Nope, this is not about the game! It is about the pot holed
glory that Bangalore roads have become these days, thanks to the rain! So,
apparently the roads are fixed every year and every year after the first
showers they return to their original state of ‘holeyness’. And no, the roads
don’t develop an aura or start teaching us the way of life. Pun intended.
I honestly think the holes are always there, under the
covers all summer, biding their time, itching to pop out at the first sign of
rain, threatening to be unearthed by so much as a strong gust of wind. They are
a car’s best fiend. That was NOT a type. I did mean a fiend. I cringe at the
thought of driving on the road these days. I think my car has programmed the current
potholes on my regular route in its microprocessor and I find it veering itself
to one side of the road trying to avoid being tilted at a 45 degree angle while
going over the newest addition to the relief features of the ‘road’. It hardly
ever helps though because in some stretches, the road is entirely missing. The
choice is between a 45 degree angle and a 30 degree angle. Take your pick.
Actually I think if I go over the same pothole in both
directions, my wheel alignment would actually get balanced. In fact I would
probably save some money. Although nobody in their right mind would EVER get
their wheel alignment checked in India. Even if I get it checked (I don’t know
why I would do that), I wouldn’t spend money getting it fixed. I saw an
advertisement the other day that offered a discount on wheel alignment and I couldn’t
help feeling bad for the poor guy who not only opened that business but also
spent money advertising it. You might as well take that money and throw it out
the car’s window. Or collect all such monies towards a road fund J. Because the taxes we
pay go towards the ‘Swiss’ fund of the local politicians.
I think I can take the kids of our community on a field trip
to the local pothole and explain quite a few geographic concepts if I spend 20
minutes there. It has ridges and valleys, mountains and hills, seas and oceans,
rivers and deltas and by next season it may also boast of its own little eco
system. It would be a nice case study in geography and science. I think Bangalore
city officials should take advantage of these models created by nature and
charge tickets for children to use them as study material. At least the
potholes would have a purpose in life other than trying to break poor commuter’s
backbones.
Sometimes I think it is a conspiracy by orthopedicians in
Bangalore. They probably spend a lot of money appeasing the rain gods so
Bangalore area sees a lot of rain and the roads are never free of potholes. The
more people break their backs going over these potholes on their daily commute,
the better business is for them. Or it could be a lobby of car companies who
want the existing cars of the roads to die a painful death so sales would go
up.
By the way, for those of you who don’t know already, these
roads get ‘fixed’ every year. Which translates to the contractor getting paid
to lay a new road but to save a ‘buck’, the metaphorical kind, they end up
patching the road instead. Why fix the whole thing when only part of it is broken?
How will they buy the latest model of the Audi if they don’t have a road to ‘fix’
next year?
So, until the tender gets passed this year, we will be in
our ‘hell hole’ and wait for the patches to come so we can move on with our
life. Until next monsoon.