Ambroise Tézenas

National Highway 66 runs north-south from Mumbai to Kanyakumari

India has the second largest road network in the world after the united States, with a frequency of traffic collisions amongst the highest in the world. Since Independence, India has not invested or maintained its infrastructure, while its population expanded to a point of soon becoming the most populated country in the world. I recently traveled from Mumbai to Goa by road and realized that the NH 17 mentionned on my old map is now called NH66.
How funny I thought to find myself on a road 66 but on the wrong continent.

The Indian government finally recently launched a major country wide overhaul efforts to modernize the country's road network, also including the NH66.
In 1947 the total length of India’s national highway was 21,378 kilometers and is now 70,934 kilometers which by 2021 will become one hundred kilometers . All this expension does not come without creating trouble between old traditional ways being replaced by a new modern india.

The Indian road 66 project is a metaphor to tell the unfolding story of the old India continent transforming itself.

The photographs have been taken  in 2006 in Mumbai and in 2016 thanks to the "Voyage Ordinaire" photographic project / association L'Art à l'Ouest
(The Indian road 66 project is in progress)