78/ 100 Little Car Dogs
Footpaths are for everything except feet (or dogs).
This project has always been a mixture of my own personal stories of our travels in India, things that people there told us about their own country, my own musings and, as in this case, some of the myriad of things that are so very different to my own country of Scotland that fascinate and bemuse me. Each story, of course, inspired in some way by a different dog. Today’s piece, number 78 of my project, is about footpaths and why, for the most part, they are likely to be the least likely path your feet will take when in one of the towns and cities of India.
In every one of the cities I’ve visited in India – Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Varanasi, Jaipur, Delhi, Agra and more – there are paths alongside the road. My experience of living in Europe would tell me that they were put there for pedestrians to use, but just about everyone actually walks along the edge of the road. The reasons for this are many.
When the road itself is in a very poor condition you can imagine that the pavements don’t have much of a repair budget. Once you’ve clambered up the knee-high kerb you’ll find yourself on a surface that appears to be a slightly scaled-down version of the Himalayas. Loose and unstable pavers threaten to twist your ankle. An insufficient amount of enormous flagstones, that never come close to covering the mysterious tunnels beneath them, sway as you walk over them, threatening to tip you into, what? I cannot even begin to imagine, but I know it wouldn’t be good.
Animals will have been trundling along the paths, keeping off of the road, whilst nonchalantly depositing whatever they ate yesterday. And this being India, that could well amount to a lot of animals. In Varanasi alone I have witnessed with my very own eyes cows, dogs, cats, monkeys, goats, sheep, donkeys and people deciding to leave their mark in the streets.
There are always complex spider’s webs of cables that threaten to trip you up or strangle you. I genuinely have no idea why there are so many of these black wires – some as thick as your finger – criss-crossing the paths at all levels. I assume we also have them here, except they are buried deep underground out of harm’s way. At least you can see these snaking cables though. If your walking attempt comes in January, around the time of Pongal or Makar Sankranti, you are highly likely to get tangled in the deadly nests of abrasive kite string called manja that dangle from every surface and lay a tripwire across the path.
Was there some building work happening outside a shop in the centre of Mumbai in 1994? If there was then the spare bricks and sand they didn’t use will still be in a large pile next to the roadside, probably cordoned off with a decades-old yellow police barrier and with a dog napping on top. Are you in a posher neighbourhood? If so, almost every house will have its own smart little sentry box, complete with potted plants around the base and a vigilant guard inside whose head, in winter, will be entirely covered by a scarf, completely blocking the pavement. Has your car broken down so comprehensively that you have finally decided not to use it any more? (A decision that most definitely ought to have been made for our ‘Government Approved’ Mumbai airport taxi about 35 years ago). Well why not just abandon it completely on the pavement so that it can decompose slowly back into the earth. Just remember to take a door off so that dogs can sleep inside it.
Oh, and don’t forget the trees. Now I love trees, I really do, but the trees in India are just a bit different. They don’t just grow up, they also grow outwards. A lot. Fabulous in a city park, not so fabulous when they are much wider than the pavement. As you can see from the picture below, these giants become street furniture. People store things in them and on them. They make a great place to hang things, and often a great place to sit too. It seems quite common for the things you’ve hung in the tree to be there long enough that the tree subsumes them into its folds.
Even though these giants are sometimes in the way I completely forgive them, and I’d happily step out onto the road for one of these wonderful beings.
Large ficus tree sprawling across the pavement in central Mumbai
Pavement becomes a rubbish tip after Christmas in Kochi
Lastly, the most common item standing between you and your lovely stroll to the dosa stand will be parked cars. Where I live, in Scotland, it is actually illegal to park on a footpath under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, with potential fines of up to £100. Even parking a little bit onto the kerb is frowned upon.
For some reason, in India the pavement seems to be where you are supposed to park your car, especially in the richer neighbourhoods. And I’m not talking about parking up on the kerb and blocking half the pavement. I’m talking about total pavement annihilation. Cars will be driven up and off of the road, perpendicular to the highway, and nudged to within 2mm of the wall of their property so that the only thing getting past would be a snake, or maybe a short dachshund.
So where can you walk then? Basically, along the edge of the main road. At the start of every one of our trips we try and retain our European ways and attempt to navigate the footpaths. It usually takes us a few tormented hours but eventually we come to realise that there is nothing for it but to join everyone else on the road because it’s less dangerous. The street itself is fraught with obstacles (there are also cars, but they are actually moving now), but it is a heck of a lot easier that trying to walk on the path.
And what if you’re a dog who just needs a bit of nap time? Where better to go than upwards, onto the safety of one of the very cars that are taking up your bed-space.
Incidentally – if dogs on cars is your thing I have another to see from way back on Day 13 Day 13 Car Roof Dog
