THERE IS A HOLE IN MY POTHOLE

THERE IS A HOLE IN MY POTHOLE

There is a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza....., is an old English song. Liza keeps giving Henry solutions to mend his bucket so that he can fetch water. In the end the hole still remains and water is never fetched. With this song as the background, here goes my piece.

A month into monsoon, condition of roads is pathetic. If you take a picture by a drone you may find earthlings walking on moon avoiding craters. The other day we saw a dumper with its driver’s cabin facing the sky, sunk in a road, as if India has found a new PDLV (Polar Dumper Launch Vehicle). Reality is that now there is a hole in every pot hole. This hole widens and deepens with every drop of rain. People are losing lives unfortunately. Politician is absconding, MC has washed its hands off & contractors are in hibernation. Sufferer is the common man.

Trains wading through water, buses plying like hovercrafts, two wheelers like water scooters, cars like speed boats, people skiing without skies on algae is a common site. Then you expect us to get sentimental and go back to good old days of making paper boats and sending them down the new river on the road. Government wants us to eat pakoras as a national pass time not realising that “Mehengai main besan geela”. How do we get the damn besan, when you can’t step out?

Bijli is cut, to save lives from short circuiting, mobiles are not charged thus Whatsapp and Face book are off. Signals have turned to E from 4G adding to frustration. We now have to sit face to face, reading each other’s eyes rather than texting messages. What a waste of time!

Citizens are fed up of over flowing “ganda nalas”. To add to our agony the doodhwala’s are spilling “doodh ki nadiayan” by emptying milk tankers on streets. Some of them have lined up milk packets and trying to see if trucks can float on milk by running vehicles over those packets. The poor gareeb is waiting for this fiasco to get over and collect some of the un-burst milk packets for his kids. Agitation mode at its best!

People are falling sick drinking contaminated water. Lives are lost due to spread of disease as all muck of the town overflows into the water logged basti. Sea is throwing back all junk we threw into it. Plastic is choking our drainage systems. High tides are adding to our woes. Agony continues unabated. Potholes remain where they were.

Children are being given a forced holiday. Politician and his team cannot promise to look after its citizens when it rains. It remains the prime responsibility of people who produced kids to keep them safe. They say rains are not in netas control but production of children definitely is under parent’s control. What a sad state!

Thank God, Kerala has now got floating bars, as all toddy shops are flooded. Cities are floating on plastic. Highways are now “shock absorber testing arenas”. Two wheeler drivers are carrying dandas to ascertain depth of every new pot hole they find. Many people along with their motorcycles have been sucked into gutters. That’s how we value life.

You don’t need an iceberg to sink our titanic, you just need polythene bags to clog drains and automatically water will rise for us to drown. Contractors understand road making so well. Netas fully understand whom to give the contract to. Cuts are predetermined. Quality of the material is determined based on profit margins. Workers are paid way less, as labour is cheap and exploited. Life doesn’t matter but profits do.

Netas visit foreign countries to study road systems. I am sure they would have seen quality of material being used. How long can we crush stone and mix bitumen to lay and re-lay roads? These resources are running out and there is a need for an alternate, environmental friendly stuff which would be long lasting and not crumble at the first drop of rain.

Be that as it may, our deep rooted system is so corrupt that we will continue to suffer, unless we shake these netas up and hold them accountable for every pothole. Politicians, Corporators and Contractors should be made to stand at places where deaths have occurred to understand what it is to lose a bread winner. One death on the road due to shoddy work and sub standard material, all three should be sentenced under culpable homicide.

There is a pothole on the road, dear neta, dear neta, there is pot hole dear neta pothole. Will the neta ever mend it, dear janta, dear janta, will the neta ever mend it, mend it? I wonder!!!!!!!!!!!

JAI HIND

© Noel Ellis