Traffic paranoia in Delhi... (11th Sept.'09)

Whew! What happened? This Thursday (10th Sept.) evening, going back from office, I was able to just zip through the roads in the heart of South Delhi, to cover the 34 odd kms to my home in Gurgaon in just under an hour! Unprecedented!

Initially, I thought it was because I started a bit late. It was already 6.30 by the time I finished whatever it was that I was doing in office. Having resigned myself to the usual killing traffic which I was destined to encounter at that hour, I took my own time getting out. I even browsed through the company notice board while going out, something I hadn't done in months! I gently eased my car into the traffic from under the Modi Mill flyover and... whoa! what was this? An almost empty Kalkaji mandir flyover greeted me. Usually, I can see vehicles strung out jostling on that bridge, looking none less than the Queen's Necklace of Bombay.

So I thanked my stars at having found what I thought was a 'gap' in the traffic (from Noida, Faridabad,...) coming down the Modi Mill flyover, and reached the Nehru Place flyover in record time, all the time dreading the prospect of the usual jam at the next turn. The usually sparse traffic at N.P. bridge was no surprise,but... even near C.R. Park/Pamposh Enclave there was no traffice to speak of. Rounding the Greater Kailash flyover and on to the Chirag Delhi one, I felt blessed. This was the very spot, at the foot of the Chirag bridge, where a few meters of waterlogging the previous day and caused a traffic jam right back up to Nehru Place, causing me to cover the princely distance of 5 kms. from my office to Panchsheel in an hour.

Continuing past Panchsheel at the same pace, it all finally began to sink in. What could've happened (purely my reading) is that having burnt their fingers (and much else) the previous day in traffic, many (most?) Delhites on that route had chosen to make an 'early run' and cross much of the potentially 'dangerous' road space in good time. OR was it that the 3-hour long traffic jam on the same (and surrounding) roads of South Delhi the same morning had caused many to 'miss' their office (I know, for instance, that one of my friends heard about the jams from morning TV news and decided to give his office a miss - understandable, given that he hass to travel from Gurgoan to Noida every day, a distance of 45 kms.!)?

So that's the extent of road paranoia, if I may call it that, that pervades the heart of every Delhite (and NCR-ite!). We dread running into traffic, some of us take loooonnng detours just to avoid heavy traffic, we avoid going to places where we are not likely to find parking space (I've myself once long back gone from my home in GK-II to nearby Lajpat Nagar, taking 45 mins. to do that, then circled around the place a few time, not finding parking space, coming back home - and that was about 9 years back!), even changing our schedules (including birthday/anniversary celebrations!) to suit the traffic.

A large part of the reason for the traffic mess in which we find ourselves is all kinds of construction (Metro, flyovers, 'beautifications' - road medians dug up & the loose earth & to-be-installed light-poles dumped on the road alongside, a normal sight all over South Delhi) currently going on, some (e.g. the sewerage work from NH-8 all the way to Najafgarh) beautifully timed to coincide with the rains, thus ensuring that the dug up roads are not filled up and metalled again for months. That the bigger problem is the unsustainable rise in the city's vehicle population, some may say stoked by the vehicle financing boom over the last decade, is another story, fit for a different forum.

Next morning (i.e. Friday 11th, yeah, anniversary of the famour nine-eleven), I was rudely jolted out of my reverie by a (usual?) traffic jam near Kalkaji mandir, where it took me an hour and a quarter to cover the distance of the last 1 kilometre to my office (the same time it had taken me to cover the other 33!). Welcome to Delhi!

When will I get back my Delhi? (29th July'09)

I lived the first 35 years of my life in Delhi. It's only in the last few years that work (mostly) has taken me outside, to Gurgaon in NCR. I remember the time when I used to drive on a mobike on the long and wide roads of Delhi. Admittedly, I don't get to do that very often these days and, when I drive/am driven, it's mostly confined to South Delhi where my workplace and most of my relatives are.

