A week ago, I fell from my motorbike, forcing me to miss my long-awaited cycling tour. A car driver, paying little heed to my continuous honking, drove past the junction from the connecting road, forcing me to brake hard. As for me, it was an accident waiting to happen because of the daily last-minute rush to office like people who wait to move out till the cyclone makes landfall.
But I sometimes wonder at the skill set one has to develop to ride on Indian roads. You just can’t dare to take a glance off the road. Your brain will scream at you, watch out! You will hit that dog. It’s every rider’s nightmare that some dog will run across and you will lose control over the machine. Personally, after a few close shaves, dogs rank very high on my watchlist. That is because it is difficult to judge their behaviour. When panic strikes, they make sudden turns and sprint. So, it is wiser that we slow down.
Dogs apart, one has to watch out for sheep and cows that normally won’t trouble themselves to leave their ground. So, you need to tread in the left-over space. Sometimes, buffaloes can be dangerous, running helter-skelter. We see some street horses wandering on the roads too. So why do these animals stay close to busy roads with all the speeding vehicles and honking? Because that is where they find food. If we keep garbage off the road, these street animals will move away.
Unscientifically laid humps, too many at some points and none where needed, are another obstacle. A few months ago, seeing recurring accidents at a nearby road junction, I approached the urban development body requesting for installing road humps and blind spot mirrors. It replied that the request shall be responded to within 30 days. Failing to receive any, I called back only to be told that installing road humps required the permission of the traffic police. I was left flabbergasted.
I ride to my hometown late in the night and the road has sharp turns with road dividers. There are no reflectors, and the dividers are flush with bushes. The craters on the road resemble the surface of the moon. I wish not to speak about the traffic congestion in metro cities.
The state of affairs of our roads does speak a lot about who we are and where we are. The invention of the wheel represents the beginning of civilisation. If the wheel has so many hurdles to spin, we are just really struck somewhere in the middle of the so-called road to progress!
ashokbbalakrishna@gmail.com
