Simply Me
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Planning...
Everyone knows of 5-year plans... But who knows of every year plans? These are the ones which are to be followed every year... The city of Pune has one such plan... Road maintenance... Well with a twist...
Every year about a month before the monsoons, the road construction work begins... what this entails is around a couple of weeks of digging up the already existing roads... then leaving all the ruins along the side of the roads or in case of the more 'well-off' roads which actually have footpaths... (Hey they actually exist in some parts of Pune... you might not find them easily but ask the hawkers or drunks who have no home to get back to or even those who are too exhausted to find their homes, they'll show you one...) you'll find them piled with rubble for another couple of weeks... so if you do the math, you'll figure out that the rains are now here... The first rains in Pune are always those variety where it rains off and on sun and light for days... and we have the thunder-lightning storms... so that's where the road construction work ends for the monsoons... that is how we welcome the rains in this part of the country atleast...
Now bottom-line of all this is that we have these beautifully dug up roads... well halfway length-wise... super traffic population who have like the most amazing drivers with zero road sense... rubble filled footpaths... (Do keep in mind that when no footpaths exist, these are all on the road itself...) pedestrians with even less road sense... Imagine people crossing the road when the light is green for the vehicles I might add... since, well the green lights for pedestrians don't exist... traffic never stops... and its every man/woman/animal for itself... which brings me to the facts that I've seen dogs and cats cross the road more sensibly than humans... and on top of that winds and rains... So the situation might be right out of the Amazing Race's visit to India... Ask them to send the teams to Pune in the monsoons and surely they'll remember the horrors of the country throughout their lifetime... to be honest, I do wonder how they find the Amazing Race people find all the strangest and depressing places in India, but that's another story...
Coming back to the roads or the lack of it thereof... So this year, the rains took some pity on the road construction guys... the real rains started just a few days ago... and it rained continuously for the better part of three days... the rains which pretty much flood the areas near the river banks... So after a 'nice' (Yeah right!!!!) rain filled weekend (going out anywhere was SOOOOOO out of question :( ) it was back to office today... the highway (can you believe it the HIGHWAY!!!) was totally filled with potholes... Heaven knows what they make these roads of which washes off with the first rains!!! This meant that our cab driver came to pick me up a whole 30mins after the normal time he should have come to my house and we reached office 4o minutes late... it was a lovely ride really... who can claim to have ridden a camel while in a car or maybe I should say we went to the moon and back...
Every year the same thing repeats... every year the same road constructions... digging up the roads before the rains and the streets piled with whatever was dug up with everything from stones, mud to telephone lines and water pipes... never has the question of making a drainage system to carry the water off the road been a concern... so the low lying parts of the road are water logged each year...
They say history repeats itself... But is this the sort of history which needs to be repeated each year????
Every year about a month before the monsoons, the road construction work begins... what this entails is around a couple of weeks of digging up the already existing roads... then leaving all the ruins along the side of the roads or in case of the more 'well-off' roads which actually have footpaths... (Hey they actually exist in some parts of Pune... you might not find them easily but ask the hawkers or drunks who have no home to get back to or even those who are too exhausted to find their homes, they'll show you one...) you'll find them piled with rubble for another couple of weeks... so if you do the math, you'll figure out that the rains are now here... The first rains in Pune are always those variety where it rains off and on sun and light for days... and we have the thunder-lightning storms... so that's where the road construction work ends for the monsoons... that is how we welcome the rains in this part of the country atleast...
Now bottom-line of all this is that we have these beautifully dug up roads... well halfway length-wise... super traffic population who have like the most amazing drivers with zero road sense... rubble filled footpaths... (Do keep in mind that when no footpaths exist, these are all on the road itself...) pedestrians with even less road sense... Imagine people crossing the road when the light is green for the vehicles I might add... since, well the green lights for pedestrians don't exist... traffic never stops... and its every man/woman/animal for itself... which brings me to the facts that I've seen dogs and cats cross the road more sensibly than humans... and on top of that winds and rains... So the situation might be right out of the Amazing Race's visit to India... Ask them to send the teams to Pune in the monsoons and surely they'll remember the horrors of the country throughout their lifetime... to be honest, I do wonder how they find the Amazing Race people find all the strangest and depressing places in India, but that's another story...
Coming back to the roads or the lack of it thereof... So this year, the rains took some pity on the road construction guys... the real rains started just a few days ago... and it rained continuously for the better part of three days... the rains which pretty much flood the areas near the river banks... So after a 'nice' (Yeah right!!!!) rain filled weekend (going out anywhere was SOOOOOO out of question :( ) it was back to office today... the highway (can you believe it the HIGHWAY!!!) was totally filled with potholes... Heaven knows what they make these roads of which washes off with the first rains!!! This meant that our cab driver came to pick me up a whole 30mins after the normal time he should have come to my house and we reached office 4o minutes late... it was a lovely ride really... who can claim to have ridden a camel while in a car or maybe I should say we went to the moon and back...
Every year the same thing repeats... every year the same road constructions... digging up the roads before the rains and the streets piled with whatever was dug up with everything from stones, mud to telephone lines and water pipes... never has the question of making a drainage system to carry the water off the road been a concern... so the low lying parts of the road are water logged each year...
They say history repeats itself... But is this the sort of history which needs to be repeated each year????
Labels: Babuji zara dheere chalo...