So it was quite a disappointment when, on a recent trip back from out of town, our taxi took us through the once enchanting Delhi roads to meet... a roadblock at every step. Literally. All this beautification and metro-isation and road-widening and flyover-ing is alright, but my heart weeps when I see what all this has reduced the famed Delhi roads to. More than the minor irritation of having to take a detour, it is the disfiguration of and encroachment on the famed vistas and roundabouts and (in some cases) green spaces, even if temporary, that is disheartening.

Most of this is being done in the name of Commonwealth Games 2010. There is a minor question of whether all these big projects, started almost at the last minute possible, will reach their fruition before the commencement of the Games. The big ones like the airport and most of the Metro, yes, but what about all the flyovers? All the road beautification and widening? And firstly, was all this absolutely essential? So much essential as to put the bulk of Delhites through an extended period of hellish living, more so in the rainy season?

I'd give an example of the strange timing of certain works. There was a stretch of tree lined road along a row of farmhouses which connects National Hightway 8 (Gurgaon expressway) to the old Delhi-Gurgaon road at a place in South West Delhi called 'Kapas Hera'. The sewer line work on this stretch was taken up only a few months back, blocking the whole road and leading to detours. But more importantly, the work has been over for more than a month (well before the rainy season) but nobody bothered to resurface the road. With the result that the road has now been converted to a mini-canal!

Not only that, the sewer work was then extended across the traffic square towards Najafgarh, and this extentsion was started within the last month, coinciding with the rainy season - talk about timing! Now one half of this road was dug up and the sewer line put in. And what happened next was quite predictable. With the first rains, the layer of earth put on top of the sewer line just caved in at places one fine day. Only a couple of days back (after the rains returned with full fury), you could see a 3-wheeler goods carrier lying in one portion of the caved in road/earth at a queer angle. And I hope this doesn't happen to a truck or a bus some day.

So my question to all the concerned Govt. & other agencies, as a Delhite (which I consider myself to be, even if I only have an office & not a home in Delhi but in NCR), is: When will you give me back my Delhi?

The last field trip - Manila (10th Oct.'06)

Who knew that my first ever visit to Philippines was destined to be possibly my last travel, at least in the foreseeable future. I am leaving my current organisation and the associated nomadic life, and entering a more stable phase of my career - expecting a more 9 to 5 kind of job with much less travel (& almost no travel outside home country). But I'm doing it with full confidence that it's the right career move, providing me opportunity to come back to industry, gain managerial experience and join at a higher level than the current one - all leading up to wide avenues of future progress.

Anyways, so I arrived in Manila on a cloudy afternoon, after spending 5 hrs. at the new Bangkok 'Suvarnabhumi' airport. The new Bangkok airport is huge (gives a feeling like Charles de Gaul at Paris), but seems to have got a bit impersonal, what with big shops & the absence of any of the small water/juice/convenience kiosks which were there at Don Muang. I walked about 2 kms. inside the airport trying to locate the Louise Tavern Dayrooms, but when I got there I found they were still building the short-stay rooms! Couldn't they at least publicise the fact, instead of marking it in all the maps & even putting direction boards? Or do they just want to show that the airport is fully functional in 10 days when it actually is not?

Anyways, Manila has quite a moderate weather, and now (Tuesday) it's even raining cats & dogs so it's quite pleasant - quite a relief from Delhi which is swelteriing during the day. And the office aircon is set to so cold that my local colleague got a cold & is wearing a shawl today! I am staying at the Somerset Millennium residences, Makati. It has a good reputation, but unfortunately I found on the very first day that the bathroom had a leak (which was mercifully repaired by Monday) and that the curtain would not close fully leaviing a crack (which has not been remedied till now). But at least the food is OK (even if the breakfast room is tiny & the lobby quite congested, which could be because the residents use it more as a home than as a hotel) - I had a Malaysian 'roti' (just like India) with mashed potatos for dinner last night!

We went to the nearby Greenbelt mall for lunch both days. It seems quite big, and has a good variety of food available.

