The Road

I really can't comment how bad or good BJP and its paraphernalia is for India, but I think they deserve credit for trying to accomplish over five years what the Congress couldn’t do over fifty – world-class roads. How many times have we rued the dismal state of India’s infrastructure, how numerous are the occasions when we have been secretly disappointed that even Beirut or Amman or Timbuktu has better roads than us! I wouldn’t DARE driving on these roads – remarked my American companion while we were coasting along in Costa Rica. Wait till you come to India – I thought, while outwardly continuing my pitch of you-haven’t-lived-if-you-haven’t visited-India.

Vajpayee’s Golden Quadrilateral appears poised to change all of that. Call it one man’s vision, but you have to also give credit that, in a country notorious for inaction, for once a grand idea was translated into concrete. I have driven with pleasure down the Bangalore-Mysore Expressway (gateway to Srirangapatna, Mysore & Coorg, amongst others) and the Bangalore-Pune highway (Mangalore, Pune, Goa,..). Two weeks ago, we decided to test out the National Highway from Bangalore to Chennai.

The drive, of course, is breathtaking. You’d think it’s just a road, but each road has a different tale to tell. The gentle cruising at 100 kmph, racing with an infinite expanse of white and blue, the many-hued flowers mushrooming in the middle of the road, the numerous shades of green, the exclamations of joy as the road plays hide and seek with you, now swerving to the left to reveal huge rock formations benevolently gazing upon you, now curving up to reveal an expanse of silken paddy fields. It is a feeling that can best be described as coming back home – joyous and unencumbered – after a long and arduous journey.

But what lends character and distinction to driving in India is the numerous sights and sounds that you encounter on the way. When you drive in other parts of the world – US, Europe, others – you are at best an observer of beauty. The landscape is like a beautiful ice maiden that holds you at arm’s length – to be admired from afar. In India, you are the actor and the spectator. You wave at the numerous children and adults cramped into a three-wheeled vehicle, and they respond with joy. You curse at the bike driving on the wrong side of the highway, but you make way for him. You recognize the right of way of the bullock cart and the odd cow. You stop for tea at Reddy’s Punjabi Dhaba, smiling at the attempt at all-inclusion. You laugh at restaurants that go by the names of Cup and Up and Roots and Shoots, and try to stomach Drive and Digest with unending glasses of fresh nimbu-paani. You smile when the chai-wala calls you back to return the 50 paisa left over from your bill of 4 rupees 50 paisa for four, steaming hot cups of delicious tea. You make a stop to take in a breathtaking sunset, and are amused to see Fair and Lovely amongst other emergency items in a small tea stall. You run around with the kids (and the goat and the dog), even as you show them ‘magic’ by opening and closing your car door from 50 meters afar.

Driving in India is not just about getting from place A to B. It is getting to know all that lies in between – the people, the places, the sounds - the good and sometimes the ugly. In a way, it is descriptive of Hindu philosophy – the journey is much more fulfilling than the destination.