Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Country Roads

Who says dancing is not everyone’s cup of tea? In India, among most of the cultures dancing forms an integral part of traditions and merry-making. But in todays past paced world, these aspects of the various Indian cultures seem to be fast eroding and only those with a keen interest in this form of art are keeping alive the tradition.

As if understanding this sorry state of affairs, the Indian roads have taken in to themselves to keep alive the tradition. Now you may be wondering how a non-alive thing make such a thing happen. Well, anyone familiar with the interiors of India will find the link between the comparison. The roads are in most cases broken and never repaired. Heavy traffic in the form of heavy vehicles keep moving on these roads making the condition worst. and us poor souls travel on them without having much of an option. The combition can get fatal if you are on a really bad road on a bus which seems to have come straight out of ‘Malgudi days’ and whose the seats have been loosely put together and sadly have managed to get the last seat. The natural dance steps will make you see heaven and hell together!

The situation may seem funny at first but if one looks deeper into it, who is to be blamed. We are a country who loves blaming each other. In this case, the people will blame the authorities, the authorities will blame the government and someone probably can also raise the issue of corruption here. It has become such a jungle of problems that even if someone tries to rectigy them, it will be difficult to identify where to start.

For my age, I have travlled quite a bit around India and have seen almost all kinds of roads, though a interiors are still to be explored. From fascinating highways that do not have a single crack on them to the roads that do not have any unbroken parts left I have seen them all. As a child I reme,ber naming one such road the ‘disco road’ because once on a rickshaw on that road I could only keep making the disco move, albeit involuntarily. Currently I am staying in an institution which have amazing infrastructure. Professionals coming to visit it get amazed at how beautiful and self suffiecient the campus is. However they hardly come by the road that we need to travel with. For them there is a smaller but better road available. On the road that the majority of the population moves in so dilapidated that the government has been turning cold shoulders from ages. The irony of all this is that beside a state-of-the-art institution lies a rundown road and no one can do anything to improve its situation.

At the end of the day, it is us the common people who have to bear the brunt of all this and let the country roads led us to heaven and hell together boogie woogiing all the way.