URBAN BONANZA WITH UMPTEEN HASSLES
Any
modern Indian city is not an unmixed blessing. Besides being a paradise of
myriad comforts, it has its own quota of discomforts and hassles. To take on
rent or own a house in the ever-expansive Chennai metropolis is a daydream, thanks to the skyrocketing
land and construction costs. Chennai is registering a fast growth devouring
adjoining wastelands and areas which once were lakes and/or paddy fields.
It is said that once at least 30 lakes and/or water reservoirs were there around
Chennai.
With
population explosion, increase in land/house construction costs and house
rents, and every family yearning to own an independent shelter, lakes near
Chennai, once the main water source for the city and neighbouring areas, have
been converted into house-sites and sold resulting in many suburban areas and
satellite towns springing up in all directions, leaving only a few lakes that
presently cater to drinking water requirements of the big city and its
outskirts.
Expansion
continues and as a corollary, suburban population and administration face a
plethora of problems, the most important among them being ‘transport’.
Undoubtedly, keeping in pace with the ever-increasing requirements, the
suburban public transport system has grown multifold and improved significantly,
rendering distances shrinking and irrelevant; yet the transport woes of
commuters remain not fully redressed.
Unable
to bear the rents in Triplicane, one of the most congested areas near Mount
Road, considered as the heart of the city where my family lived till two decades ago, I
had to compulsorily shift to Nanganallur (16 KM away). If increased rent is a
hassle in city, transport, its cost, related hardships and time consumption and
constraints are to be grappled with if one were to have home in a suburb and
workplace in the city.
Packed
buses cover long distances and halt at many points leading to longer travel
time, irregular timings and bizarre traffic movement. At times, buses would
halt far short or forward of the bus-stops making it impossible for elders to
enter them.
Suburban
trains also have their chunk of woes. During peak hours, it would be difficult
to entrain or alight, as everybody would be jostling, suffocating and writhing
with discomfort in crowded trains. If one were to entrain midway, the ordeal and struggle would be worse. Even though suburban trains are designed for comfortable
sitting of three persons, there is an unwritten rule that a fourth can also be
accommodated.
The
impervious city travel would not even offer elbow space. Nudging one another is
common while travelling in train or bus. Even with space available inside, some
youngsters would hang around at the entrance for ‘enjoying air blowing across’,
posing a hindrance to passenger movement. Some others would show adventurism (rather
misadventure) by entraining only when the train is in motion sending
on-lookers into a tizzy. One has to ready himself/herself to alight at least a
couple of stops/stations ahead of their destination by wading through the
cursing crowd inside; lest one misses the stop/station. Using more than one
mode of transport is unavoidable. At workplaces, a day’s work would not start
without a chat among colleagues and friends about their quota of woes and
daunting and sickening experiences of that morning making people stoic
in course of time.
R.SAMPATH
This
article was published in the ‘Timeout’ column’ of THE INDIAN EXPRESS of
10.9.2009 under the same caption ‘URBAN BONANZA WITH UMPTEEN HASSLES’
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