...Another thousand miles over the last week end.

This was on road over the last week end to the north of Bangalore with an interesting set of people.

A few things that I noticed.

a) The road condition has improved considerably, lot of people on the way told me when asked that this Vajpayee effect. I did also see boards that said Prime Minister's funds for rural roads that was initiated by Manmohan Singh. I saw nice and powerful cars in small towns and the economies flourishing every where - if not for IT these small towns are big commercial centers.

b) People's familiarity with IT, Media and Politics is very high in rural Karnataka. In my opinion more than in Urban Areas. I feel it is easy to win in Urban centers with a wave. Rural people are more discerning - except for the very poor whose priorities are basic and sometimes not something that the so called activist population may not relate to. This is a direct outcome of education and access to information. Everybody I spoke to have access to 24X7 news and news papers. I spoke to one person who wanted to get publicity on the internet. He wanted to have a membership of 25000 people (let me not use this blog to do his job yet) and said let as many people know about it. Marketing is not just sitting in glamorous places and checking graphs alone, there has to be an acumen to it.

c) I was surprised with the sophistication of people, of their language and the food. While we urbanites give preference to speaking softly they are concerned about speaking to get the job done, while we use cautious words they are sensitive of road manners and giving way, while we are concerned about diet they have a balanced diet. While we learn to earn a living they learn the way of living. I think it was education that was missing and the last mile is infrastructure, with these done  I can see cities emptying. Also I did 700 kms in 9 hours with a couple of breaks and some bad road in between. Not bad at all. Travelling a few hundred kms will no longer be a big deal even if you  have to work in a nearby city.

d) I did see the impact of mining. Between  for about 50 kms the road has gone to dogs with trucks moving and I did see trucks waiting to get into mines and causing traffic jams. I hope the benefit of these activities accrues to the infrastructure and people there.

There is always something to learn, cities in India have always been the centers for learning and earning. I am beginning to enjoy these long drives. Going abroad is good but there is no salvation if you do not know your back yard.