Infratructure Woes

Picture this, you are driving along on the flyover on Richmond circle and right there, bang in the middle of the stretch, without any warning you see…that’s right....Sunil Shetty doing the Macarena…ha ha, I am kidding of course, we all know Sunil Shetty can’t dance. Seriously, you would see a traffic signal.

A traffic signal on top of a flyover !!. Pardon my nitpicking but aren’t flyovers built to avoid traffic signals ?. This is a clear indication that we need to proactively address the issue of crumbling infrastructure in Bangalore. We must act immediately.

Now that we have decided to do something, we can feel good about ourselves and go back to our daily lives. No wait !!, this time we all have to chip in if we have any hope of preventing Sunil Shetty from dancing or improving the state of roads here.

Before beginning any activity, it is important to have what is called a 'plan', this is a document that would clearly list all the people who we can blame if we fail.

Once we have done that, the next step is to come up with an estimate. An estimate is a number that is arrived at after a detailed analysis of the existing problems. Analysis basically comes from two latin words 'anal' and 'lysis' where 'lysis' means 'Pulling a number from your'. This has been the time tested approach of coming up with a number as demonstrated by stock market analysts.

After a thorough analysis, we have arrived at a number – 35476. We now need to figure out what this number represents. For all we know, it might be the number of roads, the number of traffic signals or the number of products that Amitabh Bachhan currently endorses.

For the sake of clarity, we shall assume that it indicates the number of potholes and proceed to the execution of the plan.

As a first step, we shall demand vociferously that the name of the city be changed. This will not help the potholes, but will divert attention long enough for us to think of what we should do next. The new name should contain an extra alphabet that subtly alters the phonetic and shall buy us time while people are trying to learn how to pronounce it. I recommend the use of the letter ‘x’, it is the most under utilized alphabet in the English language and it will also feel a lot better in the company of the other ‘high achiever’ alphabets.

In the meantime, I have an excellent idea to handle the potholes. If we can’t get rid of them, we will try to get people to like them. This can be accomplished by naming every pothole in the city and thus giving it an identity. It is a scientifically proven fact that people will begin to like even the most expressionless, inanimate objects as long as it has a name. It can be any name like, say for example, John Abraham. People will thus gradually begin bonding with the potholes that are on their routes and any subsequent attempt to fix them will draw a protest from Arundhati Roy alleging human rights violation.

That then, dear friends, is my master plan for fixing Bangalore’s infrastructure. As for me, it is time to introduce the shock absorbers of my car to ‘Bunty’ on my way home…