Expect the unexpected, especially while walking along the pavement or the sidewalk, as the Americans call it. Many of us believed, and continue to believe, that one of the best gifts the government gave to the city in the last few years is the pavement. At last the existence of the pedestrian, the poor two-legged thing who was shoved rudely off the road by the motor car and other vehicles, was recognised. Yaay! He would no longer be forced to perform complicated and breathtaking gymnastic moves in close tandem with the wall every time a vehicle powered in out of nowhere, threatening to flatten him.
We celebrated by stepping gingerly on the red interlocked pavement tiles that stretched along the side of the road like a winding, never-ending red carpet, delighted at having secured our own space in the mad, crowded roads. And that’s when the truth, and other impediments, hit us. In no time different claimants began thronging the pavement – cars and two wheelers strayed into the space, strays spaced themselves in between the cars and garbage began collecting overnight in ever increasing, stinking mounds.
Car owners smacked their lips at this glorious government-sponsored answer to their prayers for parking space. The slightly raised level of the pavement was hardly a deterrent as, recognising a good thing when they saw one, they lost no time in urging their engines to rise, or rather, raise to the occasion, and planted their cars there. They had the effrontery to believe they had marked their territory with that. Stray dogs, ever on the lookout for empty space to sleep or fight in, marked their own territory in their inimitable way and parked themselves wherever they could. The pedestrian found himself in a familiar situation – out in the cold.
Some pedestrians raised feeble voices of protest that grew stronger when upstaged and outsmarted car drivers joined them. The traffic police finally came out of their apathy to warn car drivers who, of course, didn't turn a hair. Nothing works like punishment and when some errant vehicles were towed away, the rest moved out of the pavements, leaving them free for the dogs, the garbage and the coconut fronds.
A friend who was visiting the city after a long time, gushed, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it! Such lovely pavements here...’ ‘Look lovely all right,’ I said, ‘but very often they double as “cavements”. They have this nasty habit of caving in without so much as a by-your-leave.’ I should know, having been the victim of such a trick. One minute I was striding along the pavement and the next the other end of the solid looking concrete slab jerked up like a seesaw and I found myself sinking into the gutter, fortunately dry at that time. It was an alarming sensation, like walking into a booby trap; there wasn't even time to totter. Ignoring a couple of exclamations by people nearby and a child’s barely suppressed giggle, I heaved myself out, pretended this was something I did every day and continued with my walk.
It reminded me of a most unusual and unforgettable sight I saw a few years back. This was outside the University College and walking along the pavement made of concrete slabs, I noticed a sprightly little street urchin prancing ahead. She stopped abruptly and, after a quick look around, pushed, just a fraction, a slab that was probably made loose for the purpose, sat over it and daintily arranged her frock around her. In the middle of a busy road, she did her business with the nonchalance of a child on the banks of a village river. She rose swiftly, gave another hasty glance about, forced the slab back and danced away. Brilliant!
I realised she was one of a group of vagrants who in those days came over from the neighbouring states to earn an easy livelihood. They were regularly rounded up by the police and left behind at the borders, but returned soon enough with the precision of homing pigeons. In the evenings they would collect together, a happy, carefree group, count their takings and order parcels from neighbouring restaurants.
Where have they gone? In their place we find ghagra choli clad women with their husbands and children at traffic lights, selling car window shields or boxes of tissue and occasionally begging. I wonder if they also put the pavements that run over gutters to the same use...
