India is a developing country…. someone, somewhere is always developing something!!!

In the geography class when the teacher used to tell, "India is a developing country," for a moment I was confused, what is developed country I asked. She fumbled with her saree and explained something that was nowhere closed to the answer very confidently.

Still however, I never understood the meaning of the sentence and that was the B.W. era, aka Before Wikipedia in fact it was Before Internet era, so there was no one other than my school text book who could give me this information. I remember walking sadly home, that why my country is still developing when it dawned on me. It occurred to be when I was walking home one day from school and I fell in a ditch dug  on the road. I could have sworn that the ditch did not exist fifteen minutes before, no one believed me.

However it dawned me inside the ditch that, India is a developing country because someone somewhere is always developing something. It was uncanny. The street outside my house was dug open 17 times in 4 months, yes I kept count. It was never the same person, first it was the electricity department, then it was the telephone department, then it was someone else who had no idea why he was digging it. After some days I figured, there was a hidden treasure buried somewhere nearby and so when at night the workers left for the day, I entered the trench to check if there was any buried treasure, but apart from layers and layers of mud found none.

There are some places which are dug up in your normal routes. During my junior college days, I used to travel via the local train till the Pune Station. On the way we met this salesman who used to climb with us at the Pune Junction and get down at the Pimpri Station. The man lacked serious patience, to the extend he couldn't wait 15 secs for train to stop and always used to jump as soon as it slowed down on the railways station.

He had no name, atleast we never asked him his name. But he was always there at the Pune station on time to catch the local train at 3:45. That day also he got into the train exactly as expected and was waiting in his customary style at the door to get down at the Pimpri railway station. As the station drew close, as his usual habit, he jumped out of the train and ran parallel to it for few secs, but something he had never expected happened before his eyes. There was some construction work going on the railway platform and he couldn't control his running, wham, crash and bang. The man fell into the big ditch that was dug on the railway platform. His routine was shaken by the incident, so were his nerves.

India is a developing country, if you observe the political manifesto of the local member of parliament, they are always filled with construction work. They also promise more construction work if you promise to vote them, indicating that they are developing this country.


Bridges are being constructed everywhere and the time taken to build a bridge is same as the time taken for election, but that topic for another day. Construction are now part and parcel of life in India. One fine winter morning you are rushing to office thinking of all the good things you are going to explain in the meeting, when a big board on the road tells you to take a ‘detour’. A ride for 5 minutes turns a ride of 15 minutes.

The new wave of smart phones have taken the chair of weapons of mass destraction on the street. In a group of 3 people walking, 1 of them is on the call, the other one fumbling with the phone while the third one is simply not sure why he is with the two. One advantage of these trenches are people now pay attention on the street rather in the phone.

Said my friend, the iPhone addict, “It was horrible man… too horrible of an experience. While walking towards your house I was busy tweeting when I feel into the dug trench outside your gate. For a moment I thought…. for a moment I thought…”

Poor guy, I said to myself, I had named the trench Krish 2 years back, now this was Krish part 4 (yes, I name trenches, we all get bored sometimes, don’t we?) The poor guy was traumatized by the incident,

“Horrible horrible experience…,” he said, “For a moment I thought, my iPhone will shatter into pieces.”

He said hugging the iPhone tightly, “If only they make an app about warning people of the dug up trenches.”

“They did it long back dude, its called Eyes and it is installed in your head. What were you tweeting about anyways?”

“I was tweeting about the 4th anniversary of the trench…” he replied simply.

But then again, India is a developing country, people are developing every inch of it. One day it is a village, the next day a fully dug out city full of trenches. We are just 60 years old and its not easy developing such a large country overnight. Whatever romans will say, India cannot be build in a day.  Can it?