Hindon Bridge

No, I have not spelled London Bridge wrong; I do mean the bridge on River Hindon, a small river flowing east of Delhi. Hindon has many bridges, but the one worth mentioning is on National Highway 24 (NH 24) Branch running between Noida and Ghaziabad, the two Delhi Suburbs or Satellite towns in Western UP (Uttar Pradesh), and moving onto Delhi. This road was constructed over twenty-five years back to decongest the actual NH 24 as a bypass or express road. It is still called NH 24 bypass or Expressway by numerous builders who are constructing new high rising colonies along the road at a rapid pace. The added population and their transports of varied sizes and categories have reduced the expressway into a virtual ‘turtle way’, at least till the Hindon Bridge.

Hindon Bridge though may not be of any importance otherwise, stay in mind of people who have to use it for any reason. For anyone travelling in the morning hours towards Delhi or Noida from anywhere east of the Hindon Bridge, the journey on NH 24 can become a nightmare. On most of crossroads and road junctions there are no traffic lights or traffic policeman to control the entry or exit on the highway. It spells utter chaos, jams and even accidents almost on daily basis. But this is part of life here. No one seems to be perturbed by all this and life goes on so easily for most of the people who appear to have hell lot of patience on these matters.

Where they don’t have patience, is the time spent of road, if they can manage it. On Indian roads, especially on NH 24 everyone is in a tremendous hurry. They are in need of saving time. And they do it only on roads with complete disregard to traffic rules, road etiquettes, safety of self and others and most of all common sense. The area immediately east and west of the Hindon Bridge is a perfect example. There is utter chaos most of the time.

The Highway is a four-lane road with median in between. In India traffic is left driven, i.e. like most of British Commonwealth one drives on the left side of road. Motorised vehicles are right hand driven and one overtakes from the right of the vehicle being overtaken. That means that left lanes are for slower and heavier traffic and right lane is for cars and high-speed vehicles; but not on road to Hindon Bridge. The traffic here can confuse everyone about the country in which one is driving. People drive here, wherever they find any space, even when it is absolutely inadequate to push their vehicles in. The smaller, crawling and overloaded auto rickshaws move in the left lanes, but halt wherever they feel like. The buses and trucks for their convenience crawl in the right lanes; but given an opportunity they will drive at the pace of Luis Hamilton’s car. And the daredevil motorcyclists, in any case, find their way through any type of traffic conditions at the speed that they prefer. So car drivers have no option but to stay at the mercy of the crawlers, whatever space is given to them to drive.

Left lane is always full of auto rickshaws and some sensibly driven two wheelers. The right one is always taken over by busses, trucks, and tractors and at time traffic coming from opposite direction on the wrong side of road. To overtake this type of traffic is virtually impossible, as the busses and trucks do not move out of their lane to give way to high-speed traffic. So overtaking from left is an unwritten norm here, even though it means high risk to self and other slow moving traffic, which can come in way. But over a period of time people have adjusted in negotiating overtaking maneuvers from left (Though this scene can be visible on other highways including Toll Highways of Delhi-Agra (NH 2) and Delhi-Jaipur (NH 8)).

This is not enough and quite often a halted auto rickshaw, bus or a truck taking or offloading passengers blocks one of the lanes. At times there are vehicles which having developed some problem and get parked in one of the lanes. And there is some reason or other for traffic Jam. In the morning office hour routine jam, the daredevil motorcyclists have developed a unique innovative way of handling the traffic. Since the lanes towards Delhi are choked with morning traffic and other side of the median there is only marginal number of vehicles, they drive on the wrong side of road. Not only the risk their own life, they can simply run anyone in trouble. A new comer on the road from Delhi side is likely to get surprised and may end up hitting one of the daredevils. What will happen to the motorcyclist is not difficult to assume, but the other person driving on his correct side of road can land up in all sorts of troubles including beaten up ruthlessly by sympathisers of the motorcyclist and those for whom nuisance on road is a matter of their self acquired right. But life continues here.

If one is lucky and crosses Hindon Bridge, than on NH4 there are other few choke points, which one has to negotiate before reaching Delhi. Or one can get into better roads of Noida for an alternative route to South Delhi. Noida is lesser congested than NH 24 or even Delhi. Roads are better to drive. Off course baring few crossroads one is not required to bother about jumping traffic lights or overtaking from the side of one’s choice. It is surprising to see that quite a number vehicles driving so carefully with following all traffic rules and etiquettes in Delhi, become absolutely crazy the moment they are a few kilometres inside Noida or NH 24. Off course they are all in big hurry. Time is of prime importance. Their owners wouldn’t have done anything in time in their life, but saving time on roads is always a top priority. Not everyone behaves like that, but one will always find people driving with complete disregard to commonsense. But that is another story in itself.

And driving back especially in evening hours, the story is more or less repeated at Hindon Bridge. As the return timings of people from their jobs and business are more staggered, the jam stays but the chaos is a bit less. However, immediately after the bridge roadside vegetable shacks add to the cause of jam. Office-returning people from all walks of life in all type of vehicles do take a break and buy vegetables on roadside, adding to the situation causing the jam in some proportion. But that’s how the life goes here. And it will go like this if no improvement in widening the road and bridge, which were constructed over twenty-five years back, is done immediately. May be then, people will stop talking of Hindon Bridge.

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