The cast iron manhole cover has been stolen as iron fetches good price in the market. Someone has removed a stone slab from the sidewalk and placed it on the hole, or rather in the hole. (The other debris is from digging up of the street for laying electric cables.) This serves as a "warning" that there is a hole in the street surface. There are many such holes, even on streets with a lot of traffic. One of the newspapers carries photos of such holes in an attempt to shame the authorities into action and it lists the number of days since the pic has appeared in the newspaper. It seems to be working and holes are being covered. The streets here have both square and round manhole covers. Most of the square ones are made of cement concrete.
The photo inadvertently came out in sepia as I tried to figure out the "manual" mode instead of the usual "auto" on my camera.
- Can you think of two reasons why manhole covers are generally round?
- Did you know that there is a volcano called hole-in-the-ground?
- Did you know that India is the world leader in manufacturing manhole covers?
"This is the only place in the world where the pavements consist exclusively of holes with asphalt around them. And they are the most economical in the world, because holes never get out of repair." -Mark Twain
15 comments:
Shame on the "authorities"!
Re: theme days, yes, it's on the city daily photo site. Go there and sign in (if you don't, you'll see the "guest view" only, which doesn't include the blog author's forums).
So, after signing in, click "Monthly Theme Days" under "Blog Authors' Forums ONLY" then click "Announcement: HOW TO JOIN THE MONTHLY THEME" and you'll see a post that Gerald, from Hyde Daily, kindly posted a couple of days ago with step-by-step instructions.
The photo looks good in sepia.Although it is a sad topic, the color makes it look nice!
they are round maybe because the canals are also round:) but who knows?
That's really interesting! And, I think it works well in sepia!
your blog is full of knowledge! i always learn something interesting out of your posts.
This is exactly what happens here. Some holes in the road are soooo big they put a small tree in the hole to keep people from driving into them!!!
The idea of publishing photos of the holes is such a great idea - I am going to write to the paper with this idea!!!!
Hummmm manhole covers - have to admit i haven't thought about them much but now i am intrigued!!!
yeah i kind of figured it, i live in michigan USA and a month ago i saw a manhole in Detroit, which said the cool words ...."Made in India"...great feeling when you see something like that for an Indian in USA.
reminds of the famous song by Bernard Cribbens of "Hole in Ground" - there are versions of it on YouTube I think.
@jules - Thanks for your comments. Interesting to know that there are so many similarities between here and there (how the roads are dug up, how the holes in the ground are dealt with). I wonder if it is a "developing/underdeveloped country" thing or a cultural thing. Have you read "Orientalism" by Dr Edward Said? In it he quotes various people from the British colonial days who voice their views/opinions about people in Egypt and India. I was surprised to see there are so many similarities between Egypt and India... Even at that time (over 150 years ago) they comment about the way roads were built in Egypt (not about holes in the road, but rather just the fact that they are not straight). The book is much more than about roads, and Dr Said argues in it that Arabs and their culture have not been depicted properly (by the so-called European scholars). If I ever get a chance, I might quote from that book in one of my posts. It is a difficult read for me and I have not quite finished the book, but these parts jumped out at me.
@ackworth born - Thanks for letting me know about the song. I did not know about it. I will check it out.
@sachin - Interesting to know that you saw such manhole covers there.
I found a link to Cribbens - http://mandysmeanderings.blogspot.com/2007/09/hole-in-ground-by-bernard-cribbens.html
I was looking for a report on how some people in the UK are photographing holes in the road to shame councils into repairing them but instead found this news item from Edinburgh http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1536&id=544822007
Our own local council has admitted not repairing potholes as and alternative to "traffic-calming" - http://www.tamesideadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/510230_potholes_no_its_traffic_calming
@ackworth born - That is great :)
Thank you so much for giving me the link, and introducing me to this song, Sir.
Looks dangerous. I didn't think about people stealing the manhole covers for the iron.
I have seen them stolen for decorations - one I had seen, someone created a sculpture to resemble a Japanese gong with the manhole cover in the center.
~Oswegan
lol! This so reminds me of Jamaica!! :)
the manhole covers aren't stolen here though. But we do have holes in our roads that can get really deep especially when it rains. Sometimes people will actually put chairs or tree branches in the hole to warn drivers of its presence!
Our newspapers will also put pictures in the papers to shame the authorities into action.
:( there must be a comradery among Indians and Hungarians. EVERYTHING is stolen here and sold for scrap metal. When I say everything: train tracks, power lines, STATUES!!!, fences....
It is so sad that a country is spiritually bankrupt to this level. This is not financial poverty because they KNOW that it costs everyone to have to replace these things.
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