‘Corrupt politicians have hollowed out the country’: Canadian in Bengaluru highlights poor state of footpaths in viral post

In a new video shared on X, Friesen is seen struggling to push a stroller along a broken, cluttered sidewalk, a scene all too familiar to city dwellers.

Canadian man calls out Bengaluru footpath

The post struck a chord instantly, with people flooding the comments to share their own frustations

Caleb Friesen, a Canadian who has called India home for nearly eight years, has once again hit a nerve online with his latest take on Bengaluru’s civic woes. Famous for his witty yet sharp observations about everyday urban chaos, Friesen has now turned his attention to something most people have learned to ignore — India’s footpaths.

In a new video shared on X, Friesen is seen struggling to push a stroller along a broken, cluttered sidewalk, a scene all too familiar to city dwellers. He captioned it with a tongue-in-cheek list titled “What India footpaths are for in descending order of importance.” Topping his list were “power junction boxes, electrical poles, hoardings, food stalls, Darshini overflow, parked vehicles, trees, and potted plants” – with pedestrians only managing to come in at number nine, just ahead of “parents with strollers or differently-abled in wheelchairs.”

The post struck a chord instantly, with people flooding the comments to share their own frustrating – and sometimes funny – stories about trying to walk on Indian footpaths that seem to serve every purpose but walking.

Check out the post:

What Indian footpaths are for in descending order of importance:

1. Power junction boxes
2. Electrical poles
3. Hoardings
4. Food stalls
5. Darshini overflow
6. Parked vehicles
7. Trees
8. Potted plants
9. Pedestrians
10. Parents with strollers/differently-abled in wheelchairs pic.twitter.com/tslou4WmKq

— Caleb (@caleb_friesen2) October 16, 2025

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A user wrote, “I think the bus stop or auto pickup point would be somewhere above 8,” to which Friesen replied, “Forgot about this! So true.”

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Another user commented, “It’s brave of you to do this experiment, last week in Pune, my father tried to roll the suitcase on the footpath, and he slipped as the suitcase got stuck on a pothole in the footpath. Indian footpath dont even provide a seamless 100m path, tier 1 cities have become a monumental waste.”

A third person commented, “It is impossible for people to use strollers for infants / toddlers and impossible for differently abled individuals to live a dignified life in India. Buildings aren’t wheelchair compatible, neither are buses or trains.”

A fourth individual wrote, “The fourth-largest economy cannot offer the simplest pleasure of taking your child for a walk.”

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