Road-ies

While going to office today, I was perplexed by the condition of the roads. It is a 25 minutes ride to my office, and thanks to the Corporation, it is really a challenge to be able to reach office safely. Of course, the daily to and fro trips are slowly taking its toll on my back (with all the jerks) but it is inevitable.

I truly believe if you have driven on Indian roads, you can drive anywhere in the world. It is not only the condition of roads that is to be blamed; actually everything works in perfect harmony.

• The road will be perpetually under construction
• If it has rained for sometime, driving can become adventure sports for you would not know which hole is how much deep and you would have enough exercise dodging the holes, garbage that has over flown on the roads and a lot of actual mud slinging.
• There will be vehicle coming from all sides. As my brother says, in India, when you are crossing road you should not only look in the direction of Traffic, look at the opposite side and the front too. You never know from which side a vehicle would be speeding to your side.
• There will be animals walking leisurely on the road like dogs, cats, cows, buffaloes, etc, etc.
• Right when you would find a vacant stretch of road and you would slightly increase your speed with confidence, from somewhere a kid will cross the road running, causing you a momentary heart-attack and unbalancing you for next couple of seconds.
• State Transport Corporation buses would move on the roads as if they own it, and incompliance to this unwritten diktat can cause anything between major discomforts to accidents.
• People behind you would keep honking horns at you, even if there would not be any space to move ahead.
• If you don’t let people behind you get ahead of you, you will be subjected to all kinds of verbal abuses.
• Most of the secluded, under-construction roads will not have street lights

By the way, our Union Road Transport & Highways Minister Kamal Nath says that next decade will be of Infrastructure. I am all for it!