in the rear; but in men that fear, all excellence is lost ...

What was it ? Wait and read ...

Heart beats faster. The pounding drowns the chaos around. Will I fall or the the one next to me. Hope its not me..... Not yet ..... At-least I don't fall alone.
Things will change if everyone falls. Good that things never change. Nothing will change....
...

So thinks a soldier you would say and hardly be near the truth.
These are the thoughts of an Indian pedestrian, a compelled jay walker if you will. Compelled by poorly planned walkways, road junctions in India. The pedestrians are forced to resort to one of the oldest military formations known. The Phalanx.
There is nothing martial about it per se. The common compulsion to achieve a goal viz. cross a busy junction brings the people together, regardless of their differences. Together they move step by step ...

I lock eyes with one of the others. The Others who cross our path with impudence. They bear more power but they stand alone. We bear us ...

A game of power and risk. And yet with an assurance of change if not rewards. So then are pedestrians the only ones who use it ?
Not really. Everyone does. The drivers ( the Others ) use it too. Against a bigger group of others. Confusing ?
Shouldn't be if you have driven on Indian roads. Vehicles on the narrow roads which join the bigger roads, face a problem when there are no signals to stop the on slaught of the stream of vehicles going orthogonal. The crowd of vehicles grows on the narrow road. Honking increases. There is reluctance. Yet the compulsion grows and grows.

And then The Phalanx takes over. The brash ones in the front move a foot ahead with a sneer. The timid ones add the inches. The ones behind add to the numbers. Step by step ...

I stand in the middle, neither the front nor the rear. Saved by the front and driven by the rear. I am ready, for when my time comes I lower my spear and pull up my shield, to protect me and my left. I hear the cries from the front. Yet we don't care, for our shield is the front and for our rear, we....

Far from the dramatic clash of shields there is something different at work with the pedestrians or the vehicles. The fear of clash. A deterrent far more powerful than the clash itself.
And strengthened by this, the phalanx of men and vehicles move ahead, constricting the flow one by one, step by step ...

The front is strong. We push and get pushed back. And back. Then we heel and jostle ahead. The Others are blocked by the ones who push and by us who heel. They know they dare not breach the phalanx. Because some other time they have to be a part of one....

The effort pays off. The vehicles slow. Some from the deterrent. Some out of respect. And when then slow they ponder for a second how they did the same when they crossed the road, step by step ...

Ah ! They stop ! The phalanx is safe. I live yet another day !

The flow has ebbed. And it does not matter how, as the pedestrians / vehicles cross to the other side safe and to their lives, not together but disbanded.

Only to join again at the next junction, step by step ....