ALL ROADS LEAD TO CIVILISATION

In a movie I saw long back, there is a British engineer who is overseeing the road work being done, asks the Indian contractor as to where that road leads to. He tells him a name of a village for which the engineer says “No, it leads to civilization”.

So where does a road lead to? Yes it leads to another village, town or a city. A road leads to another state and country. And in turn it leads two different people or communities, in turn leads to many people and communities and cultures. There is exchange of goods, gestures, cultures and everything what two people can do.

A road builds an easy access to remote places to educate them. A road leads to humanity, love and breaks barriers. So we now are convinced little what the British engineer told. 

So In India looking at our roads, we can come to a conclusion that we are not civilized enough. Basically the topic is limited to India only. There are many countries in the world with beautiful roads with no civilization.

This is a country which builds rockets and puts satellites in to orbit and is one of the six countries in the world to do it. Builds intercontinental missiles and competes with the developed world in healthcare. Has the third largest railway line in the world. It makes highest number of movies in the world. But one thing this country cannot have is a decent road. Where are the roads in this country?

We have never really built roads with a plan. Few may be. The majority were widened walking paths. Over time they have been widened to the extent needed to use for bullock carts and later vehicles. So we have all kinds of winding so called roads, which are dangerous and unmotorable. 

The world builds road, but we lay them. All we have to do is put some tar and run a road roller and we have a beautiful road on the first day and two days later it’s gone. Yes it is corruption and so on. Ultimately it is the problem of the people; it is they who need roads. It is the people who destroy the roads. Everybody wants a beautiful road in front their house. But they don’t want any vehicles running across. Moment the vehicles start, they want a road hump in front of their house. Half the road is occupied by the residents on either side, by making a garden or fencing the area. There is always something crossing across the road in front of all the houses. Every house has something to take under the road and they dig across. Never filling it completely and all we have is a tunnel in the road for every house. 
 

People do not want roads with vehicles running across in front of their houses, so they create so many problems to the traffic. Then we make a bye pass road or a ring road and take the road away from them to the outskirts. Suddenly the real estate picks up next to the bye pass or ring road and everybody wants to have a place there. And again the same problem arises. We will have shops, road barriers and humps. A new town or village comes next to the bye pass or ring road and again another bottle neck, traffic comes to a halt.

         We have the highest number of road accidents in the world. The main reason is the state of our roads. Roads are not visible, there are no signs. roads are filled with millions of pot holes and are uneven, no markings, no side rails in curves and basically no plan for building a road. It is just a paved path. Suddenly you get curves in the roads which are invisible. Invariably sudden invisible curves will always be next to a lake and we find unsuspecting drivers, driving in to the lakes. After many people driving in to lakes killing millions by drowning, there is an outcry and the treatment will be to put road humps which are invisible and cause more accidents. 

Then we have poor quality transport. Do you know the Indian buses are not really built as a bus? For so many decades the buses are built in this country on a lorry chassis. These chassis are bought and given to body builders across the country, who are master copiers, who copy the body building and build a body over the lorry chassis and make it in to a bus. I do not believe they have any concern about the safety of the commuters or they have any technology at all. These buses and Lorries we produce cannot carry their own weight on a hill. They really are a nuisance. They obstruct traffic and cannot carry the weight they have been loaded. This is the kind of quality our so called market leaders are pouring us. The first bus to arrive in reality was when Volvo came in to Indian market. Of course, now the new Indian multinationals are trying to compete with the real multinationals. Only thing they have achieved is some cheap cosmetic alteration. 

Our road behavior is one of the most unbelievable adventures. Nobody has any common sense when they use the road. No rules and no concern for the traffic or people. Everybody wants to be ahead and honk to show their presence. Half the traffic problems could have been solved if only the traffic police did their job. Traffic police are busy only catching the guys without helmet and finding fault with unnecessary things for few rupees. If only they were enforcing the rules many would have followed rules. I always wonder,why the traffic cops are not bothered about the people who break rules and are more concerned with riders without helmet. What is your bloody problem, if that guy is riding without a helmet, that will only break his own head. The helmet by itself is not going to save others anyway.

 People do not know how to use the road; everybody is a hero on the road, whether it is the pedestrian, cycle, scooter, car and other vehicles users. 

Finally, it comes to international standard roads which will lead to some civilization for our country. It is foolishness to keep on harping we have the best culture, only problem is corruption, if we can get rid of it, we are on our way to heaven and all. Honestly, it is really foolish to wish that we can get rid of corruption in this country. Corruption cannot wished away from this country by law and punishment. We need to build a generation with values, that takes time, and who will implement that first. So we are back to square one. May be we can wish like I wish, if only all those people who believe in their God and visit their places of worship and pray are honest is good enough for our country. Then we can be a country to reckon, a superpower and leader of the world. Wishful thinking is good sometimes. At the same time world peace also. Here it has to be the opposite, remove the god we have world peace.   

 Back to roads, if only all the roads were of that international standard ( plain simple planned roads) and connecting all the villages and cities. There would less migration to cities. There will be even distribution and people would be happy to be away from cities and live in small towns and villages as the approach to the city is easier. And doctor would easily go to villages to practice, when they can drive back to their city easily. More development will percolate in to villages as again the approach is easy. There will be exchange of ideas and fewer burdens on the society to cater to the cities. There will be less demand for personal vehicles and public transport will pick up and many people will use them. Good roads can have less accidents, less road rage, cleaner country, less emission, less costs in turns of repair and spare parts. Good roads save man power and costs to the society in terms of resources.
If greatest invention in the world is wheel, the next best should be the road. Imagine the world without wheel, then you know the value of the wheel with no road.  


PS: All the pictures are copied from Google search and used for illustration purposes only.