Source of the river Nile, Jinja - Uganda (15th Apr'05)

I am in Uganda, at a place called Jinja, about 100 kms. from the capital city Kampala. It's quite a change of scene, though Kampala itself is not too bad by way of greenery compared to some other capital cities (notably Bangkok in Thailand) which are nothing but concrete jungles. We are staying at Jinja Nile River Resort, a nicely laid out complex of cottages (2 to each 'hut') right on the banks of the gushing Nile. What surprised me at first was the powerful flow of the river, quite near as it is to its source. In fact, one my chief attractions of spending even the weekend at this place was to see the source of the great river, which I'm told originates at Lake Victoria, though the main tributary is reportedly only a trickle where it begins. And then I'm told there is a blue Nile & a white Nile which begin in Ethiopia, and they get together in Sudan. 

It's a nice feeling looking out over the river in the morning with a cup of tea in hand, where I can see the small white birds flying in formation over the group of small islands in the middle of river. Rains have already started (it rains cats & dogs some nights), and everything around is green, with the white walls & red tiled roofs of the cottages providing contrast. From where I am, I can look across the river, right past the lodges on the opposite bank, glancing at the great curving bridge (where the speed limit is 20 kmph for some reason - probably because the old dam got damaged when the new one was constructed) and some structures coming up nearby (hope they are not ugly concrete ones), up the slopes of the surrounding hills right till the top where I can see the power & communication towers. When it is not raining, you can see the golden clouds over the hills, bathed in the reflected glory of the Sun. So even if the food is crappy and the service worse, the view compensates a lot.

After breakfast today, we went around the stone pathways inside the complex. Sadly, the pathways don't loop back but end after the particular rows of cottages, only the middle one going beyond towards the bank where a lodge of some kind with an observation tower is under construction. It would be a good idea to sit at one of the swings near the cottages with a nice book in hand, though when it rains in the morning I have to sit in my verandah & read the book while listening to the chirping of the birds & the roar of the river. 

Birds, though, are not the only vocal creatures here. While at supper some evenings near the bar, we can hear a symphony of frogs croaking all around the nearby swimming pool, as if heralding the rains (which dutifully obliged in the next few hours, whence began the pitter-patter of the raindrops on the rooftops). We are told that when not too many people are walking about, as it was last evening, the frogs try to fill the gap, and also take the occasional dip in the pool. As for non-vocal creatures, of the winged kind, there are a few cricket-like insects flying about on the grass lawns (which every cottage is surrounded by), as also sundry wasps and some other ones, though mosquitoes are conspicuous by their relative absence, at least there are not as many as one would expect near a river & especially during rains. Nevertheless, I take care to be in full-sleeved attire most of the time after evening, and also use the spray.

Natural beauty is strewn around here, not only here but also on the road to Kamuli, about 60 kms. away. The highway to Kamuli is a treat, rising and falling like the fragment of a wave or a great python. And all around there is thick vegetation, with some well laid out clusters of tall trees in between, going right upto the small hills in the distance. A few small towns in between serve to break the monotony. When I look at places like this, I so marvel at the wonders of packaging and branding. Kenya in this region may be having much less of such naturally beautiful places, but they have packaged their treasures so well that it's well known as a tourist destination (though more for the safaris). But places like this in Uganda (and some others like Sierra Leone), which are not able to package it well and also provide the requisite infrastructure, languish. Though, on second thoughts, this may not always be a bad thing, as too much tourist traffic doubtless spoils the natural environs.

Sunday evening we went to the Source of the River Nile, which is down a small hill with a winding road. What surprised me firstly is the bulk & the flow of the river even at the source, maybe since I am more used to rivers starting as trickles from some mountaintop. I was told that the river Nile begins from Lake Victoria but, looking at the surrounding mountains, never realised this was the place.

We hired a boat with an outboard motor strapped on, and we were taken to a place where the river reportedly starts flowing from the lake. We were shown the difference in the movement of the lake water (which has waves) and the river water (which flows). At the source, we were shown how water seems to rise up & break the surface in small puddles. And we were shown the difference in the colour of the water, supposedly deep blue in the lake & a lighter hue in the river. All this was explained to us while standing at a rock outcropping at the confluence, with a small platform erected to mark the place. We also sailed by the big island in the middle of the river which has lodges and all, and could see fishermen going about their work. All in all, a good trip. And when we came back to the shore again, we landed at a place which had a bust of Gandhi - supposedly his ashes were immersed in the Nile.