Some past birth connection, this! Hosur Road is what I'm talking about!! The last two years of commuting to Electronic City and back saw me through a range of emotions from anger, utter despair to a weary feeling of helplessness. It began with the constant caustic verbal attacks on the pathetic conditions of this infamous road and when it was finally done after a good many years, people of the city were visibly relieved that life would certainly get better without having to be stranded for close to an hour or more during rush hours and otherwise. But it was not meant to be.

The happiness of having a seemingly well-done Hosur Road was pretty short-lived. You couldn't miss out on the many humps that only helped in the most bizarre of accidents not to forget the reckless driving of those blessed truck drivers who are kings any time of the day or night and the innumerable unruly city riders and drivers. You carry on with your raving and ranting, fretting and fuming, grimacing and grouching, whining and wailing, cribbing and crying every single evening but then, who's listening to you??

Life became nightmarish not so much during the morning hours (at least for me! because the office van got us to Electronic City by 9.00 am) as in the evenings when we would be on this road from 6.15 to 7.40 on some days. Now I'm confident that this beats all records of traffic jams in the country. And, if there's anyone who has been longer on the road, I'll treat you to a lavish dinner in any of the happening restaurants in town!!! My word really and by this, you can gauge the extent of the exasperation that I feel when I share this

One instance illustrating the laid back attitude is traffic. The Richmond Circle flyover is happening since at least the last three years. This is one of the busiest junctions of Bangalore, and handles tremendous amount of traffic. How can the authorities let such critical places be blocked for such a large duration? The second one of course is the Hudson circle traffic crisis. Even the road leading to the Electronic City was in shambles and ruins, till the industrialist association took the matter in their hands a couple of years back. In contrast a town like Mumbai has over 17 fly-overs created within a year. All of these had started after our Richmond Circle fly-over.

Let me continue with my woes and more reasons why. What I just said was only one day in so many years. The incessant mindless honking by insensitive commuters can also get to you most evenings when you are tired and want to get home and all that you are entertained by is the din of the traffic. Such people get a feeling that by honking, they are making way for themselves when there is actually none, and shortening the distance to their destinations.

I witnessed more than 40 odd ghastly accidents in the last 730 days which leaves me with strong memories of sarcasm drenched discussions on this sorry state of affairs of the country and blah, blah…blah but looking back, I realized that our sense of humor was at it's best when we dug openly lashing out at the lackadaisical attitude of the government but foolish us!!! We didn't bother to ask ourselves if we were speaking our minds to the appropriate persons who could make a difference or were plain being preoccupied with doling out some gibberish on our way back from work in the van. We sure didn't want to discuss office matters and so the next best thing to do was to curse Hosur Road with abandoned freedom.

Having left that job, I said a silent goodbye to Hosur Road with some strange confidence that my next job would by no remote means, need the services of Hosur Road but as you might have guessed, I'm still "doing" this road. That's not all. What drove me to write this insipid piece is that the same old story continues!

This morning, I started from home early enough to get to work on time when I reached the most dreadful point on Hosur Road. A truck stood smashed out of shape a metre away from one of the crossroads and there we were - Four roads blocked with a barrage (?) of vehicles and no way out but to look on stupidly with disdain and the usual feeling of defenselessness till we could resume our morning journey to office after a half hour halt.

I can go on and on but like they say, the road goes on forever and so do the Hosur Road blues!!!