Mumbai-Goa Highway
Only the most foolish would call the Mumbai-Goa road, a highway, such is the condition, especially from Panvel, via Karnala Bird Sanctuary, through Pen and Wadkhal Naka, and beyond, and it is not till you cross the Sukeli Khind , that you will encounter decent roads. Is such deplorable condition of the so-called highway, the result of heavy rains or is the reason anything else?
Of course, the unusually heavy and prolonged rainfall has contributed to such a condition of the road, but the unwillingness to periodically repair the roads is downright criminal, to say the least. And the accidents which are caused by drivers and riders trying to manoeuvre through the mess are very conveniently blamed on the hapless drivers themselves.
You will notice that I mentioned Panvel first; well that is because I have given up on whoever is in charge of maintaining Mumbai roads. I am a part of the legendary Mumbai spirit, which faces all obstacles throughout the day, with a forced smile on the face and prayers in the heart. This Mumbai spirit is the sum total of earning the daily bread, day after day, month after month, year after year. From this daily bread earned, the taxes are paid, which allegedly are supposed to provide for the most basic of amenities. But where the taxes end up, only God knows. There was a time when some tragedy in some service, kick started the process of improvement in the service, but nowadays even tragic stampedes fall short. So I have given up, like so many other denizens of Mumbai.
I was very fortunate to be one of the first in the world to time travel. Yes, I had traveled back in time to, maybe, before Indus Valley civilisation, when the roads for bullock cart were just being laid. I have heard from my elders that even a one hour bullock cart ride was enough to search for your fallen bones. I felt the same way in my car. I know, many people will jump on this above sentence to say that my car itself is rickety, just like they said that it was the passengers themselves who caused the bout of runny stomachs on a recently introduced ‘Shiny’ Express train!
Coming back to time travel, I have read somewhere that the Rulers of the Indus Valley civilisation spoiled their citizens by giving them wide avenues for roads, lined by shade giving trees on both sides of the road. It is a pity that we citizens still expect to be mollycoddled after all these centuries, while the Rulers have moved on. I am reminded of a movie which I had seen, where the participants of a game show, are made to try out more and more dangerous tasks which were fatal too, while the people who run the show laugh all the way to the bank. Here too, someone somewhere is laughing all the way to riches, while us, the common denizens, struggle on the most basic tasks like traveling from one place to another.
If not the time travel to so many centuries ago, at least we have traveled back to the time when the only means of travel to the Kokan area from Mumbai was the humble boat, which took 8-10 hours to make the trip. Now the road trip takes more time. And just like the people on a boat tossed and turned with the waves and suffered from motion sickness, the recent road trips on this ‘highway’ are a similar challenge. You are thrown from one corner of the car to another due to the wavy road profile as well as the driver’s struggle to find reasonably flat road, negotiating the car through huge holes of varying diameters and depths. And this complex non-harmonic motion induces motion sickness in the occupants of the cars. I am sure that the most sturdy of the off-roader 4-wheel drives, will break down on this ‘highway’. And while you are negotiating through the obstacles at @20 km/hr., which might be slower than the humble bullock cart, there are regular signs of modernity on the road, in the form of speed breakers!
I hope and pray that the powers that be, start traveling by roads, since that remains the only chance of some semblance of improvement being imparted to the humble roads. Traveling by roads, especially this ‘highway’, is when I regret the re-discovery of air travel by us, humans.
Yatindra Tawde
Only the most foolish would call the Mumbai-Goa road, a highway, such is the condition, especially from Panvel, via Karnala Bird Sanctuary, through Pen and Wadkhal Naka, and beyond, and it is not till you cross the Sukeli Khind , that you will encounter decent roads. Is such deplorable condition of the so-called highway, the result of heavy rains or is the reason anything else?
Of course, the unusually heavy and prolonged rainfall has contributed to such a condition of the road, but the unwillingness to periodically repair the roads is downright criminal, to say the least. And the accidents which are caused by drivers and riders trying to manoeuvre through the mess are very conveniently blamed on the hapless drivers themselves.
You will notice that I mentioned Panvel first; well that is because I have given up on whoever is in charge of maintaining Mumbai roads. I am a part of the legendary Mumbai spirit, which faces all obstacles throughout the day, with a forced smile on the face and prayers in the heart. This Mumbai spirit is the sum total of earning the daily bread, day after day, month after month, year after year. From this daily bread earned, the taxes are paid, which allegedly are supposed to provide for the most basic of amenities. But where the taxes end up, only God knows. There was a time when some tragedy in some service, kick started the process of improvement in the service, but nowadays even tragic stampedes fall short. So I have given up, like so many other denizens of Mumbai.
I was very fortunate to be one of the first in the world to time travel. Yes, I had traveled back in time to, maybe, before Indus Valley civilisation, when the roads for bullock cart were just being laid. I have heard from my elders that even a one hour bullock cart ride was enough to search for your fallen bones. I felt the same way in my car. I know, many people will jump on this above sentence to say that my car itself is rickety, just like they said that it was the passengers themselves who caused the bout of runny stomachs on a recently introduced ‘Shiny’ Express train!
Coming back to time travel, I have read somewhere that the Rulers of the Indus Valley civilisation spoiled their citizens by giving them wide avenues for roads, lined by shade giving trees on both sides of the road. It is a pity that we citizens still expect to be mollycoddled after all these centuries, while the Rulers have moved on. I am reminded of a movie which I had seen, where the participants of a game show, are made to try out more and more dangerous tasks which were fatal too, while the people who run the show laugh all the way to the bank. Here too, someone somewhere is laughing all the way to riches, while us, the common denizens, struggle on the most basic tasks like traveling from one place to another.
If not the time travel to so many centuries ago, at least we have traveled back to the time when the only means of travel to the Kokan area from Mumbai was the humble boat, which took 8-10 hours to make the trip. Now the road trip takes more time. And just like the people on a boat tossed and turned with the waves and suffered from motion sickness, the recent road trips on this ‘highway’ are a similar challenge. You are thrown from one corner of the car to another due to the wavy road profile as well as the driver’s struggle to find reasonably flat road, negotiating the car through huge holes of varying diameters and depths. And this complex non-harmonic motion induces motion sickness in the occupants of the cars. I am sure that the most sturdy of the off-roader 4-wheel drives, will break down on this ‘highway’. And while you are negotiating through the obstacles at @20 km/hr., which might be slower than the humble bullock cart, there are regular signs of modernity on the road, in the form of speed breakers!
I hope and pray that the powers that be, start traveling by roads, since that remains the only chance of some semblance of improvement being imparted to the humble roads. Traveling by roads, especially this ‘highway’, is when I regret the re-discovery of air travel by us, humans.
Yatindra Tawde
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