Give us a good football ground please

 

Tiffin at Sukha Niwas in Luz. 

And I was on my way to the release of ‘Lockdown Journal Chennai’, the unique book of stories, essays and notes written by Chennaites during the recent pandemic years. The hawker stalls on the pavement are the poor man’s lifestyle shopping destination. Fascinating.

It is here that I spotted two youths, locking a cycle. At the head of the street that leads to Pallakumanyam Nagar, a sprawling colony developed decades ago by the TN Slum Clearance Board. The boys wore the Chennai School uniform. And at 6 p.m., I was wondering what they were doing in this place. They had come to shop for footwear.

We conversed. 

They were 10th Std. students at the school in Alwarpet and the special classes to prepare for the public exam had just got over.  We conversed freely. Since I knew a bit about the school and the teachers there, the leads for the chat flowed nicely.

Do you guys play in school? I asked. 

They said a majority of their classmates played football, that the school had only a worn-out basketball court and a volleyball court. They told me the PT master was a bored man. And that they and their friends played as a football team at the Chennai Corporation playground on St. Mary’s Road.

Who decides how the city’s civic body must plan and execute ‘extra’ facilities for a school, or for your Ward, or for your colony? Rarely the people for whom it is meant for.

Later that evening, after the release of ‘Lockdown Journal Chennai’ at the vintage Ranade Library in Luz, I spotted this social media post on the page of Greater Chennai Corporation.  

It was a post on a modern, multipurpose ground laid for a Chennai School in MGR Nagar. Students can play volleyball, basketball or kabbadi here. And I thought to myself - have GCC officials chatted with students of the Alwarpet school, sought their ideas and planned sports facilities they want today?

Our newspaper has covered the city’s civic body down-top.

 That is, reported on Ward and Zone level conversations, plans and projects. This is the broad style of how things work - councillors meet and present their local issues at the zonal level: then officers weave in key projects that GCC Headquarters wants implemented now, and they nod for minor pleas that keep councillors half-pleased.

Grassroot democracy has been stilted in our city. 

A Ward has ten sabhas. Each sabha must chose a member, preferably a representative of the area. This process has been cannibalised in Wards where politicians have a say: civic-minded people are sidelined. When are we going to have area meetings to discuss local issues?

How will our councillor get to know that his / her area needs a football field for its youths and not flower beds under the flyover this summer? 

How will GCC officials be told that a recently-relaid playground that minister Udayanidhi Stalin inaugurated is a half-baked, hurried job?

<< The photo featured here is of  girls who are coached privately on a ground by the Marina, owned by TN Housing Board.

Grassroot Community News. Examples in North Chennai.

               

I headed to a North Madras neighbourhood this week. M. R. Nagar was my                destination.

So we got to Basin Bridge, went past Vyasarpadi, where I was tempted to drop into the legendary campuses run by the Salesian priests, and got into Kavignar Kannadasan Nagar. Beyond is M. R. Nagar. These nagars sit in the Kodungaiyur zone which is known for the massive waste dump yard which had polluted this part of the city for ages.

The neatly laid-out colonies in M. R. Nagar impressed me. I have not studied the plans and growth of these colonies that have done well the past three decades but I may have the opportunity to know how one Reddiar came to own such vast tracts of land, how they got plotted and how people made good of their lives here.

My guide that afternoon was veteran journalist R. Rajagopal, a man I have known possibly from the years when he was the Ramnad district correspondent for a national newspaper and whom I bumped into regularly while covering, in the late 1980s, the Sri Lankan refugees influx into Tamil Nadu and later, militancy .

While going around M. R. Nagar, I noticed these community notice boards at the head of a few streets. One carried wishes for Women’s Day. RR told me that local volunteers took turns to post utility as well as social messages on these boards.

In this age of WhatsApp and SnapChat, these simple boards also play a role in social, local communication.

Now, let us toss this thought - how can public service as well as civic communication get amplified well in our neighbourhoods. 

How can our voices be heard and respected at the proper levels?

Let us put aside our stream of plaints on potholed streets and aggressive cattle. Many people have simple, timely and practical ideas to suggest - to make life better. And they would like officials and politicians to consider them.

Today, two issues related to Sri Kapali Temple’s Panguni utsavam popped up. One; how can smarter regulations for vehicle movement be planned and enforced at utsavam time so people immerse the festival on all days? Can the regulations be publicised early?

Two: how do we ensure that food/snacks donated freely to devotees, at pandals and doorsteps on the mada streets on Arubathumoovar procession day is not wasted or flung across the streets? How best to streamline this practice?

If practical ideas are shared and impressed on officials, some good can come out of community action. My friend, Sanjay Pinto has amplified the traffic regulation suggestions from people, by tagging senior city police officers.

If we want local issues to be heard and bring good, there are a few smarter ways to highlight and push them. We must be at this. Sincerely.

'Me and My' Space in Restaurants. You have a Favourite?

           

           How do you like your chutneys? 

Pungent? Spicy? Bland? Coconut-y?!

I am at this restaurant at Hotel Maris. I order for a plain dosa. I am served three chutneys with the dosa. The red chutney tastes different and I know it has not been a common serving at this place. 

The steward tells me it is onion and red chillies ground with some garlic and tamarind. I polish it off and ask for a little more. It is served.

You don’t serve it often, I query the steward.

Depends on the cook’s plans, he tells me.

This restaurant, in recent times, become my go-to place when I need a snack in the evening or suggest a meet-up with a friend.

On most evenings, the space is free and you get a table of your choice and you can make this space your own.

The stewards who known you as a regular will not bug you.

I prefer some such spaces where you can, not only snack on some good food but also have time for yourself or meet a friend in the quiet.

We lost such space on the Marina; I was getting used to it.

The cafe below the lawns close to the Gandhi statue. There were two cafes, and the one which offered good coffee and sundal and vadai was my go-to place. 

You could order, take a table and watch the life on the Marina go by as the sun sank in the west. They are no more. The massive work on Chennai Metro led to the demolition of all these spots.

I am sure you too have a place you want to go to when you need some time for yourself. Perhaps just do nothing for 20 minutes while you sip a hot cup of coffee or enjoy bajji!

Yes, there are many new-age cafes that let you be to yourself or gang up with friends. But have you found comfortable spaces even among the restaurants that are often abuzz with diners?

In our neighbourhoods, it is good to have these spaces where you enjoy some ‘me’ time the way you want to. There are times when a home does not create such zones. There are places which do not allow people to linger.

Parks, playgrounds, places of prayer; perhaps these are places you go to and find some comfort. If you also have cafes on your list, that must be fun.