On Monday 11 Feb 2008 12:24 am, Kiran Jonnalagadda wrote: > Either the pavement sits on top of a > gutter and stinks to high heaven, or the gutter is dry but the slabs > so uneven one risks twisting an ankle unless always looking down, or > the pavement is an obstacle course, with trees and bus stops and power > transformers forcing you back onto the road, or it's all fine but the > pavement sits a foot above road level to keep out those pesky two > wheelers, and therefore is interrupted at every gate, turning into a > major pain in the knees.
An excellent description. I have come to believe that the explanation for this lies in the fact of Indian society consisting mostly of people who do not understand the purpose of a pavement - and I don't mean just the users - I mean even the city corporation engineers and staff. Naipaul had observed that taps and pipes in hotel rooms were fixed cockeyed and had speculated (rightly IMO) that the plumber who does the fixtures has no taps in his own dwelling place and has no idea of the esthetic niceties of having a non-cockeyed tap, which is merely a device that is meant to produce water on demand, not look nice. The same holds true for pavements serving a population who largely used to walk on traffic free roads, leaving the pavements free for urination against wall, people who spent the night on the pavement and vendors. Bangalore is only now waking up to this reality, while a whole lot of parts of India continue to remain asleep in the past. shiv
