No, not the kind where a driver boils over if another vehicle misbehaves …….it is what I feel when I see a good road surface or pavement being torn up. There may be a reason….laying a pipe or cable or whatever, but does it always, but always HAVE to be done immediately after a much-delayed road repair/resurfacing has taken place?

There is some radar or antenna that informs those dedicated digger-uppers….. A nice pavement has just been completed with colourful interlocking bricks and tiles or a new road is lying there, pristine and being blessed by users of all ages who are already having back and neck problems.

So the destructive teams immediately ruin the new or existing good surfaces to mete out rough justice and rough rides to all, once again.

No coordination between the various municipal departments says one sage civil engineer whom I know. He used to work for a big name builder and loves to spin colourful stories of how so-and-so had to be bribed…...n amount for every foot dug up for legitimate sewage systems in projects and so on. He is a nice man who used to look sick and harassed, bulging eyes, gulping antacids all the time. Must have been the stress of dealing with all those permissions to be “obtained”. Now retired, he is a blissful cynic enjoying every body else’s misery and spouting stories to anybody who will listen ….each recital with more masala than the last.

Festivals come around (wonderful for their variety and colour) and in the name of Gods, none of whom demand any such adoration, narrow deep holes are drilled for pandal poles on spots halfway into the road width. Pavements being blocked by these is bad enough but why into the road too?……traffic jams, cars and pedestrians maneuvering God knows how, past the mess, and holes left behind to eventually erode into larger potholes.

Some times this is to erect large multicoloured posters to greet a local or national “leader” on his visit to the city. Do we look forward to his visit other than “O God, there will be a police bandobast and traffic jam today!!” Or, even better still, to display a Beloved Leader’s Birthday Wishes….. aren’t full page newspaper ads. enough? Why oh, why these huge banners that block vision and even traffic lights at dangerous junctions and corners? When the big day is over, they are usually left to rot and become forgotten tatters.

I heard that in Pune one group of citizens got really fed up. They erected a huge hoarding with the enlarged, garlanded photo of a stray dog wishing him for his birthday and thanking him for all that he had done for their area…. meaning it had done nothing, of course. 
I hope paid goons did not descend on them to beat them up for their sarcasm. I don’t think this made any difference. More of the stuff is being seen all over.

As usual, the “chaltha hai” attitude…..life goes on. Ordinary citizens like myself can rave and rant and fume but 

“Men may come and men may go, but potholes are here forever……”