The fight between the neighborhood and the road that pass through it is called speed breakers. They have been our friends since ages but lately the story is changing faces. Just yesterday I came across a loaded truck with a broken front wheels over a speed breaker. Such accidents are not new these days.

Speed breakers from the time I remember were occasional on the road and when they did come, were painted neatly, marked least 50 metres on approach. The design of such breakers were always below the clearance of any vehicle. Those days were of Fiats, Ambassadors and Marutis. The condition of roads was just average or below average. The repair work on roads in those times was done once in few years. Almost definitely on the eve of local elections. And what I’m talking about is the metropolitan cities. So the full situation is that accidents due to speed breakers meant you were drunk and driving. No sane eye will even drive past a danger speed on a weathered road to cause a damage due to the on coming speed breaker. That is like only 10 years back story.

Today the metros enjoy very good roads (if i compare them with the past). Vehicles have lots more of horse power. Shockers come in plenty. So drivers do speed and almost every time beyond the speed limit. The neighborhood which was occupied with local pedestrians is more or less still undisciplined. They still think they own the land even if its covered with tar. The locals will most definitely cross the road without properly checking the traffic or giving hand signals. They will at more times chat on the road while the traffic passes them by. So we see a fast traffic approaching a very careless street. Fatal accidents are definite. And who is to blame is not obvious. They answer on such conditions is just like old times. Speed breakers. But this time, its painful.

Locals ask for speed breakers or should I say force them. And due to political reasons the request is always granted. Their request in recent times has gone by far very high (in inches). Firstly, painting the speed breakers which locals themselves force to be constructed is rarely seen. The reason been, such breakers are not part of the official road map and therefore no contractor is asked to paint the breakers which don’t even exist in the records. Which comes to the second problem of warning signs. Since the breaker is not official, nobody even puts the warnings by the road side. If that was all we would sure be a little better than today. But these unofficial breakers have their own design. They are very steep. Very high and uneven all through the stretch as if the local himself constructed the breaker. The locations of such breakers is completely at will of the locals. And not just one, we might see more than 5 full length breakers on a small stretch of just 100 metres. Then the high spots are definitely higher than even the average car could handle. So when crossing they mostly crush the car at the bottom and this happens everyday. The crushing of the car at the bottom even happens when the car is at near zero speed. Actual vehicles which approach such breakers un-alarmed will face heavily damaged vehicle. So I come to the actual point of damaged trucks which loose their axles while approaching such high breakers un-alarmed. The damaged trucks stand on the middle of the road all night and day halting the whole traffic. The same neighborhood is careless. Such sudden breakers might as well give serious injuries to the driver or passengers of the truck or a bus. That part is not even thought of.

Road revolution on a highest populous democratic country is not going to be a easy ride. The country beside us can far easily use force to disipline the traffic and its people cause it has no political reasons to take care of. We, in INDIA don’t want to enjoy that government. I feel its better the way we are but we ought didipline ourselves and save lot of pain. I hope that the future times will be better in such regards too.

We all know the huge lecture on how we Indians have different strategies against growing up one’s sons or daughters and how its screwing up the gender ratio in most literate of cities. This discrimination is built inside the religious rituals from the point of baby birth. Anyway.

A quite of a verbal fashion that we see in most northern states is to call one’s daughters or grand daughters as “beta”. For those unaware, its a hindi word which means a Son. The reason put forth is to express no gender discrimination by the elderly. Its supposed to be a sign that they give equal opportunities and preferences to both Sons and Daugters of the family. We are a growing country and we wish to show our literacy and open heartedness in everything we can. They all seemed to have that silly mistake.

Well, if you thought that both genders are equal before you then why the hell you had to title one as other? Calling her what she is isn’t enough eh? The Title “beta” when given to a daughter is simply taking her to the better place. So you see, being a son is that better place. There goes your gender differences from what you show rather than what you still bloody believe inside. Try this, call the sons as “beti” (The hindi word for a daughter).

I have been maintaining a lengthy genealogy of my family since 1850s. Like ~1400 people. My laptop opens up the MySQL+PHP localhost on every visit to new relatives and starts digging. Kinda my hobby. Often it happens that people don’t feel like sharing info about daughter’s or cousing daughters. That they say is cause, she is merely born here, she actually belongs to a different family after marriage. My DB is not only to my (grand * N) fathers tree but anybody who can link and dig up.

That 9 percent does not remotely show, that our rituals and social conditions are still way behind three hundred years even today. Maybe everything takes is own sweet time to mature. After all we stands for 1.2 billion people. Enjoy the ride!

This news may be influence most who watch INDIA from the outside. Strangely, we Indians see things some what differently. Not that the number is incorrect but its actually astonishing. GDP is very much related to the basic elements of an economy. The current state of electric power and roads is most disturbing. And then we still see 9.4% rise in GDP. Nearly half of the national electric power demand has not been met. That case is more of less equal across the nation. The rural sector is many times worse with fixed hours of electricity per day. That rural areas is what runs our agriculture. This is why I say, it sure is astonishing. Imagine we had enough power to run our businesses and factories on supplied electricity rather than Diesel generators, the growth would be even higher than current levels.

a bit late but still, here is the devil without disguise!

the team i work with in Continuum Systems on the eve of Holi, the indian festival of colours.
(I’m second from right)

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