A few months ago the Union road and transport minister, pompous that he is, said that there will construction of so much of roads that any number of new cars will not have a bearing on the infrastructure deficit.

However, a recent update about my friend makes me think that “are we anyway close to those dreams.” Today my friend is housed in a mental asylum—thanks to the road work taking place in the outskirts of the city -- which ironically also happens to face massive power cuts. On one such dark night, when he was returning from work he failed to see the potholes left by the public works departments for laying water pipes. He fell into the pit and lay in it severely bleeding till some passer-by noticed him--that too when electricity was restored. Though he was rushed to the hospital but by then, he had lost considerable blood and slipped into coma. Thankfully he regained consciousness but life was never the same. Due to irreparable brain damage, he lost his mental equilibrium. Since he does not have any immediate family to care for him, he has been sent to an asylum by his relatives. Thus ended the career of a budding artist – all due to the callous attitude of the civic authorities, who did not even bother put some barricade or some sign to warn against the impending danger.

Last month we read in the newspapers, how a biker bled to death in a pider trench on the JVLR link Road at Powai. The policemen, who collected his bike for slapping charges on him, did not even bother check out where the biker was. Is it mere callousness on their part or lack of humanity?

I believe till a person reaches home safely from work or social visit, it is difficult to say whether he will be able to see the light of the next day.

The road digging on the some or the other pretext like laying of water pipes or gas pipes, repair work or some other reason, seem to be continuous sight in Mumbai. Traffic snarls are their inevitable by-product.

Sometimes the roads are so bad that I shudder to think what happens to the patients who need to be rushed in ambulances for immediate medical help. Patients must be getting a glimpse of death when the ambulance zooms through bumpy roads. Have our revered think-tanks ever thought about the condition of the helpless patients and their relatives who have to wait endlessly when caught in a peak time traffic snarl?

Sometimes I wonder whether the politicians, bureaucrats or road contractors are aware that they are actually killers – how many lives may have been lost due to their attitude and corruption. Can’t they not let go of their selfish interests and give us our basic right to live?