“Government! Government! What do I get for all I give, I would like to know! Potholes and Bombs!,” Says Cecil Dawkins of Birmingham, Alabama.
Nagpur: The city that holds nearly 3 million people together and carries a literacy rate of 92.38%, here the matter of potholes is wholly mind-boggling. To be precise, out of every 5 road-accidents that surface in Nagpur, 2 occur due to craters.
In the city tyranny of potholes is more severe than it appears to the naked eye. A pothole is both like the Crucio Curse and the Killing Curse, for it takes numerous lives daily and brings perilous desecration to others.
According to the reports, 30 people die in pothole related accidents every day in India. Noticing the hurricane, our team at Our Nagpur Media carried out a survey, on Thursday 21st December, and the results we got were odious. A visit to Loha Pul area and we found out that within the range of just 40 meters there were 68 potholes. Condition of the Gangabai Ghat Road was no different. On the patch amidst Gangabai Ghat Square and Kumbhar Toli Chowk, the stretch has almost 30 potholes.
Several other roads in the city are in a very bad condition too. North Ambazari Road, Meetha Neem Durgah, Shanti Nagar, Katol road, Sakkardara, Nag Road, Old Bhandara Road, Itwari, Chandrashekhar Azad Square, these are some areas where the conditions seems to have intensified.
The most gigantic pothole in the city is 4ft long, 3ft wide and 1ft deep. Apart from this, there are potholes of various sizes too. Bad roads have caused humongous number of accidents in Nagpur in the last few years and with every passing day the City is witnessing more such cases that now potholes have become matter of life and death for the people residing in Nagpur and for the people who travel to Nagpur for work. Traffic police even claimed and pointed-out that two-wheeler riders are more disposed to accidents due to potholes.
Now it’s no more just the matter or bad roads, slow traffic and wastage of fuel. Pothole has erupted like a volcano, like a tornado it is coming. And, if we keep ignoring it, a day will come where we too would fall prey to this beast.
And, the saddest thing is that even in the winter session time potholes remain the same, unaltered. Looks like NMC (Nagpur Municipal Corporation) doesn’t seem to care a bit about the citizens at all. Even after watching death cuddle a 12 year old son of SRPF head constable everyone seems to be at ease. No one seems to be eager enough to bring life to this city of ours.
So, there’s just this one solution I can think of. As we live in a Democratic Country, we must stand our ground. Just voting a particular party and bringing it to power is not our duty. Our duty is to bring change. Our duty is to bring peace to this world where there is nothing but chaos. Wake up fellow Nagpurians, it’s time for us to come together. It’s time for us to take action against the evil. It sure is a bit slow process, but at the end of the day, whilst you’ll be sipping tea or your coffee, you’ll feel content to have helped a bit into making this world a better place. What we must understand here is that we hold this world the same way it’s holding us. It’s nourished us, pruned us over time. It’s given us all that it could. But, now, as it turns out, it’s probably time for us to heal all the scars that we have given to it. We need to bring change and lift the world up with our soul. We need to have faith in the goodness that we all carry. We need to come together as colleagues and make good things happen. We can’t let the world that’s cherished us like a mother turn to dust. We mustn’t accept an evil we can change. In order to make this world a better place we needn’t carry the bulk of the whole issues going on in the world, one good deed at a time is enough. After all it’s not the magnitude of the candle that lights up a dark room, but the size of the light it emits. Think about it. You’ll see the brightest place of all.
