Wild. Whacky. Witty. Wicked. Wasted

The perfect road is torn —A glimpse of Indian Roads

I often comment to anyone who cares to listen; that Indian roads are the perfect holiday destination for anyone dying to loose weight. That’s because the ride over the rough and tumble of the moon-like-in-nature kind of roads with potholes resembling craters, will surely reduce the lard that any of us carry. So when Natalie Imbruglia can sing ‘I am wide awake and i can see that the perfect sky is torn….’, I know its true.  (Its true America and similar G-8 nations have combined  CO2 emissions totalling 34.2% of the total. So the sky ought to be torn there and the same is with the roads here in India. )

With a job like mine I have to travel a lot. And lots of that travel includes road trips. So this is an informed column.

So the more roads (and their apparent disrepair in most cases) are discussed in and out of the public mind, the less is done about their condition. Only the stock market talk can rival the amount which we discuss the conditions of the roads. A sure sign that we discuss roads is the fact that we map the distance not only in kilometers; but also by the condition of the particular stretch of road. For example if you ask me the distance from Pune to Nasik, I will not only give you the distance (202 Kms) but also warn you ‘that about 2/3rd of that distance is by single lane and not the expressway but the road is good’.

There are excellent roads – Mumbai-Pune expressway, Agra-Delhi causeway, Delhi-Ajmer link and of course the Pimpri – Pune expressway has now come into existence and the distance is reduced not in kms but in time in each case.

There are good roads but these are few and far between (the roads in Rajasthan, Gujrat and Uttarkhand are to die for (literally) cause all you do is speed at +80Kms/hr on those). But these examples are few and far between. The worst of the lot is in MP. Every turn is a sunken pit and each bump is just felt stronger that usual. Its like you are trying to jump from one bombed out dugout-to the next. Yes, its that uncomfortable.

Now even if the PWD or similar Municipal authority finally pave a road, (especially applicable in cities.), the other dept of water or lord-knows-what comes in the next few days and uproots the whole stretch or part of it with digging for  anything that they might be managing at the time. Main diggers include the P&T Dept, the Water Supply Dept, the PWD themselves to lay a drainage pipe which they didn’t plan for earlier. A popular joke doing the sms rounds translates loosely to mean ‘ I dug everywhere today and what is left will be dug tomorrow’.

This is a constant cycle, just like the circle of birth and death and rebirth. I wonder what the engineers who lay the roads and the other engineers who come to tear it up, find when they reach the Pearly Gates. St. Peter will ask,’How are you qualified to enter Heaven?’. And the engineers will say.’We were road engineers, we built roads.’ And St Peter would groan,’ What you built were mirages, for they stayed only for a time and then one of you uprooted them, so that they were gone. I cannot allow you to enter. Go back and redo your life as a road engineer and next time learn not to tear up the roads.’ So back them come and become the road engineers and we have the roads we still did 25 years ago in most places cause the same folks are doing the work and they are too lazy to improve, so signs like the one beside are what you need to heed. 

Indian roads are so infamous that even auto majors roll out India-specific models. Suspensions are hardened, tyre sizes are altered, engines are retrofitted. All this to meet the inhuman challenges that roads post to the occupants of the car and the car itself.  My car comes with a warranty, which will be invalid in case i do rally driving. I don’t understand why they are making a mistake here. Everyday on the road is rally-driving. The potholes which don’t swallow you will surely meet you again tomorrow; made larger and deeper by the monsoon rains. If you survive driving around in all of India, you will be a first class amateur rally driver anywhere in the developed world. (Cause most of the developing nations roads fall in our category road-wise)

The fact is that it is possible that we transform to better roads, like the  case has been with the few excellent roads mentioned above. So i am waiting till the day that at least 50% of all roads in India look like that. Since this means a lot more road work, B-O-T type and even more so PPP type Infrastructure companies are going to do business and hence its a good idea to pick some stock. (Please don’t sue me, this is my tip, i didn’t say you needed to use it!) So I would love to see the roads get constructed and invest in that expansion. The following video gives me inspiration, for a better tomorrow. And the roads are yet not hellish enough(Thank goodness), cause i haven’t lost much weight travelling on them so far. !!!

 

 

But walking down them might help…..

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