Navneet：高港当地公路比印度高速公路更宽

来自高港的故事

What is the best of way of seeing interior China for a foreigner who doesn’t speak Chinese?

None, except waiting for someone to show you around.

对于不会中文的外国人来说，如何最方便观察中国内地？

当然是等着别人带你参观了

We have been living here in Gaogang for the past two years during this assignment. We have lived here in this very town on two other occasions, each stretching over a year. So, we are very familiar with the town and have seen it grow up from a small township to a big city within the span of five years, and it is growing at a very rapid pace. Beautifully laid, aesthetically landscaped and well planned city with Boulevards, Malls, Parks and New Colonies coming up all around, but frankly speaking this is the story of every new city in China.

这次外派，我们在高港生活了2年

在这个镇上两个地方呆过，各呆了一年。

所以，我们对这个镇很熟悉，亲眼目睹其在5年内，从一个小镇发展成一座大城市，且发展速度仍然非常快速。

规划设计颇具美学的城市，宽阔的大马路，繁华的购物中心，郁郁葱葱的公园，以及到处拔地而起的新住宅区。

不过，坦白说，中国每一座新城都在上演同样的故事。

When I came here, my blogger friends would tell me that China has only Beijing and Shanghai that they have made to showcase to the world, but what I saw didn't only amaze me, it also made me think, how unaware the world was of the progress that China has made in the last decade and I decided to update their knowledge by unprejudiced reporting through my blogs.

初来乍到时，博友告诉我说，中国只有北京和上海这些向世界展示的样板城市，然而我们亲眼目睹后让我惊讶不已，同时也让我陷入思索，即这个世界对中国过去10年取得的进步是多么缺乏认识。为此，我决定通过写文章来消除他们对中国的偏见报道。

Walkways and Cycle tracks- alongside All Roads

人行道和自行车道，公路边都有这样的设置

I am not a paid professional journalist who has sold his conscience for money. I have also not sworn my allegiance to Chinese media whose reporting seems to be more out of compulsion than voluntary. I am just a freelancer, writing out of love for writing and I write what my hearts directs me to, and I would never compromise it for money or fear of consequences. If I am faced with such a situation, I would choose to write on a subject that doesn't embroil me in to a controversy rather than choosing to be a paid singer, because love is not a commodity that can be traded.

我不是为了钱而出卖良知的专业记者。

我也没有向中国媒体宣誓效忠，后者的报道似乎更多是出于被迫，而不是志愿。

我只是一位自由写手，出于对写作的热爱而笔耕不辍，心里怎么想就怎么写。、

我决对不会为了钱而妥协，也不会害怕后果而停笔。

爱并非是可以交易的商品。

With in a span of five years, huge multi storied colonies have come up where there used to be vast stretches of fields. A grand mall has come up too. These days, the sewers of the city are being replaced with bigger ones, perhaps in anticipation of great increase of population, for which the residential accommodation is all ready for occupancy, but none of it has put the people living here to any inconvenience. It is planned in such a way that the people don't have to take a detour.

5年来，一大片曾经是田地的地方建起了多层住宅。还建起了一座大型 购物中心。

这些天，高港的排水管更换了一个更大的，也许是预测到人口会大幅增加。

住宅区居所等着入住。

规划得很好，不会造成人们生活不便，不会需要你绕路的那种。

New Colonies that have come up in the last two years

过去两年新建的楼盘

The city roads here are already broader than highways in India and majority of them are laid in cement. When new colonies come up in India and people start moving in, a multitude of woes come with them and come along the flies and mosquitoes.

高港的公路已经比印度（高速）公路更宽，大多数是用水泥铺设的。

在印度，一旦新住宅区建起来，人们开始搬进去，随之而来的问题也出现，比如苍蝇啊蚊子啊

You can release a bicycle using a phone based application- ride it and deposit it at another location

用手机APP就能解锁一辆共享单车，骑走，然后存放到另一个地方。

Bad approach roads, poor drainage, piled up debris, stagnant water in uneven patches of land, where mosquitoes breed their invading armies, uncut grass, shrubs and vegetation, stray dogs, rats and cats, no boundary walls allowing free run to petty thieves, who steal everything they can get their hands on.

