Dasara is just around the corner and Mysore is nicely dug up all over. Especially in all the right places which are most importantly connected with our most important annual event.

The grand “Raja Marga”, some modern day maharaja's grandiose dream, which I called “the mother of all money spinners” in my column last year, lies in shambles as if after a modern day Kurukshetra. Yes, a battlefield is what some parts of our city resemble most now with misguided attempts to beautify it.

With loads of rubble all over and closed to traffic for more than eight months, the once broad and majestic Albert Victor road, close to the point from where the Dasara procession starts, silently speaks of how there is always a gulf of difference between what the government says and what it does with no one to question its actions.

At Bannimantap, the other end of the procession route, the story is no different. You will find loads of rubble again with all the covering slabs of the hastily dug and completely unnecessary storm water drains, lying helter - skelter for almost a year now. Just a tiny stretch of the very ornamental granite barricade that is supposed to contain the jostling crowds on D - day, stands delicately balanced to give us all an idea of how the place is supposed to look if and when its makeover is completed.

Let alone with a little, even with an overdose of imagination, I am not able to see in my mind's eye the final appearance of our city after all the pieces of the great Raja Marga jig - saw puzzle manage to find their final resting places.

The bridal make - up of the procession route that was started more than a year – and - half ago without as much as a public debate or discussion, is proceeding at a pace slower than that of the proverbial snail although no one is able to tell us why it is so, let alone telling us after how many Dasaras it will finally be completed.

Here I am reminded of Aesop's fairy tale where work on the project which started off in great haste like the hare, has fallen asleep enroute while it is slowly but steadily being overtaken by its rival, the tortoise of escalating costs.

It is difficult to understand how our district administration, which is so totally unmindful of the slow progress of this work, proposes to celebrate this year's Dasara and from where it is going to get a big enough carpet under which it can hastily sweep and hide all the rubble that lies strewn around.

Added to this already existing mess, we are now told that exclusive bicycle tracks will be laid in the city and made ready for use in time for this year's Dasara. This only means that we Mysoreans will now have to brace ourselves up and be prepared to face some more road digging and some more prolonged road closures.

Encouraging more people to take up cycling is no doubt good, both for their own health and for the health of the city and the environment too but has anyone in the administration wondered from where they are going to bring the cyclists who are going to use the elaborately and painstakingly laid tracks which will certainly send the rest of the traffic into a tizzy as we shall all see if this scheme sees the light of day?

Beyond the few intrepid and adventurous foreign tourists who may prefer to pedal and see our sights instead of footing it as they now do, I do not think any native Mysoreans or Indian tourists are going to shun their motorised modes of transport and move their feet up and down atop a humble bicycle to go from place to place.

People in power may laugh at my pessimism but I am confident that time will prove me right. If the government has any hopes of seeing good old Mysoreans too peddling away to their destinations on the lesser Raja Margas it proposes to make exclusively for cyclists, it would do well to hold a public debate and find out whether the facility will find any takers before it burns its fingers and our money on the scheme.

Instead of wasting money and time on fairy tale projects and trying to achieve the impossible, it will be better if we concentrate on doing something useful and practicable like completing the unfinished portion of our Ring Road to ease the growing traffic problems.

And, while they get down to doing this little bit of good for us, let the powers – that - be do something to keep the existing stretch of our Ring Road in a safe and motorable condition especially along the stretches where the lane doubling work is now going on, again at a woefully miserable pace.

Avoiding an early Burnout:
That we are all living in an age of excessive stress is a fact that is now undisputed. Each one of us, irrespective of how we try to sidestep it is somehow or the other forced to confront stressful situations as we go along or lives. And sometimes excessive stress can even end the very life that we try to improve by excessive slogging.

The sudden and very premature deaths, in just one month, of two very young medical representatives who used to see me regularly, seems like the perfect example of what can happen when life is allowed to become excessively stressful.

When their emotionally shattered colleagues brought me the news of their untimely deaths in quick succession, I could not believe or understand how the lives of such cheerful, healthy and active youngsters could get snuffed out for no apparent reason at all. I had to attribute both the deaths to a fatal overdose of stress which is quite common in their profession where there is always a race between deadlines that are close and sales targets that are always far.

While both of them were cheerful boys with no bad habits, one of them was not only a fitness freak and regular gymmer but was also guiding others as a fitness trainer. Yet, perhaps in the guise of cruel fate, unrestrained stress took its toll.

Although stress is an unavoidable part of our modern day lifestyle and although a modest dose of it is good to spur us towards our goals, it should not be allowed to mar our health and consequently our life itself. Stress, although all pervasive now, can still be made an avoidable hazard if we do not set unrealistic goals for ourselves. That is the lesson to be learnt from these two deaths.