On the N5

We were driving down the main highway through Orissa (which connects to Kolkata in the north and Chennai in the South) late one evening recently. Rounding a corner we came across the mother of all jams. More than two thousand trucks (and I'm not exaggerating) were lined up on the road - and judging by the card games underway between drivers they'd been there a while! We cheekily drove on the wrong side of the road for about 2km passing truck after truck - nothing coming the other way. In a small village we asked why the trucks were all stopped. A policeman told us a child had been hit by a truck that afternoon while walking home from school. The villagers, enraged, had blocked all traffic on the highway. They were unwilling to move until the District Collector (sort of a chief town bureaucrat) came down to negotiate compensation. It seemed the going price for a child's road death was Rs20,000. But the Collector was busy, and no subordinates were authorised to approve such an expenditure (about AUD600) so the trucks stood still, their loads sweltering in the heat. Eventually when the Collector rocked up, a compromise was agreed - Rs10,000 and a promise that the Government would erect speedhumps on the highway through the village. Leaving we passed another thousand trucks backed up in the other direction. All sat there patiently, filling the 5 hours of boredom with comradery and endless stares down the line of trucks.