The Road Much Taken

A few days ago, the office cab that I take every morning to work turned up exceedingly late with a very disoriented and disgruntled driver at the wheel. Why was he late? Because he was looking for the pothole-ridden path to my apartment complex which has become the stuff of legend even in my office circles. He saw the freshly tarred roads and was convinced he had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

In our complex, for the past few weeks we have been celebrating the fact that our ‘road’ has finally become just that – a road. We have enjoyed sailing on these brand new roads exhilarating in the fact that for the first time in years we no longer had to painstakingly lift one tire after into another in and out of one pot hole after another all the while mouthing a silent apology to our long-suffering vehicles and cab-mates.  But about a month later, with the novelty having worn off, a few of the disadvantages of this delayed progress kick in.

You see, I have always been known to the drivers of my office transport as ‘that lady who lives on the wrecked and impassable roads’ or its Kannada equivalent. The drivers immediately knew who that refers to and where I live and I never needed to provide tortuous instructions over the phone. But now, I have lost that epithet and have joined the millions of other faceless employees who live in normal living conditions. Yes, in a way I have lost my identity.

I recall something similar a few months ago. There was a girl we used to pick up in our cab. To reach her apartment, you had to take a left at a huge garbage pile (you couldn’t possibly miss it, it was a huge smelly eye sore that you could see and smell for miles) and then take an immediate right. All went smoothly and the girl was picked up on time for several months. Until a brand new corporator all flush after winning the elections and starry-eyed to start with his new duties decided to thoughtlessly go ahead and have the garbage pile cleaned up. Overnight, one of the landmarks to her apartment disappeared and once again, our cabs were thrown into a swirl of confusion.

Yet another example - I used to rent an apartment near the Domlur flyover, which for reasons unknown had stopped midflight and for over a decade stayed that way forcing vehicles to wend and weave their way around it in all directions getting increasingly creative by the day. It was easy to direct anyone who needed to pop in – “near the half-built flyover’ became our identifying marker. We even started getting mail with the phrase in the address box. Until the unthinkable happened – the flyover was finished! Who would have thought the government could be so callous! Again one of our landmarks, one of the markers of our identities had unceremoniously disappeared!

It may be just quirky old me, or maybe it’s a weird manifestation of some sort of the Stockholm Syndrome where abductees start identifying and empathizing with their abductors – but while I enjoy the smoothness of my new road as much as the next person, I feel that I’ve been dealt a double whammy. First when we were forced to get used to a collection of stones and mud that was rather optimistically called a “road”, and made to live with this for more than six years until it became indelibly intertwined in our destinies and our souls. And the second was to have that unique if dubious marker removed from under our much-travelled and calloused feet! Even progress, especially delayed progress, takes getting used to.