In the months since my move to Delhi, some of you have remarked that I rarely mention work. Others call it my 'never-ending vacation'.
Before that impression gains ground, let me assure you that I do work. Sometimes so hard that it doesn't give me time on social media. The last month or so have been spent travelling the highways in India.
Why? To understand how road construction is shaping the India of tomorrow.
Why now? The country's Highways Minister is aiming to deliver 20 kilometres of road every day, starting 1 June 2010. If successful, this will be one of the biggest infrastructure delivery project in India (and probably, the world) in a long time.
Road construction isn't new to the country. It got a big thrust almost a decade back, when the government took on the task of four-laning the Golden Quadrilateral. In case you aren't aware, it is the network of highways connecting Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai.
Our trip was kicked off from Varanasi (Benares) on 21 March 2010 and involved 3000 kilometres of travel by road - passing through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra - before ending in Mumbai on 9 April 2010.
Apart from an exciting journalistic opportunity, the project allowed me to experience India and generate/showcase content generated for Radio, TV, Web and Print. You can access some of the content here. A word of warning, though - you need to know Hindi.
Before we set out, one of the suggestions was to do a 'Food Map' of sorts - see how the cuisine changes during our journey. Reality hit soon after. Mindful of the heat and risk of an upset tummy, most meals on the road consisted of the following - daal, fried potato, egg bhurji and tandoori roti. Why? Those were the only things cooked on order. The rest may have been sitting in the containers for hours, possibly days.
There is still no concept of motels along the highways, so we stayed in cities along the highway - including the "only air-conditioned hotel between Varanasi and Gaya". This hotel in Dehri-on-Sone was patronised by the officials of the National Highways Agency of India (NHAI) and has seen a boost in business with better roads.
The highways themselves totally impressed me. When planning the trip, Google Maps kept calculating a travel time of 60 kilometres an hour. I kept reducing this to 35-40 kilometres an hour. In reality, we were gliding at 90 kilometres an hour or more. No potholes. No hold-ups. No slow-downs.
Even in Bihar - the state where I was born and seen as one of the laggard states in India - the roads were good. It is another thing that the two toll plazas we passed through can't do business without threat from either Maoists or local toughmen. As luck would have it, the first one had been looted by Maoists just a day before we reached it. The second one was attacked by local toughmen a few days before.
In Jharkhand, carved out of Bihar, we had the best view. The highway snaking through a valley, which was covered in bright-red flowers. As a colleague remarked, "this could be Boston".
The landscape along the highways is absolutely stunning. From Varanasi to Kolkata and from Chennai to Mumbai. Surrounded by lush green fields with paddy crop or sugarcane or some other crop. Houses along the highways are coloured in red and yellow of telecom companies Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Tata Indicom.
There are stark differences too. Varanasi to Kolkata had about five toll plazas. Chennai to Mumbai probably had nearly 25 plazas. Just the Pune-Mumbai Expressway had three toll plazas. The northern corridor (Varanasi-Kolkata) had hardly any overbridges. The southern corridor (Chennai-Mumbai) had one every few kilometres. Those along the southern corridor were better-off financially, compared to those along the northern corridor.
My two key learning from the trip? India is driven by its people - the common man/woman, eager to make good any opportunity that shows up. Examples of this were people selling coconut oil, sugarcane juice, watermelon juice, car and truck decorations or other such things along the highways. Or the guy who set up an STD, Fax and Internet business, just a few yards from a State Transport check-point. He knows that hundreds of truckers pass through the check-point and likely to be missing a crucial bit of documentation. Fax allows these truckers to escape bribing the cops and a scanned copy through email completely nails it.
The other is the conflict over land. For the lakhs who have known farming as the only activity, the acquisition of land for roads and factories and other industrial units is unsettling. If you are marginal farmer, there is nothing to sustain your family once the land goes. Your next generation isn't interesting in agriculture and its dependence on the vagaries of nature. So even if you have the land, there aren't very many to work on it.
The project involved 21 consecutive days of travelling, working, staying the night and moving on. We returned last weekend and I have been taking some rest and spending time with the little one.
About that, in the next post.............hopefully, not after a break of five weeks ;-)
PS: Will add photos to this post later!!
22 April 2010
18 March 2010
The trip to Agra
Apologies that 'tomorrow' has turned into five days.
