Even during the busiest hours of the day, there are some sparsely populated parts in every city. At times it seems like those places have been evacuated by force. I am talking not about a modern waste land but footpaths, rather some specific parts of the footpaths. India is still a country of pedestrians. So, the vacant footpaths are not something to be taken lightly.

In spite of the heavily crowded roads, the footpaths remain untrodden. This is not because of any curfew or ban. This occurs mostly due to the fact that while the ‘use and pay’ lavatories provided in various parts remain closed to the benefit of spiders, rats and reptiles, footpaths have gone a long way, evolving into urinals. These footpaths remain damp and stinking, leaving the pedestrians no other option than taking to the roads. The converting of roads into footpaths has got its own problems – accidents and traffic block, to name a few.

The footpaths near the major bus stations, railway stations, theatres, etc are usually the designated urinals in almost any city in India. These, the footpaths turned urinals, invite spitting by the passers by, thereby putting the region permanently out of bounds for pedestrians.

Dusk fall highlights the innate attraction of anti-social elements towards this detesting odour. It seems like these areas have been demarcated by them, as it happens in some species of animals that demarcate their territory by urinating around the region. Such regions have been granted by the common public for such purposes.

To make matters worse, the remaining space is occupied by cobblers and vendors of cheap goods. If any space remains, it is occupied by various groups registering their protests against, God knows what. Again there is this group of product demonstrators, who haunt the footpaths.

In short, the idea of footpaths as a utility to be used by pedestrians is fading into oblivion. Thus the evolution of the saga of vanishing footpaths.

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