Roads - or Not roads

 I had even prepared the title - encroached lives. But sadly, I don’t have pictures now. I really wanted to show you the picture of a road - hardly 10-12 feet wide, which has a trench on one side. But I don't think I need to, as all of us Indians witness such roads quite often.

The story is long. In my native town of sirsi, the roads are bad. As in the rest of the nation. They are very narrow. But here for my mother’s house, the road was bumpy, full of stones. Very difficult to walk or ride. 

And the best part is, all the residents are super seniors. So, their walking in these roads is highly risky. 

They tried to get an asphalted road, sent petition after petition. After struggling for 5 years they finally got a cement road. 

The beauty of the road was, it was almost a foot taller. Which made the houses at a lower height than the road. So when it rains, the water from road flows into the compounds of the house. 

Ok, that’s history. Now suddenly, the local government decided that it wants to fix the drinking water system. All over the town. The workers brought JCB and started digging the roads. 

And the roads almost disappeared- 16 feet road had a 3 feet wide excavation in the middle. And the result - seniors living could not bring out the vehicles. Could not even bring autos to the road. Basic services like garbage collection stopped. 

Something else also happened. As the JCB was monstrously moving around, it broke more pipes and there were more leaks. And until all these leaks were identified and fixed, the road could not not be repaired. 

After lot of pleading, cajoling and 4 days, the pits were closed, but leaving behind mounds of mud and cement in the middle of the road. Now even the JCB and the workers have disappeared. 

But we are thankful for 5 trillion economy we have been promised, and first world status we are running towards. Jai. Jai Jai.