I am busy planning the logistics of a three-week road-trip, starting this Sunday. The project aims to understand how roads are shaping India and will involve a team of journalists travelling from Varanasi to Kolkata and Chennai to Mumbai by road.
Indian highway network has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. During the last six months, I have had an opportunity to travel on some of these roads in both south and north of India and have been suitably impressed.
The most recent excursion was last weekend, on a sight-seeing trip to Agra with a friend visiting from the UK. Agra is home to the famous Taj Mahal and situated about 210 kilometres from Delhi. It is located on the same National Highway 2 (NH2) that we will be taking for the first leg of our journey.
The journey to Agra began at 5.30 in the morning. Delhi is nice and cool at that time of the day and, thankfully, most of its car-loving people are still asleep. An early start would help avoid potential gridlocks along the Ring Road (read, Delhi's M25), Badarpur and Faridabad (located in neighbouring Haryana, but part of Delhi National Capital Region). The journey is hardly 30 or so kilometres but can easily take a couple of hours.
As we zipped through these areas, I was reminded of my childhood. Cars were rare in those days and if you were lucky enough to be in one (in our case, it would mostly be Dad's office car), negotiating Delhi's roads would be smooth and quick.
Once we crossed Faridabad, we had left the last bit of Delhi NCR's commuter-belt behind. The taxi suddenly picked up pace, with the speedometer touching 100-plus kilometres an hour - something that would have been a dream only a decade ago.
Unfortunately, NH2 - like many other national highways - passes through densely populated areas. And those living in these areas suddenly find themselves separated from their family or land by these fast lanes.
The taxi driver had to brake frequently to avoid hitting those crossing the road. Unfortunately, not everyone was lucky. Along the way, we saw the small Maruti Suzuki 800 that had run into a big truck. The stationary ambulance indicated that the driver of the car hadn't survived, but our driver thought otherwise - Generally the steering wheel caves in towards the driver's seat, which causes serious injuries. The steering on this car seemed fine, even though the accident looks bad.
Not exactly reassuring, but the man seem to know the route. I come to Agra between three-five times a month. Trucks are fine as they'll move slowly on the fastest lane, but it is the animals, pedestrians, tractors and cars you need to avoid. It is always better to overtake from the left.
We were in Agra just before 9 in the morning. The car had covered 210 kilometres in just under 3.5 hours, an average of 60 kilometres an hour.
So, Google was right all along. While planning our India Highways project, Google Maps kept calculating journey times at 60 kilometres an hour and I kept disregarding it - choosing to calculate 30 kilometres an hour instead!!
But then again, Agra is no Aurangabad - a district in my home-state Bihar, which is affected by Maoist problem. Agra sees hundreds and thousands of visitors every day and the authorities are even building a super-fast Yamuna Expressway Corridor, which will cut the journey time to about two hours.
Anyway, I digress. The taxi had to stop a kilometre away from Taj Mahal, and the tourist trade converged on us straightaway. Sir, there is a two-hour long queue outside the ticket window. Hop on to my electric rickshaw and I'll take you there in minutes. Sir, you don't want to spend two hours walking up to the monuments and various queues. Hop on to this camel cart and you'll be there quickly. Sir, I am a recognised Tourist Guide. You need my services to understand what the monument is about.........
My guest was fine with walking, so we made our way to the Taj Mahal. Some salesman pursued us but gave up after a few minutes. We were at the ticket-window in just 15 minutes, and there were hardly three people in front of us.
Foreign visitors are expected to pay 750 INR (about £11) and get a free 500 ml of packaged drinking water and disposable shoe-covers. Indians pay 20 INR (20 p) and have to carry their own water.
Getting through the security was a breeze but I got stopped at the entrance to Taj Mahal. Can we see your identification? Sure, I said, pulling out my driving licence. This is a driving licence. Where is your Tourist Guide Licence? I asked them to clarify their question. You are with a foreign tourist. Where is your Tourist Guide Licence?
I was allowed to enter once it was established that the white guy with me was a friend.
Taj Mahal is awesome. This was only my second trip to the monument, but the moment you enter through the main - you are captivated by the magnificence of this structure.
The friend and I spent a couple of hours walking around and marvelling the monument. It looks different from different angles, and the friend's favourite was Taj Mahal through the branches of a tree in the compound.
