Trivandrum: Barcelona or Mars? - I

Sunday, October 24, 2010 by: Arun Mathew

The city of Trivandrum or Thiruvananthapuram in the state of Kerala in Southern India has been facing severe road infrastructure problems for few years now. 


In one of his recent tweets, Tharoor - Member of Parliament from Trivandrum tweeted "Marxists have ruled City Corporation for 40 yrs,whom else can we blame?". Blame is all they all can do. Is anyone doing anything about this mess that throws people off their vehicles into the gutters? 


The commies are no better - every time the media picks on one of those bad roads or bridges, they are quick to stage a drama by tying a few elephants and red flags to a road-side pole, playing a live band and announcing the "inauguration of ABC four-lane bridge" when actually it is just a cover-up hoping to quieten the ordinary citizen and media.

Then there are also internet-based patriots and vandals like Ajay Puppy, Such-Shit Vijayan, Kappa-Sudheesh and so on, who  continue to hide the fact that their city is more like Mars than Barcelona by posting pictures of Kowdiar Road (where despite being a 'model' road, quite a few have actually died) and spreading false propaganda on behalf of many other fanatics indulging in edit-wars on Wikipedia.

Back in September 2007, a tiny bridge called Marapallam was razed down for road widening with an estimated completion time of March 2008. We told ourselves "Oh! 9 months, that would pass by very soon!". Sure, the 9 months did pass by swiftly. But, nothing has changed.

Tonight, as I write, I have just come back home after witnessing a young man, who was thrown off his motorbike because of the uneven terrain and now has a broken leg.

Tonight is a night in 2010. October 2010.


Nothing has changed. The 'crip'-pled Road Projects continue to cripple us in many ways. 

Some of this pathetic truth is here for you to see...a truth that reminds us more of Mars than Barcelona!


(Marappalam, shots from 2008 and 2010)



Very soon, you will need to learn to swim, coz that is where our roads are heading ... God Bless!!!