Opening the flyover ceremony doesnt include opening the flyover

July 31, 2006

…

After 3 and a half years, the Jayadeva flyover is finally being opened to the public. The govt had three options:

  1. Have the opening ceremony on Sunday and actually open the road by Monday morning.

  2. Have a ceremony early on Monday morning, before the peak traffic; the CM could have waved a flag and the traffic could have started flowing on to the flyover, perhaps headed by the CM’s car.

  3. Have the opening ceremony at 9.30 am on a Monday morning, block off the road and build a kind of iron-sheets shed and shamiana to shelter the politicos,dig holes in the brand new road to put in the poles for the shed, make sure that the peak Monday morning traffic cannot actually use the flyover for as long as possible, and cause a tremendous traffic jam while the politicos’ cars are all there for the opening ceremony.

Which option would you think our user-friendly govt. would choose?

Here’s what Monday, July 31, 2006, 11 am looked like from our window:

<IMG height=333 alt=”IMG_0178 jayadeva flyover opening 31 july 06” src=”http://static.flickr.com/75/202566974_238ee4d0d7.jpg” width=500>

On the extreme left towards the bottom of the picture are the parked cars; in the middle of the picture is the jammed stream of traffic that still has to detour right into BTM layout; in the top LHS of the pic you can see the politicos and mango public (aam janta) opening the flyover by blocking it off to peak morning traffic. (They have also, in this picture, blocked the right turning that the traffic has to take.)Notice one lane, to the left of the road, where no cars are allowed to drive..so that the parked vip cars can reverse and get away.

Wahe Guru!  Trust our politicians to extract the last ounce of suffering before giving us anything….

I HATE politicians.

I can just imagine a child in one of those cars. “Why are we stuck here for such a long time, Mummy?” “Because they are opening the road dear…”

Er…btw..that pic was taken by….ME!! (I was allowed to touch that hallowed camera!!)

PS.It is now 3pm… The shamiana is still there, the tin-roof shed is still straddling the road, which is STILL blocked….apparently, the “opening the road” ceremony doesn’t include actually opening the road.