Roads of India

Getting back to Bangalore is always fun. Making way from the Airport to home even more. Especially if you have to negotiate the wily passage extending from Airport Road running through Marathalli. Was in Chandigarh last Saturday. And I was surprised (pleasantly..) to discover roads with breadths as long as half a football field. Literally. More used to the monsoon-enhanced rivulets pretending to be roads closer to home, one is forgiven on thinking if the roads in Le Corbusier’s design are wasteful of precious real estate. Well, the slip roads (service lanes to the uninitiated) in Chandigarh are wider than the ITPL road in Bangalore or the Doveton Flyover in Chennai! Then there are the roads of Delhi. The Ring Roads are a favourite parking spot for the Delhiites. All you need to do is to enter one. I guess Delhi sets the record for the highest number of vehicles per square meter of road space. Here motorists conveniently convert the platforms into mini aerial ring roads. No wonder pedestrians prefer to use the roads and actively participate in the fight for tarmac space. The conspicuous ‘Central Road Research Institute’ on Mathura Road there has had little impact I would believe. Lucknow has no such luxury of a research institute dedicated to such studies as useless as road research. The main protagonists are the cycle-rickshaws, Vikram’s (fat-fat’s to the illiterate goons) and the notorious Sumos. Dropping passengers off at Charbagh, picking up new ones and slipping out of the chocked road is quite a craft at which most of the Vikram and Sumo Drivers have to earn their colours in.