FRAMEWORK FOR DESTINY

In an unforgiving world filled with unpredictable variables, infrastructure gives us a foundation to build our dreams upon.

- PANCHAM BHARDWAJ

Humans have always been an anomaly in nature. We aren’t the fastest species around or the strongest; we don’t even possess nearly half the defensive and offensive capabilities that other predators on this planet have evolved over the centuries. Yet somehow, we have found our way to the top of the food chain, influencing every ecosystem to the point that our mere whims and tantrums can wipe our entire species in a blink of an eye. When we start peeling back the layers of history, we realise that much of this hasn’t got anything to do with our physical capabilities, but rather how we transform the world around us to create complex physical structures that our future generations can build upon. The word infrastructure itself translates to nothing more than the underlying structure that a system is based upon. It started with the construction of the earliest forts and castles that were used as secured storage depots for both goods and defensive forces, by kings and feudal lords alike. Over time, long drawn out wars and seemingly unending sieges exposed the flaws of an isolated system and highlighted the importance of reliable supply chains. This gave birth to a new era of terraforming, which was kicked off by the Ancient Greeks as far back as the 6th century BC. They used paved trackways to transport boats on wheeled vehicles that were pulled by men and animals. These tracks were made of limestone, and had grooves in them to keep the wagons literally on track. These were the first prototypes of roads and railways that would help establish their society as a dominant force in their region and beyond, a system that would be later used by the Romans as well to much success.