CG-II, Flying Over, Ben Tre

Ideally, this update should be coming from Trivandrum, but for various reasons I'm now back in Japan after only a month's stay in India. Nothing to do with the state of affairs in GOC; it hasn't changed much for that matter. Got a little worse, if you insist but nothing drastic to drive me away.

Let's start with the garbage-freeness pronounced by the government about the same time last year after CG-I (The First Chikungunia Epidemic, like the First World War). We had a big show then with the chief minister and other big guys clearing up $h*t from all over the place. And we all had a big laugh about it afterwards, didn't we? (ref. Oct, 2006). So, this year we had CG-II and some other mysterious illnesses afflicting our enlightened population and the government immediately swung into action, as only governments can do. That is, after a few hundreds kicked the bucket. The solution... Awesome, fantabulous, mind-boggling, inspired, phenomenal, brilliant, super-duper - no adjectives can describe my feelings. The chief minister threatened that he'll enact laws to punish people who throw garbage around. Then, again we all had a nice laugh about it afterwards. "Kochu kalla!" (or, "Oh, you wicked boy!") That's where it stands today with mallus waiting for CG-III next year. Some are even planning to incorporate it into the Onam festival somehow.

There was also the roads or whatever was remaining. The main street in Trivandrum looks like it has been bombed by the Americans for some flimsy reason - the "we had to destroy it to save it" kind of places like Ben Tre in Vietnam and Falluja in Iraq. If you airdrop an U.S. marine on to the street, the chances are that he'd immediately start looking for snipers among the rubble.

Well, this is all part of a humongous infrastructure project to be completed in another 100-200 years, i.e. if everything goes well. So, we have huge pillars which would one day in the far future support flyovers on it. The pillars have been there for the last four five years. An unnamed government official divulged a state secret. Why is it called a flyover? Well, you have to fly over it to see it. That's all. See, nothing complicated. If you have a light aircraft or a helicopter you can fly over those pillars and see the wonderful civil engineering feat performed by our guys. FLY OVER IT!!! GOT IT!

(P.S. We also read of labourers building a flyover getting killed in Hyderabad. Too bad they couldn't fly and anyway they don't figure, do they, in the grand scheme of things where all the guys who use the flyover will be living in gated high-rise apartments.)