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.)