Tome And Plume: Roads Bleed Residents; Authorities In Slumber

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations – Oliver Goldsmith.

If you are on wheels in Bhopal, you may levitate yourself or tumble down, and in both cases, the experience is agonising. Out of desperation, if you look at the roads below your wheels, they will appear like black ribbons, with big and small holes, snaking their way through the city. Repairing these roads is not easy, at least for now because of the war in West Asia, which has led to a shortage of bitumen, an essential item for constructing roads. But these roads, with dark, irregularly shaped marks, big or small, are scary, especially at night. If you are down with waist pain, it is set to become smarter. Had the roads been your skin, you would have gone to a doctor to see how wheels would do their utmost to negotiate these gashes. However achy your driving experience may be, bobbing and swerving, you will slalom your way through the minefield as the roads may appear to be. Your irritation deepens when a car and a bike honk from behind, asking you to let it go. You do not know whether it is driving or dodgems. A few wheelmen, being oblivious to the danger or because their patience has reached the limit, will not stop honing, thinking they will fly over the fleet of vehicles. Even if you tell them to stop honing, they are unlikely to pay any heed to your advice. If you hit a red light, you will confront many people jumping the traffic signals, forgetting that their unnecessary hurry may take them to a hospital. During the monsoon, the roads in the city become peak pothole season, and you wince as you watch because a fellow biker, failing to negotiate an underwater, unseen enemy, has fallen and sustained injuries. Driving a two-wheeler is a hellish experience, and as you enter any road, the number of fractured surfaces grows and that of craters deepens. There is a lack of money or a strong will to either fill the holes or to stop them happening. The potholes never grow old, but their number does. These deep gashes on roads perforate the tyres and bend the wheels of your vehicle, punching a hole in your pocket. They also pose a threat to your life and limbs. So, stopping, starting, and slaloming all over the city on your wheels is dangerous. If you hit one of the holes, riding on two wheels, you are more likely to be in a world of pain, and the surrounding blokes may have steam coming out of their ears, hurling choicest abuses at the authorities. A suggestion for an insurance claim is hilarious because by the time the agent of an insurance company reaches you, many such complaints as yours have heaped upon his table, and your losses have multiplied.

This is how it is, as the potholes are more than what they appear to be because they deprive you of your joy of driving. Roads are fundamental institutions of human civilisation, but people forget that. Like other institutions, roads, too, have an origin and history, but we forget that. Potholes in the roads are metaphors for the holes in the policy and the government’s tall claims on development. You moan over what you see for a while. You then rev the engine of your wheels and head only to hit another ditch lurking on the road.

Arup Chakraborty