糟糕的公路，不通畅的排水设施，成堆的垃圾，坑坑洼洼地方里的积水，里面是蚊子在繁殖其入侵大军，无人打理的草坪、灌木丛，还有流浪狗和流浪猫，小区没有围墙，小偷自由出入，能偷走的都会被偷走。

Pedestrian Paths

人行道

You name the woe and it’s there, but the people have no choice after the colony is declared habitable, the dwelling units are allotted and the formality of inauguration is gone through. It takes years for the infrastructure to complete and that too after the distraught residents form Unions, after approaching the concerned authorities for getting their grievances addressed fail.

你说得出来的痛苦都存在。

然而，人们没有选择。

周边基础设施要好几年才能完工，这还是发狂的业主不停地找有关机构交涉的结果。

Roads in Gaogang

高港公路

Cross-Roads in Gaogang

高港十字路口

Last year, when PM visited Chandigarh for inauguration of the new airport, in his schedule was also included inauguration of a housing colony for Economically Weaker Section, but when he reached there, it was visible even to him that the construction was far from complete. It infuriated him. He asked a report on the matter and many skeletons fell out from the proverbial cupboard and a few scapegoats sacrificed. It's different here in China. I see hundreds of projects going on in full swings but I have never seen any politicians or administrative heads going about merrily cutting ribbons and getting photographed, standing next to the plaques extolling them. This is perhaps mainly because they don't have to go before the people with their report cards every five years for begging favors for being re-elected.

去年，印度总理前往昌迪加尔为新机场举行落成典礼。

在他的行程安排中，还有一个是为经济弱势群体修建的小区举行入住仪式。

到了后，甚至他也还看得到施工还远远没有完成。这令他感到愤怒。

他要求就此出具一份报告，结果是很多秘密曝光，一些替罪羊为此牺牲。

在中国则不一样，我看到数以百计的项目正全速推进，但是我从来没看到有哪个政客去剪彩或拍照的。

也许是他们没必要去，没必要每5年就求着人们将其选举上去。

Landscaping before..People move in

Before the people start moving in here, everything, even the landscaping is finished to the last detail. In Chandigarh the Administration has been planning to construct a flyover at the first major cross roads at the entrance to the town, a square called “Tribune Chowk”, for last one decade, because the traffic has grown manifold and the roads designed fifty years ago can't simply handle it. I think it will take at least another decade for the first bridge to come up, assuming all sanctions are in place and the money for it has been arranged and the need for such a flyover at every such crossing is urgent.

业主还没有搬进去，小区的绿化等细节都做到极致。

在昌迪加尔，当地政府规划未来10年内在入城的第一个主要十字路口建一个立交桥。因为交通流量增加了好几倍，而公路是50年前设计的，无法应付当前车流流量。

我觉得要建好至少还要另外10年。

A VIP Cavalcade in India- Pic from Internet

印度某位VIP贵宾的车队，图片来自网络

I do not see any movement of cavalcades of VIPs and cordoning of roads by a posse of policemen, putting common citizens to unnecessary inconvenience. I don’t see any large gathering of crowd with people cheering, lustily at some punch lines being delivered by charismatic orator promising to bring stars down on earth if voted to power. I don’t see cops anywhere. Except for some traffic cops on duty at certain cross-roads during rush hours of the morning and evening, I don’t see them ever, but if there’s an accident or signs of some skirmish, which itself is a rare sight, they arrive in minutes.

There are huge gardens here in this town, Let me post some pictures from the window of this new apartment where we have recently shifted.

我没有看到过任何VIP贵宾的车队，没有看到警察为此封路给老百姓造成不便。我没有看到一大群人在欢呼。

高港有大型花园，下面是从我最近入住的公寓窗户往外拍摄的一些照片。

In Chandigarh, the entrance of every small patch of land which one may reluctantly agree to call as a Park, there’s a plaque extolling who the hell inaugurated it, as if the people care to know.

在昌迪加尔，小区入口有一小块地，人们也许不愿意称其是公园。

Keeping the Spirit of Le-Carbusier alive- Traffic Jam in Chandigarh ( Picture from Internet)

But idol worship is the basic tenet of Hinduism and using it as a tool to inflate ego is the natural fall out of it and thus the demigods without ever caring to spare a thought if any virtue of the worshipped deities is there in them or not, fill their chests with pride at every opportunity.

（三泰虎注：评论待续）