Well no, spending time with family wasn’t the nightmare(though
it can be with a few eccentric uncles and aunts around :P), it was the journey
back home. It was a trip which was an eclectic mix of emotions ranging from
nostalgia and joy of reliving the best moments of childhood spent in the holy
city from missing my grandmom who was the reason my family loves Haridwar so
much. Whole two decades flashed past by when I saw my nephews playing around in
the Ganges the way me and my cousins did. Even my one year old twin nieces
totally loved the water despite being muddy and SO chilly! That was the
beautiful part of the 2 day trip and all rest was a nightmare and whom do I
thank for it?
The unruly, brains-out-of-the-body-and-gone-in-the-gutters
fellow Indians, the gigantic piece of shit that our government is and harbinger
of Nature’s bounty turned destructor- heavy rains.
The trip to Haridwar was marked by some 40 km long beautiful
stretch of 3 highways and the moment you feel you can reach your destination an
hour early and how atleast something is still okay in India…bam! You have a
kilometer long queue at the toll plaza and that becomes a honking and my
car-bangs-into-your-car nightmare because there is utter mismanagement at the
plaza and my fellow Indians lack patience and civility to keep the lane
discipline. The wait at toll eats away that hour I intended to save. The
journey further changed from oh-wow-highway to no-road-highway. The government
seems to sense my displeasure at the toll and thought of relieving me of any
such formality by not bothering to make any further roads. That is the beauty
of this country; you truly have two diverse sides to it. One moment your car
speeds off at 120 km/hour and the other moment even 20km/hour feels like
luxury!
The journey is further made spicy and my head hot with rage by
my dear fellow Indians who try to shove their cars into the empty space of the
opposite lane just as air restlessly rushes to fill the vacuum. The result-
total traffic jam because there is no way the four lanes of car/bus/anything
that moves on road from either side stuck head on can move further. After wishing
a shoot at sight orders for such defaulters or praying for a General Dyer to
incarnate in such situations and me personally willing to do the honours of
locking the door and opening fire, such traffic sense numbs me and truly make
me want to question those drivers on how they expect to go further when they
COMPLETELY jam the other lane? I want to sue Tata Salt for not putting in
enough iodine in its ‘desh ka namak’; the brains are no more!
And if this is not enough; you have HEAVY rains which everytime
expose the weaknesses of our city drainage systems and once again makes the
government appear naked. The fellow Indians and our government made sure that
we cover the 24 kilometer stretch from Rishikesh to Haridwar in 6 hours 30
minutes! Now that I am home after a grueling drive of 17 hours which should
have taken a mere 5 hours, I still bless my fate looking at how many people are
stranded on roads, how many were drenched in rains, tired and hungry. Our traveler
vehicle didn’t give up on us unlike many others’, our driver kept his cool and
didn’t unnecessarily overtake unlike many others where buses were stuck in mud
and the passengers stranded and angry, our supply of snacks no matter how
unhealthy still kept our stomachs full, the kids with us weren’t troubled
unlike some in other vehicles who would always be traumatized by this nightmare
that had befallen over them.
I pray for people who are affected by the now-declared-floods in Uttarakhand and hope that the stranded travelers soon reach
safely home. As for my dear city of Ganges, I shall see you soon but only after
I release some of the portions of this nightmare! Till then, please remain a
benign mother and not a furious one.
Love Always!
