PAVING THE WAY

Gujarat has some of the best roads of any State in India and they are a cause for pride.  Gujarat being the economic powerhouse of the country, requires an efficient infrastructure.  These roads are not only arteries of transport, but also generate trading opportunities for small scale entrepreneurs, who set up shop as tailors, barbers, cobblers, leather workers and fast food operators, including sugar cane juice providers, who wield their presses, feeding sticks of sugar cane between large wooden mangles, extracting a thin stream of juice which they sell by the glass - so the roads are a hive of activity, shared also by stray dogs and wandering cows and donkeys.

But a new phenomenon has hit this urban scene - heaps of sand, stone and broken bricks were the first harbingers of change afoot and over the last few weeks a honeycomb of small hexagonal concrete 'cobble stones' have been laid, to create the first pavements of Vadodara !   But it seems that this luxury is shunned by the ordinary pedestrian, who still elects to make his way in and out of the vendor stalls and compete for space on the roadside with hooting, jay riding scooters, on the wrong side of the road, adding to the usual confusion.

The new pavements with their ordered hexagonal patterns, remain pristine and silent, onlookers to the chaos of the street alongside !  Their very geometric regularity, alienates them and sets them apart from the crowded casualness of the street, littered with a jumble of life !