"Interesting sculpture," said a friend a year ago, as we drove past the Gokhale Bridge in Andheri, pointing to the long cement arm reaching out dramatically into thin air, seven feet above the road, like some Olympian gymnast frozen mid-vault.

"That's no sculpture," I muttered. "That's a bridge."

"A bridge to where?" he asked innocently.

And I had no answer.

Because this bridge, a year ago—like far too many policies and projects in our beloved nation—seemed to have been suspended more in imagination than intention.

But here's the best part: after spending hundreds of crores building it, someone discovered that the road it was meant to connect to was too low. Yes, the bridge was too high. Solution? Another few hundred crores to lower it.

Another year stuck in traffic.

Then comes the Charni Road footbridge. Built boldly across the railway tracks, it stands tall, proud... and utterly useless. Why? Nobody thought to include stairs—not on one side, not on either. It just floats up there—like some celestial overpass—perfect for angels, useless for pedestrians.

And how can we forget the legendary Bandra Terminus bridge? Ah yes—the bridge that exists only in press releases, PowerPoint presentations, and politicians' promises. A noble attempt, on paper, to connect the bustling terminus with the actual Bandra station. Every year, someone announces, "It's coming soon!" and every year, it stays snugly in the file marked "Pending Approval."

These aren't just concrete calamities—they're policies in stone. Colossal money spent. Crores poured into blueprints, bulldozers, and bureaucratic balderdash. And what do we get? Bridges with no purpose. Plans with no end. Cement poured into the abyss of poor planning and poorer accountability.

Do these structures not mirror our national approach?

We pretend to build grand "bridges" between economic classes—only to watch billionaires soar while the poor stare up at the staircase-less structure from the slums below.

We think we are launching diplomatic bridges with nations, only to watch them collapse as they supply arms and ammunition to an enemy country.
We swear by the Constitution, which promises freedom of speech, then muzzle journalists and newspapers and put citizens in jail, by calling them anti-nationals and 'urban Naxalites'- whatever that means.

All proving blatantly to the world that since our policy bridges are everything like our real ones—unfinished, floating, or non-existent—we're not going anywhere. Except, perhaps, in circles. On a detour. In traffic.

So next time you drive past the Gokhale bridge in Mumbai, which has now been completed after the mess and crores of public money spent, or gaze at the stairless wonder at Charni Road, give a little nod. They are not just failed infrastructure. They are sculptures of our national planning ethos—which is—build or gather votes without bothering about where we are headed!