#FixOurRoads: Opp. Comfort Banquet, Zirakpur

The Old Kalka-Ambala Road, that led from Zirakpur to Ambala used to be an abandoned road for a long time.  It had agricultural land on both sides and lay green but forlorn. Now the place is humming with activity.  All thanks to the various housing societies that have sprung up adjacent to this road. An overbridge that leads to Kalka from Zirakpur light point cuts free access to this road from the Chandigarh end.  People commuting to Dhakoli or Peer Muchhala from Panchkula have to take this road.  Their numbers grow day by day.  Comfort Banquet is a well known landmark right at the Panchkula end of the road.  It is a busy hub.  You see, there are two daaru ka thekha (alcohol shops) here. There are some small joints selling food here, a few shops and a shanty market selling vegetables.

I have to commute along this road everyday as I live in Dhakoli and work in Panchkula.  I drive a scooter and leave office by 6 PM in the evening. It is dark and bitterly cold by that time.  The drinking population rejoices at the early darkness as it means they can ‘party’ early.  The atmosphere is of happiness for a few and fears for some.  If everything was good, one could pass by this little stretch of barely 5 or 10 meters in the matter of a second or two.  But things are not good here.

The bit of road in front of Comfort Banquet always sags.  It has been filled with pebbles and built over at times, but within a few weeks it is back to its pockmarked self.  There are huge cavern sized pot holes on the road.  Two wheeler drivers have to slow down and find a good patch to drive on that will not upset the scooter.  On dry days it is still possible, as the cavern is visible and one can slowly pass it by.  But on rainy days everything gets waterlogged and it is harder to spot a good bit of road to use.  By the way, whatever light we have in this spot is thanks to the shops and the Banquet.  Move up the road and you are left in total darkness.

I have no idea who I should contact for this.  But I am putting these pictures here and in social media, hoping that someone wakes up to the difficulty the population of Dhakoli face on a daily basis.

Pretty Panchkula

It was a short while ago that my office shifted to Panchkula.  Living on rent, it did not make too much sense for me to commute so much, hence I started looking for houses closer to my place of work.  Alas, Panchkula had already been beset by cash rich IT professionals who were willing to pay good bucks.  The houses that went for ridiculous rents were now beyond reach for me.  I moved into a less popular place, more populous nevertheless, thanks to the numerous housing societies that have sprung up here, turning a green periphery into a concrete jungle.

Now that I was closer to my place of work and took a route through Panchkula, I started noticing how pretty Panchkula is.  Indeed, it is prettier than its more famous cousin Chandigarh.  A tiny little dot on the map, it nestles close to the foothills of the Shivalik mountains that loom in the background no matter where you are.  From Chandigarh you can spot them in the distance, blue and hazy.  In Panchkula you can see the green bushes and the exposed earth and rocks that dot the Morni hills and the hills close to Nada village. The roads are broad here and kothis are more individualistic and opulent than in Chandigarh.  More on these later when I have pictures to back my claim.

This post is about the view of Nada Sahib from atop the  flyover that is built for the convenience of travellers from Ambala-Delhi route who want to rush towards Shimla without being caught in the bottleneck of city traffic.  More on this too, later.  At the moment, enjoy the pictures.

Nada Sahib shines amongst shrubs and rocks of the hills that  are just starting out.

People flock to the Nada Sahib Gurdwara on Puranmashi  days.

Devotees ask for boons here.

Cities grow and overtake everything. Chandigarh airport was once in wilderness, Now it is in the centre of Pabhat (or Bhabat) village.  Visiting Nada Sahib used to be a long drive through a quiet town, now it is a busy road and a thriving Nada Village that dots your road.

New Home

The thing about renting a place is that your landlord gets antsy if you hang on too long in one house.  So you know that within 3-4 years you will be getting marching orders.  The thought that my landlord might soon give me marching orders, gets me all antsy after 3 years in one place.  I start preparing myself mentally for the move.  During my three years in Baltana, I was constantly looking for another place.  When we first moved there, electricity was a huge problem.  If the power went off, we were never sure when it would return, it could be within two hours or two days.  The water supply was good to start with, then all the people around installed motors to fill their tanks overhead, it pulled the water supply away from non-motor people like me.  So faced with the bad approach roads, narrow lanes where I could barely navigate my scooter, the water problem, I decided the time was ripe to move.  Before I leave the topic of Baltana, let me mention that the market was awesome.  I could get everything there from handkerchief to quilts,  all sorts of services were available, from fixing a loose wire to .... anything.  From 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening. I love these kind of thriving shops a lot.  Baltana is not too far away from where I live now, and I can visit it anytime in case I need to visit my old addas.

Ok, so a friend recommended this flat to me.  It is about a mile away from the previous location, not the one I was looking for.  I was looking for someplace more within the city, but the rents... they are forbidding... and my salary... it refuses to move northwards.  Hence I snapped up this flat when I found it.  It was in a decent area, things of immediate need are available within a 200 meter perimeter.  My drive to my office is non-bumpy which is essential when you riding a scooter.  This place is on one of the edges of the city, which still has the view of mama nature in its semi-pristine splendour.  There are farms adjoining the flat where I see a tractor plying, things growing.  There is a cluster of greens and trees through which a train screams past now and then.  For some reason its 'Mere Sapno ki Rani' that plays in my head more than the forlorn screams of the train in Pakeezah.  Maybe it denotes that my heart is in a happy place, which is good.  I can see the Shivaliks in the distance, green fields; so it is like living in the lap of nature.  Ideally, I would like to own a house in Kansal, with the Sukhna Lake and the Rock Garden close by.  But I am not Richie Rich, I have to do with what I have.

Look at the few pictures that I have taken with my cell phone camera.

Lights glittering in the night...

A train passes by this way.

The fields to my left, I wish I had a zoom lens

Again the view to my right, to be enjoyed for a few months more till  the  new flats block my view

Cars lined up tidily by the side of the road

Camera does not zoom, but my eyes see the hills in the distance

Look at the fields in the distance

My Balconey

My doorway