BRIDGE AT THAKAZHY

Two anecdotes.

No politics at all.

This was composed in 1989.

IT had not made it mark in Kerala.

While I was at Edathua, I had a friend, a vocal leftist, in the office. 

The left were ruling Kerala at that time.

One day as he was stepping on to the country boat ferry at Thakazhy - he was commuting from Kayamkulam - he had fallen off into the river. 

No damage was done as he was rescued by  fellow travellers.

I told him it would  have been good if there had been a bridge there. In fact the people of Kuttanad had been clamouring for it for decades. The river was quite wide at that point. Commuters crossed the river in country boats. The ferry took the vehicles across. Buses were not transported on the ferry.  Tiruvalla - Thakazhy buses brought people up to one end. Buses from Alapuzha brought people upto the other end. Travel was tedious. The road was part of the Tiruvalla - Ambalapuzha State Highway that linked the MC Road with the NH 47

He replied his party would consider Kerala as a whole, and prepare a list of projects to be implemented. The bridge at Thakazhy would be built only after the priorities beyond that were attended to.

Further, when the power project at Kayamkulam was being built, he said it would be an environmental hazard at Kayamkulam and so the project must be shifted to some Tamil Nadu location and the power generated could be transmitted to Kerala.

No wonder we  end up selling lotteries and liqour