Lunch was a rushed affair. The driver took us to a "good restaurant" where the only other customers were eating a slightly burnt dosa. We ordered the bare minimum - paneer, daal and rotis - and bottles of pesticides (sorry, Coke, Pepsi and 7Up) to wash that down.
Agra Fort was our next stop. It was my first visit there and I found it more amazing than the Taj Mahal. As our guide said, you only ever get to see 25% of the area covered, as the other 75% has been an army cantonment for hundreds of years.
The fort was a seat of power much before the Mughals came to India. The first mention of it comes in the year 1080 AD, and the third Mughal emperor - Jalaluddin Mohammmad Akbar - turned this brick fort into a fort made of red sandstone.
The first five generations of Mughals - Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb - all lived and ruled from here.
Shah Jahan, who built Taj Mahal in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is credited with how the Agra Fort looks now. Unlike grand-father Akbar, who loved red sandstone, Shah Jahan preferred white marble.
As a result some parts of this fort are constructed in white marble. Some other parts have been covered in plaster of paris, to give them a white facade. Shah Jahan did live a privileged life, with a huge aquarium in the newer part of the fort to play games with his beloved wife and another area to play a version of Chinese checkers with his mistresses.
Apart from three wives, Shah Jahan had more than 300 mistresses in his harem. If one of them misbehaved or fought with another mistress, there was a prison beneath the harem. There was even a sheesh-mahal (a hall of thousands of mirrors) for dancers to showcase their skill.
Two of the marble structures were meant to house his two daughters, Jahan Ara and Alam Ara, and have a stunning view of the Taj Mahal. If the cost of modification to the Agra Fort and construction of Taj Mahal are included, it would run into billions of rupees in today's money.
Legend has it that Shah Jahan wanted to build a black Taj Mahal, before he was put under house arrest by his son, Aurangzeb.
One the first things Aurangzeb did was fill up the aquarium with soil and turn it into a lawn. He also created an additional moat around the fort, with crocodiles and other deadly reptiles in it. That is assuming someone was not using the main gate. If they were, the main access has a ramp through which big boulders could be rolled down. And if that wasn't discouraging enough, hot oil could be poured down specially-designed crevices in the wall.
I am busy planning the logistics of a three-week road-trip, starting this Sunday. The project aims to understand how roads are shaping India and will involve a team of journalists travelling from Varanasi to Kolkata and Chennai to Mumbai by road.
Indian highway network has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. During the last six months, I have had an opportunity to travel on some of these roads in both south and north of India and have been suitably impressed.
The most recent excursion was last weekend, on a sight-seeing trip to Agra with a friend visiting from the UK. Agra is home to the famous Taj Mahal and situated about 210 kilometres from Delhi. It is located on the same National Highway 2 (NH2) that we will be taking for the first leg of our journey.
The journey to Agra began at 5.30 in the morning. Delhi is nice and cool at that time of the day and, thankfully, most of its car-loving people are still asleep. An early start would help avoid potential gridlocks along the Ring Road (read, Delhi's M25), Badarpur and Faridabad (located in neighbouring Haryana, but part of Delhi National Capital Region). The journey is hardly 30 or so kilometres but can easily take a couple of hours.
As we zipped through these areas, I was reminded of my childhood. Cars were rare in those days and if you were lucky enough to be in one (in our case, it would mostly be Dad's office car), negotiating Delhi's roads would be smooth and quick.
Once we crossed Faridabad, we had left the last bit of Delhi NCR's commuter-belt behind. The taxi suddenly picked up pace, with the speedometer touching 100-plus kilometres an hour - something that would have been a dream only a decade ago.
Unfortunately, NH2 - like many other national highways - passes through densely populated areas. And those living in these areas suddenly find themselves separated from their family or land by these fast lanes.
The taxi driver had to brake frequently to avoid hitting those crossing the road. Unfortunately, not everyone was lucky. Along the way, we saw the small Maruti Suzuki 800 that had run into a big truck. The stationary ambulance indicated that the driver of the car hadn't survived, but our driver thought otherwise - Generally the steering wheel caves in towards the driver's seat, which causes serious injuries. The steering on this car seemed fine, even though the accident looks bad.
Not exactly reassuring, but the man seem to know the route. I come to Agra between three-five times a month. Trucks are fine as they'll move slowly on the fastest lane, but it is the animals, pedestrians, tractors and cars you need to avoid. It is always better to overtake from the left.
