Tombstones for my city

If you make tombstones, I have a few orders for you.
And if my 'quickie' business goes on well, you may get regular orders.
No, I am not getting into the business of chasing ambulances.
Or doing the rounds of homes for the aged.
I am trying to put together a team which will scour the neighbourhoods for civic projects left unfinished, left in disuse, left to become private properties, left to be hijacked by others.
I have not been employed by the Mayor, M. Subramaniam.
We will let him give out masks and pumps to the 'Mosquito Musketeers' and draw up plans for exclusive gyms for women, for now.
But I am told Mayor Subramaniam is a hands-on, get-on-with-job sort of person. And he really likes this city and its neighbourhoods to develop.
That is why he may want to sign me up, at least on a short contract.
I came up with this idea of leaving tombstones on civic projects because there are lots of them that deserve a decent obituary.
I am yet to understand how a city's Corporation works. And how it does with its elected councillors.
Now that I, like a few others, am seriously looking at a beach 'beautification' project for which Rs.25 plus crores has been allocated, I think the tombstone order must be signed now.
We did not get a hint of this project. A private architecture college submits a grand plan. Corporation officials begin to work on that plan that makes a Disneyland of the beach. Build, build, and build. That is what the plan is all about. Some noisy objections get noticed. And the civic body says it is willing to interact with the community because a group is engaging the Corporation strongly.
Look around you. A playground gets a stage; then it gets a lawn. Then playthings for kids come up. And the stage becomes a toilet for vagabonds.
One year, all the councillors voted for cement bus stops. The next year they voted for gyms in playgrounds.
Start counting the facilities in disuse and you will know why the tombstones order will rise.
Three questions - does a community want to consult and discuss facilities for the neighbourhood? Does a city Corporation have an agenda to talk to communities and then plan facilities? And when a facility is set up, does the community take ownership of it?

Istri wallahs and rickshaw wallahs; be with us!

Have you discovered little joys locked in the pockets of your trousers after they have been pulled out of the washing machine?
I have.
Train tickets I should have carefully filed for my cautious auditor.
Phone numbers of new contacts scribbled on bits of waste paper.
Visiting cards of people I had met at press conferences.
But the most colourful bit - tickets my photographer and I had bought for what was the last trip the suburban electric train was to make from Madras Beach to Tambaram on the vintage metre gauge section.
Often, I haven't come to grief for my forgetfulness.
For, it is my 'ironing man' Bhaskar, who ferrets these bits from the depths, folds them out nicely and jabs them down with the 'istri'.
Istri-wallahs have a fund of tales about neighbours and the neighbourhood. After all, they handle the most vital essentials of us all. Our clothes. Bhaskar knows that the size of my trousers is increasing for the obvious reason.
And he also knows my weakness for T-shirts.
In our changing life styles, these men and women, like our maids, drivers, plumbers, watchmen, electricians and carpenters, have become an integral part of our lives.
And I got to know them a little better at a function held this past week on a campus on the banks of the Adyar.
Rotary has launched into yet another new project. To provide newly- designed ironing carts to the first set of 'ironing' families.
A young engineer had created a simple design for these carts – a light material sheet that cuts off the sun from above and from the side, fixed to simple supports on a wide platform on four wheels.
Akbar from Moolakadai was a proud owner of a new cart valued at about fifteen thousand rupees, and a free iron-box to go with the facility.
Now, he told me, he could accommodate more clothes and perhaps turn them over faster. From 100 pieces to about 150 pieces.
It wouldn't be easy though, he added. After all, he would still have to compete with two other istri-wallahs on the main road of a colony dominated by Christians.
Rotary should next turn to another community, which really has few cares in the world!
Our cyclerickshaw wallahs.
In Mylapore, they are still large in number and well patronised.
Their machines though need a bright new look.
And Rotary should consider them because they are enviro-friendly and they are great rides.

Why beautify Bessie Beach?

A week ago, there was a little party on Elliots Beach.
There wasn’t any chilled beer, nor were there fizzy drinks. But there was a lot of food.
As the fireworks lit up the southern sky as part of the finale of ‘Chennai Sangamam’ arts festival hosted in the city, the party got better and went into the night.
Gathered on the sands off the Cozee restaurant point, were eight young men who once used to spend every other evening on these sands. Through school and through college, they had shared their highs and lows on these sands. They had even shared stories of their romances and dalliances on this beach.
And then, over a span of a few months, they had broken up. To go to different corners of the country and of the world where their jobs took them. But they did not forget Elliots Beach. And they came back to it last week. To celebrate the old times.
Bessie Beach has been a part of the lives of thousands and hundreds of people of this city. And now the Chennai Corporation has yet another plan to ‘beautify’ this urban heritage expanse.
But as it always happens, the City Fathers conveniently forget the men and women who make the beach a part of their lives.
During the course of 2007, something like thirty crores of rupees will be spent on a project to beautify the Marina, from the Port Trust end in the north to the Thiruvanmiyur coast in the south.
A few fancy drawings and projects have been drawn up. Till the other day, these plans were shown to a few people who work in the community. But when people who are keen about their neighbourhood and their environment and want to play a role in civic affairs, pressed for information, the officers at the local level clamped up.
Dozens of phone calls later, the project was traced to the senior officers who are actually in charge of it. And they are now willing to sit on forums where the community and the stake holders can discuss the plans and have a say in them.
Typically, the plans include fancy ideas - gushing fountains, tiled paths, colourful sun-shades, extensive landscaping, tropical avenue trees, swank washrooms and smart cabins for hawkers on the sands.
Ask the neighbourhood’s beach-comber what he or she wants and he or she says - clean sands, clean shoreline and unpolluted water. Nothing more. Nothing else. There are other issues to address when we start looking at an environment like the beach.
But why aren’t City Fathers and the officials chatting with the young people, the beach walkers, the hawkers and the kuppam residents on what is best for all of us?
How about creating forums where such public issues can be discussed and inputs from professionals from the community accommodated?
A small group asked for the discussion on the plans for the beach. And the present Corporation Commissioner has been willing to participate.
All those who love Marina and Bessie Beaches need to get involved.