Living in a construction zone

I live in one of the 'upcoming' layouts in Bangalore. It is coming 'up' really fast, considering all the apartments coming up all around my house. Within 100 metre radius of my house, there are at least 100 new houses coming up! Living in a completed house with so many under-construction houses all around is very unique experience. I have lived here for almost 2 years now and it has not been easy!

Coming to think of it, this area has been like this ever since we came here. First, it was the telephone guys digging up the road to lay the underground cable. Then the electricity guys decided to lay underground cable. Then came the Kaveri water folks (no, we don't have water flowing in our pipes yet, but we have pipes ready so that rodents get a breeding place.) Then came the asphalting folks. After this, many people started constructing houses.

Beginning phase of every new house has been very painful to us. First, they drill a bore-well (there is no water supply yet!). This involves a couple of huge trucks entering the area and making enough noise to drive away all wildlife from Bannerghatta national park, very late into the night. The next phase is digging for foundation. They dig carefully place all the mud on the road so that it causes maximum inconvinience to people using the road. This phase lasts 1-2 months and is the most dusty one. After this, a lot of sand, cement, bricks and metal come in, all of which is carefully laid out on ... you guessed it... the road! I guess they consider any land outside the road to be impure, not to be used for dumping construction materials. After a few months of dusty development, the house is almost ready and the road is almost completely destroyed! Any construction waste is left behind exactly where it was, without anyone bothering to clean up after the act. As a final punch, they conduct a 'Grihapravesha', the day when they block the road completely with a shamiana. Meanwhile, my house has lost it's original color, I hardly remember what it was. It is now covered in a fine layer of dust.

The other nuisance of living in a construction zone is the construction labour. These are floating population, typically families of a husband, wife and 4-5 children. Children, instead of going to school, specialize in throwing stones at electric lights. Husband and wife together earn around 200Rs per day, which should amount to around 6000 per month, which is not very bad considering their spending is so less. But alas! most of this money gets spent on liquor, so it is common to see the whole family engaing in a high-pitched, foul-mouthed quarrel at 10 in the night.

I have to suffer this for at least another 1 year. Hopefully things will get better after that.