Last week I was in Udaipur for a personal leave. Jasmine and
I have realized the value of staying put in as few places as possible during a
leave. First we would go to multiple places in one leave. Like our honey moon,
in which we did more than 6 places in 15 days. We covered practically the whole
of Kumaon region in Uttrakhand when we
were there. Slowly slowly we were down to three places, then two and now we are
at one place one week. The last two holidays have been just that. Reach, plonk
yourself and if needed use that as a base to explore further. So this time, it
was one week in Udaipur. This also affects the hotel choice. We end up taking a
smallish but cute and clean hotel, that is typically family run. And this time
for the first time, we deliberately went for a hotel with a pool in it. if you
are there for eight nights and you might get a bit of hot weather, you need a
pool. So we got, history, culture and relaxation – all in one vacation.
Another thing that we have discovered in India is the Golden
Quadrilateral. The new highways of India. I have been hearing about how good. I
used to try and get Jasmine to agree on driving holidays. The last time we had
no option but to drive to our spot as it was pretty remote. The highways are
amazing. These are segregated lanes with flower beds in the middle. And enough
space to zip through. When I first drove on Indian highways, it was around 20
years ago. We had a Fiat premier padmini car. Here is a similar model. Ours was
white as well.
My dad had bought it second hand. My mom had insisted on
buying a car as my eldest sister was marriageable age and we must have a car to
prove that we were well off. That we had two flats and that we had stayed in Dubai
or whatever else was probably not too much of a show off value. So dad bought
his car for around ninety five thousand rupees. A princely sum of course in
those days. Must have been around in the year 1990 or thereabouts. The only
thing we kids did not like about it was that it did not have an AC in it. We
were keen that we have atleast an AC car. We wanted a Maruti but our
conservative parents preferred this car, which we made do with. BUT NO AC? That
was a bummer. But hell, we still loved that we had a car and as soon as we
turned 18, we enrolled into a driving school and got our licenses. Dad actively
taught our driving and soon enough we were driving on highways.
The highways. Oh the highways on a premier padmini. It had
no acceleration to talk about. It was good for doing 60kmph at bets. Reaching any
speeds beyond that required a large empty stretch of road and 90 would be
around the best available speed. That too only if we got like a straight road
with no traffic on the way. I must crossed that only once in my padimini. Add
to that were the state of the highways in India. I was explaining to Jispa that
the highways were just one road with one lane going up and another lane going
down, with no segregation. The lanes were simply painted. So when you drive you
have to be very carefull. For overtaking every time, you would have to tail the
truck in front of you and then move little to the right and check for oncoming
traffic. Then if you found the coast clear you would press the accelerator
completely and hope to pass the truck before an oncoming vehicle came face to
face with you. But that’s not enough similarly you have to constantly look for
incoming vehicles that are overtaking by coming onto your lane. You would have to
adjust your speed accordingly. I have been pushed off road one more than one
occasions by a truck who has mistimed his overtaking. So I move off the road
rather than get smashed into as pulp.
I was explaining this to Jispa and she found it quite
amusing. The highway to Udaipur is around 800 km long and is one super straight
drive. Only in one 50 km patch between Ahmedabad and Ghandinagar is the old
style highway. I guess that is because it is the Ghandinagar bypass. If you go
through the city then you get the segregated lanes all the way. This is like a
shortcut. It helped to have it as it was like giving a live demo to Jispa. I talked
to her while I was driving. See now I must overtake this way. Now I must look
for this truck. She now found all it even funnier. All the cars waiting behind
a truck and then suddenly all of them accelerating together and overtaking.
Then she saw how we were stuck behind a truck at 40kmph waiting for a chance to
overtake. As opposed to 100 -120 kmph on the normal highway, it felt like a
hare waiting impatiently behind a tortoise waiting for an opening.
The superb highways made me think about my political
leaning. The bridges in Mumbai which got much acclaim were thanks to the right
winged group in power. The Golden quad highway project was a brain child of the
same right winged combo in power at the center. The more secular party leans
almost left and is a ‘welfarist’ at heart. While I think some of the
legislation like the NREGA which guarantees employment may have much greater
long term impact than what most understand, I need good roads and bridges now.
No I am not talking like a spoiled brat who wants roads for a self drive
vacation. But I see the benefits of good infrastructure.
Long ago in my naivety I had argued that India does not need
so much infrastructure. After all we led the IT boom in spite of the no government
support and in the absence of any backing. Adversity led to innovation. But I couldn’t
have been more stupider. We desperately need it and the multiplier effect is
for there to see. Good roads means better transport for goods and materials, we
can now use large trucks on the highways, better trucks, better facilities for
drivers, faster transportation. May be capital intensive in the short run but
cheaper in the long run. Business comes up in and around the area and you definitely
gain in terms of efficiency. It’s bloody important. So this time around if I vote
right winged, it’s not that I love secular less, but that I love infrastructure
more (sorry Brutus).
