Why did the villager not cross the road?

In the village, people don’t give much value to roads. Roads are for cars and motorcycles and buses – for going long distances, like to the next town.

Within the village, everything and everyone is within a 2 km radius: short enough to walk. And who needs a road when you can get to your destination more quickly by walking across a fallow field or taking a path through someone’s coconut grove?

Short cuts are what people look for.

And if it means cutting across someone else’s patch of land, nodding a greeting at the owner of the house or stopping to chat, so what? Everyone does it. And nobody even thinks of minding, least of all the owner. The only thing to watch out for are the dogs, who know a trespasser when they see one even if their masters don’t.

Boundaries, in any case, are often rather fluid. Sometimes you can’t even tell where someone’s property begins because there is nothing to mark it: no boundary wall, not even a bamboo and hedgerow fencing. Where they do exist, their purpose is more to keep out cows than human beings.

This is particularly true of homes near the sea, where you can simply walk past little cottages nestling among coconut trees to get to the beach at any point.

Those who want to go some place that’s close to the sea use the long stretch of sand. After crossing the beach, they’ll clamber over the rocky promontory that separates one beach from another, wade through some seawater if the tide is coming in, walk some more on another beach, clamber over yet more rocks and voila! – they’ve reached their destination without once seeing a road.

But because villagers don’t see roads as a way to get somewhere, their road sense is zero. On a crowded market day, as far as villagers are concerned, the road is a place for socialising. Where else can you bump into so many people you know? And if you’re passing through on a scooter, or even driving a bus, and you meet one such person, what else can you do but stop bang in the middle of the crowded road and engage in a long conversation, oblivious of the city-bred car driver behind you, honking away in utter and senseless rage?