Speed-breaker culture in India

10 March, 2013

Indian highways, in many ways, is an apt metaphor for the stalling economy and crumbling infrastructure in the country.

Drive down any Indian highway (or road!) and you're bound to be struck by the sheer impossibility of engaging 'top gear' - if you're lucky, you might get a couple of kilometers before you need to hit the brakes and SLOW DOWN. To avoid slamming into a broken-down vehicle parked slap across 2 lanes. To save the cyclist who weaves across the highway. To slow down to a crawl behind three trucks racing each other at 21kmph across all four lanes on the highway. To come to a shuddering halt before you gently ease your car through the potholes that booby-trap the tarmac.

And if that doesnt get you, the speed-breaker will! If the Indian highway isnt a metaphor for the Indian economy, I dont know what is. It doesnt matter how good your car is - it doesnt matter how great your potential for speed - it doesnt matter that you could "make it happen" in half the time.

You wont be able to - because the wreckage of accountability will ensure you cant get ahead. The slow moving traffic of limited ambition will deliberately block your path. The potholes of 'chalta hai' will ensure there's a limit to what you dare to achieve.

And if you manage to cut through all the obstacles and forge your own path, there always the speed-breaker of obsolete policy and blinkered vision that will do its best to cut you down to size.

Yet, the Indian entrepreneur continues to over-achieve - the spirit of achievement continues to flourish - the success-stories continue to bedazzle and inspire. Imagine what we could be if we just had an efficient 'economic' highway...With no speed-breakers, of course!