सिर्फ 90km, और यू.पी. की सडकों पर मेरी फट चुकी है| इन दो घंटों में मुझे कई लोगों ने मार डालने की कोशिश की| मैं आगबबूला तो हूँ किन्तु एक तरह से मैं इसे यू.पी. के अपनापन जताने की निशानी देखता हूँ |
By Hapur bypass I thought I had seen everything until a tractor cut across to the opposite side, parking itself on the broken divider, in lurk to get across, the driver oblivious to the trailer behind the tractor that occupied half the road now. The black Swift in front swerved even sharper than the reach of the trailer, which I couldn't figure out until I saw the iron girders (सरिया) sticking out another 20ft from the trailer which made the total span of the tractor cover the entire road, plus another lane on the opposite side.
Then I had a boy holding a buffalo by the leash walking on the overtaking lane... like he was taking a dog out for a walk in the park.
Then a group of people stationed with their buffalo-cart on the overtaking lane, collecting the grass that grows abundantly on dividers. I could assume them to be either regular joes, or the highway maintenance crew. In case of the latter, it is a stark contrast seeing the NH1 crew in Punjab using traffic cones, reflective jackets, and minivans, while their UP counterparts do with buffalo-carts and no safety regulations at all.
Then a horse-cart parked diagonally across two lanes of the road because the horse apparently had a midlife crisis and decided to stop; the owner was busy whipping the horse to death to have it budge.
Then I had fire sparks projectiled at me from a welding machine on a flyover, which was obviously operating without any precautions. Safety? What? Whose?
Then a road hump (aka speed-breaker) on the highway road (highways are not supposed to have those by law), with shattered glass and plastic strewn around, which were reminders of injured motorbikes of those poor folks who were caught unaware on the previous night. I'm sure that upon my return there would be new plastic debris there from accident of the night before it.
Then a hatchback gently rammed into me before Garhmukteshwar, when trying to make a carefree left coming from the rightmost lane. The gentleman inside looked profusely apologetic, but I believe that was because he couldn't ram in with a greater speed.
Before all these misfortunes I had those auto-rickshaws swerving to get me at Indirapuram, trucks making reckless U turns to get me at Ghaziabad, a Zen casually cutting across to the other side on the highway to get me at Hapur, cyclists jumping from nowhere to get me everywhere. Mere human presence is a foreteller of a tragedy this side. There's also a vile trend among the bikers of driving on the overtaking lane - of the other direction, that is.
Just a minute back at the Garhmukteshwar bridge over R. Ganga (Ganges), one guy was leaning down from the edge of the bridge, holding a taut rope in one hand, while a small audience casually observed him and the something down there. Having been educated on U.P. by now, I found it very possible that he was just playfully trying to drown his child (or a monkey) in the river.
Let me not even comment on my rage buildup, which now has me wishing deaths for kicks as well. Uttar Pradesh is taking me in.
UPDATE:
6 minutes from the above ramblings, I came across an overturned Tata Sumo on my side of the road. Turns out that this vehicle was originally traveling in the opposite direction 2 minutes back; it had encountered one of those lurkers trying to cut across, lurched aggressively to avoid the lurker, and lost all control to tumble dramatically across the road, across the divider, and onto my side of the road. All its passengers had just been evacuated (no deaths, luckily) and were wiping blood off their respective bodies under the shade of a small tea shop. Smiles all around as their frontman boasted about the accident and their survival.
Colors of India, truly.
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