Roads… Our First love

Every day almost all of us who hit the roads to go from anywhere to everywhere irrespective of the

city we are in, surprisingly reveal our Johari window’s deepest, darkest of the corners when we mouth cuss words unknown-to-us and unknown-to-others. Horns honked all the way to eternity, temperatures flared to compete with the sun and stress levels threaten the ozone layer to transmogrify all Dr Jekylls to Mr Hydes.

Everyone blames everyone else for the chaos. It seems everyone is herself doing all the right things, it’s just the others who don’t know how to drive or don’t follow the rules. So if everyone is doing it right then what is the real cause of the entire melee?  Wait… I am not going to start the sermon… like, YOU are the real cause, YOU don’t realise but YOU are the one who is honking the horn, YOU are the one not stopping on the stop line, YOU are jumping signals etc. OK, while that is all true as well, this is not about it. The real reason for all the traffic woes is our deep love for the roads. Not just love but passionate love.

Remember the last time when you were buying or renting a house and were told by the real estate agent that the building has roads on the three sides and has shops all around it, I am sure you would have felt blessed. Hang on… what’s wrong with that? Isn’t it actually great to be right on the road and have all retail stores around? Is it?

We want to do everything on the roads not just living and shopping. Look around you and see all the stuff you have ignored for so long you have been blinded to it. Shops “on the road” have encroached upon the footpaths so the pedestrians walk “on the road”. The shops have put up their signboards with arrows pointing towards their respective stores. Private and commercial vehicles used by the shop owners occupy one lane of the road for parking. The customers of these shops double-park their cars and two-wheelers occupying another lane with impunity. Since the customers abound, hawkers mushroom selling their varied wares encroaching upon yet another lane ‘of the road’.  Effectively even if it is a 5-lane road, all that the drivers are left with is just one lane. Think this is ridiculous? Look around.

Out fetish for the road doesn’t end there. We have temples on the road, sometimes right in the centre of a busy intersection (wonder how it came up in the first place itself); Restaurants & Eateries serving the patrons on tables put ‘on the road’; people (and not just children) playing cricket, football and myriad other games and flying kites & running on the road to catch the one floating down after being cut. The roads also offer extended space to homes erected right on the sides with women washing clothes on the sidewalks and then drying them on the dividers, sometimes even bathing their children. People would scatter all over the road waiting for their bus while the bus stop designated for them is totally deserted. I am sure you recall car tires stacked outside a puncture shop to let people know about the existence of it.

Tens of thousands of trees were felled to construct the building complex I live in but right outside it, is a tree in the middle of the road which is so placed that it doesn’t leave much space on one side of it forcing all traffic to converge on the other side. However, this particular tree cannot be felled as some conscientious residents of our complex (remember, the same complex which has been build on the mass graveyard of trees), don’t let the authorities cut it.

We treat roads as our private property. We don’t even bat an eyelid when we see part or sometime the entire road being blocked with a tent for religious discourses, marriages and other religious and non-religious ceremonies. Taking out processions on the roads is our birthright for which we don’t even have to take any permission. Even the authorities and government bodies consider roads as space available for free to conduct political meetings, inaugurations and award ceremonies. Holes are dug to erect the poles for the tents and left gaping after the poles are removed. Hoardings are blatantly put up on the roadsides, some of them even officially approved by greasing some palms. Scrap vehicles are left to rot even on the highways and Police occupy part of the road outside their stations to store the impounded vehicles. Housing societies would dump garbage right outside and leave it on the municipal corporation to take it away. The list goes on...

And you thought roads were for driving?

All this happens because of our ardent love for the roads which in turn is simply because we reside ON the roads. The only way this can get sorted is when the urban development authorities across various cities steadily make us divorce the roads by creating residential blocks away from commercial districts and not letting any development whatsoever on main roads which can then serve their sole purpose of transporting us from one location to another in the least possible time. This would in turn improve productivity, reduce costs & stress and let you spend more time with your family.

Look around… the problem is staring right at you.