Just granite and re- in- forced concrete slabs

Just granite and re- in- forced concrete slabs

 It is raining here.   I had to go to the town toady in the morning.  The roads are flooded with water not just by the rain but the water overflowed from the gutters.   Walking through the waters was disgusting! I had to trudge through the rather dark and murky water flowing through the roads.  It was interesting to watch the rain water gushing out of the side walk and flowing through the road like a river. The vehicles cutting through the water splashing  it around were like boats in a river.

Why are all these Indian cities helpless of controlling the rain waters?   It is not because of the poor drainage system  alone but it is due to the ‘chocked drainages ‘!   Yes, most of the people and merchants are impervious while throwing the garbage around.   This garbage virtually choke the drains and when the rains come, the water has no way but to burst through the gaps and broken slabs.  

These concrete slabs needs attention.  Yes, if you observe the concrete slabs in the towns you will find many of them  displaced  or cracked into the drainage itself  blocking water as well as the garbage!

The reason for this situation is  the extreme greed for money.   Making strong slabs able to bear 20 tons is not high tech engineering.   The contractors add more sand and gravel while making them and lick away a huge profit.  The engineer who is to approve it knows the fact and gets money from the contractor as heavy as the cement that was used for making the slabs!

Now the next stage starts.   These ‘sand slabs’ are paved and they would look great for one or two months with a neat ‘coat of cement’ and after that  they will crumble one by one.   When someone raises some doubts about the way in which they have been made the engineer and the contractor will put the blame on monsoons, sun, and even the people who walk over these slabs!

Till a few years back there was a drainage crossing in Elapully, built more than a century.    As cement was a rarity (or had cement been use in India then?) and there were no contractors and intelligent engineers they had put thick granite blocks to bridge the drainage.   Bullock carts, cars , mini buses, auto rickshaws etc might have passed over them for millions of times still they were unchallenged!  

Recently our revolutionary Panchayath  ( the stereotype of the Village council ) felt that as the British had left the drainage crossing also must go with them.   The contract to remove the stones and concrete the road for 5oo metres was given to a contractor whose construction machinery was nothing more than a few shovels, crowbars, and baskets.   The  contractor brought his men and they tried to remove the stone slabs with crowbars.   They couldn’t  move them an inch as the men weren’t strong as the people who laid them a century ago!  Now, a brilliant idea struck them.   Two of them sped away in cycles and bought two heavy sledge hammers.  Before the evening all the slabs were shattered to the size  one could lift and thrown on the way side!   The slabs which served the people for more than a century were lying in heaps.   I felt very sad.   I had the strange feeling that those stones had life and the sight of them lying on the sway side like rotting carcass made many people also sad.

Now let us come back to the present.  For a few months the drainage slabs and the concrete road looked good. It even smelt of cement!!!   A few months ago while passing over the drainage slabs I found one slab  had gone into the drain cracked with steel bars protruding out as happens when you bend and break sugarcane .   The cracked slab appeared as if it was trying to hide in shame!   The sight of it made me laugh to see the ‘re-in -forced concrete’ slab lying in the drain like that!

Some people who were passing commented like this: “What a shame! The slab has broken as if it was a biscuit!  The good old stones served for more than a century without having to be replaced once”.

At that time I heard a group laughing aloud which no others could.    It was from where there was the heap of granite!