Saturday, March 3, 2012

A road-less travel

These are called luxury apartments in Gurgaon, but it's fairly common to see non functional basic amenities here. One of the elevators has been out of order for months, and we discover to our discomfort, that the other one refuses to stop except to the top floor or the ground floor, just as we have neatly lined up our luggage in front of it. Luckily, we are only on the seventh floor, and the driver has just arrived to help with the luggage. May be they are just trying to keep the residents fit by making them climb up and down the stairs with heavy luggage. It is about 400 km from Gurgaon to Kuchaman, my ancestral and birth place in Rahasthan, and with a six lane highway, I am hoping we can get there in 5 to 6 hours.

The elevator fiasco has caused a bit of delay, but it's still early morning and hopefully the peak traffic time is couple of hours away at least. However, there are other problems on the road. You see, it's a future six lane highway. At present, the construction is going on for the six lanes, so it is actually a four lane, and in some cases a two lane highway. The heavy earth moving equipments are using the lanes meant for cars only, the cars in the card lane are trying to use cash, the trawler in the cash only lane has no small change, the truck in the extreme right lane meant for cars has finally ackowledged his mistake and trying to move to extreme left lane, and couple of guys decided the toll is too much for them and decided to turn back, except they will need to create another lane meant solely for morons. Meanwhile my chacha is telling me how somebody was shot fatally over 27 rs of toll recently.

When we finally clear the toll, my hope of a speady recovery is dashed as chaos reigns supreme on the other side too. The left lane is now being used by the trucks for parking, and all trucks in all lane realizing that are trying to reach it. There is even more construction on the other side, and the right lane is dug up and partly being used for storage of construction material. There are still more u turners looking for moron lane. Some of the truckers have figured out its much cheaper to use kerosene and the resulting fumes are creating a nice Gotham city atmosphere. Batman would have choked to his death here. And driving a fast car here would remain a mission impossible for Tom Cruise.

Through the smog and the smoke, I read the two billboards put up by the toll operator, cautioning the drivers to drive slow. I mean, really?? I can almost swear I watched my nail grow since the morning sitting in this car. The pedometer says 13 km in last one hour. How much slower do you want me to go mr toll operator? My Chacha takes this in his stride - 'its painful now, but the future will be bright' he says. It's not the first time he has hoped so. The few good patches of six lane highway are a good teaser for future, just reminding the travellers what they deserve but cant have now. We eventually get to Kuchaman in little less than 11 hours, with a stop over in Jaipur for lunch, and a good patch of highway from Jaipur onwards. At less than 40km an hour, I am also hoping the future will be bright, at least brighter than now. We will get there some day. Amen.

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