We were in Agra just before 9 in the morning. The car had covered 210 kilometres in just under 3.5 hours, an average of 60 kilometres an hour.
So, Google was right all along. While planning our India Highways project, Google Maps kept calculating journey times at 60 kilometres an hour and I kept disregarding it - choosing to calculate 30 kilometres an hour instead!!
But then again, Agra is no Aurangabad - a district in my home-state Bihar, which is affected by Maoist problem. Agra sees hundreds and thousands of visitors every day and the authorities are even building a super-fast Yamuna Expressway Corridor, which will cut the journey time to about two hours.
Anyway, I digress. The taxi had to stop a kilometre away from Taj Mahal, and the tourist trade converged on us straightaway. Sir, there is a two-hour long queue outside the ticket window. Hop on to my electric rickshaw and I'll take you there in minutes. Sir, you don't want to spend two hours walking up to the monuments and various queues. Hop on to this camel cart and you'll be there quickly. Sir, I am a recognised Tourist Guide. You need my services to understand what the monument is about.........
My guest was fine with walking, so we made our way to the Taj Mahal. Some salesman pursued us but gave up after a few minutes. We were at the ticket-window in just 15 minutes, and there were hardly three people in front of us.
Foreign visitors are expected to pay 750 INR (about £11) and get a free 500 ml of packaged drinking water and disposable shoe-covers. Indians pay 20 INR (20 p) and have to carry their own water.
Getting through the security was a breeze but I got stopped at the entrance to Taj Mahal. Can we see your identification? Sure, I said, pulling out my driving licence. This is a driving licence. Where is your Tourist Guide Licence? I asked them to clarify their question. You are with a foreign tourist. Where is your Tourist Guide Licence?
I was allowed to enter once it was established that the white guy with me was a friend.
Taj Mahal is awesome. This was only my second trip to the monument, but the moment you enter through the main - you are captivated by the magnificence of this structure.
The friend and I spent a couple of hours walking around and marvelling the monument. It looks different from different angles, and the friend's favourite was Taj Mahal through the branches of a tree in the compound.
Lunch was a rushed affair. The driver took us to a "good restaurant" where the only other customers were eating a slightly burnt dosa. We ordered the bare minimum - paneer, daal and rotis - and bottles of pesticides (sorry, Coke, Pepsi and 7Up) to wash that down.
Agra Fort was our next stop. It was my first visit there and I found it more amazing than the Taj Mahal. As our guide said, you only ever get to see 25% of the area covered, as the other 75% has been an army cantonment for hundreds of years.
The fort was a seat of power much before the Mughals came to India. The first mention of it comes in the year 1080 AD, and the third Mughal emperor - Jalaluddin Mohammmad Akbar - turned this brick fort into a fort made of red sandstone.
The first five generations of Mughals - Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb - all lived and ruled from here.
Shah Jahan, who built Taj Mahal in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is credited with how the Agra Fort looks now. Unlike grand-father Akbar, who loved red sandstone, Shah Jahan preferred white marble.
As a result some parts of this fort are constructed in white marble. Some other parts have been covered in plaster of paris, to give them a white facade. Shah Jahan did live a privileged life, with a huge aquarium in the newer part of the fort to play games with his beloved wife and another area to play a version of Chinese checkers with his mistresses.
Apart from three wives, Shah Jahan had more than 300 mistresses in his harem. If one of them misbehaved or fought with another mistress, there was a prison beneath the harem. There was even a sheesh-mahal (a hall of thousands of mirrors) for dancers to showcase their skill.
Two of the marble structures were meant to house his two daughters, Jahan Ara and Alam Ara, and have a stunning view of the Taj Mahal. If the cost of modification to the Agra Fort and construction of Taj Mahal are included, it would run into billions of rupees in today's money.
Legend has it that Shah Jahan wanted to build a black Taj Mahal, before he was put under house arrest by his son, Aurangzeb.
One the first things Aurangzeb did was fill up the aquarium with soil and turn it into a lawn. He also created an additional moat around the fort, with crocodiles and other deadly reptiles in it. That is assuming someone was not using the main gate. If they were, the main access has a ramp through which big boulders could be rolled down. And if that wasn't discouraging enough, hot oil could be poured down specially-designed crevices in the wall.
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