CONSTRUCTION

India seems perpetually under construction. Everything is torn up, scaffolded, gutted, unfinished. Hulking cement frames of buildings seem abandoned. Are they going up or coming down? And it all seems done by hand. A freeway wall is being painted so men squat with stick brooms brushing away the caked dirt while others with small pails and brushes dab on the paint. A ditch is being dug along a major road and husbands and wives dig with small spades or even sticks while their children play in the nearby piles. A major bridge is being built across a river that divides two cities, a river wider than New York's East River, and I cannot see a single machine or generator or person in uniform. I see a man carrying a single length of rebar. Another stacking bricks. One entire massive unfinished section of concrete seems to be supported (I pass this bridge 4 times and I look very closely) on a stack of wooden three-by-fours. Who is in charge? Who are these laborers? Why is such an important bridge being built in such a casual fashion? Once again, how does it work?