Whose wall space is it?

The city is decked out in colours, mostly of the red and black kind with a few minor variations. With General Elections around the corner, every political party is out to make its presence felt. Every wall in the city features political messages. These do not convey anything about achievements. There are lines and lines of encomiums heaped on leaders and then several lines of names of local functionaries who have sponsored the wall painting. It is the considered opinion of The Man from Madras Musings that the name of the poor soul who owns the compound wall ought to be added and a word of thanks to him/her should also be included. For, after all, has he/she not gone through the expense of building a compound wall solely for the enjoyment of the parties and their local functionaries? And when the property owner has the honour of bearing the leader’s name on his or her compound wall, should that not be reward enough? But no! How terribly unreasonable are these property owners that they should want to complain and even quote the law according to which permission ought to be taken from them before painting their walls? And do the parties not send four or five very respectful men of menacing aspect to ascertain if the owner has any objection? He/she had better not is the general message conveyed. Most house owners prefer discretion to valour and suffer in silence.

Not a friend of MMM. He is of the kind that protests, and protest he did when he found that his compound wall was daubed in colours, announcing the soon-to-be-observed birthday of a leader. He caught the party workers and the sign painters in the act and questioned their right to disfigure his compound wall. The spokesman of the group was most apologetic and requested that the house ownerallow the graffiti to remain for a month by which time the birthday would be over and he, the spokesman, would return and repaint the wall (not with another political message) at his (the spokesman’s) own expense. MMM’s friend would not listen and matters remained deadlocked till a police car drove up and an officer very smartly stepped out and ascertained the problem in a flash. Having obtained the spokesman’s name, address and phone number, he told him that he wanted the graffiti blanked out by next morning or else…

The next morning, a group of thugs arrived at the house. They were led by a ‘student’ leader whose sole education appeared to be in foul language, most of which the household could not, fortunately, understand. But the rest of the message was clear. If MMM’s friendinsisted on their blanking out the graffiti, said the leader, the party would be glad to do so, but the occupants had better watch out. Secondly, while they could claim absolute rights of ownership over the compound wall, they could not do anything about what was done just outside of it. And they proposed to put up huge vinyl signs blocking the frontage of the house and also position a few high decibel loudspeakers all facing the residence. The battle was over with that.

Elders in the family advised silence being the better part of valour, so there the matter ended. The smart police officer whose beatroad falls on must have noticed the graffiti remaining as it was and must have turned a blind eye to it. And as for the victim, his nerves still vibrate each time he thinks of what happened. Whenever he steps out of his house, he is literally hit in the eye by the graffiti. But there is very little that can be done about it. Ironically, all this happened on Republic Day! But as far as the house owner was concerned, he as a citizen had lost his right to be protected.

And, a few days later came the second twist in the story. The party supremo announced that there would be no birthday celebrations! So to what purpose was all this?

Relief in parks

The State Government has done an excellent job in restoring the city’s major parks and adding new ones. As a writer on environment put it, this is one of the success stories of the administration. But after spending large amounts on beautification, it is rather short-sighted of the powers that be that nobody thought of providing toilets inside parks. As a consequence, you find that the bushes that don’t screen amorous couples invariably conceal men relieving themselves.

While the organic brigade may nod its head sagely and state that all this is to the good, The Man from Madras Musings would much prefer the parks to be clear of human refuse.

The float festival

The Kapaleeswarar Temple tank, which has remained full of water these past few years, witnessed the float festival a few weeks ago. To The Man from Madras Musings, the float festival always brings back happy memories of the time when he as a kid clutched his grandmother’s hand, stood in the queue, then boarded the float which would go around the tank and come back to the steps where those on board got off and let others get on to the float. The joy of the festival lay in public participation when crowds travelled with the deity on the float.

But times have changed and, citing reasons of safety, the float was declared off limits to the public this year. People were allowed to stand on the steps and admire the float, but were not allowed on it. To MMM it somehow robbed the festival of its usual gaiety. MMM hopes that wiser counsel would prevail next year and he and others will be allowed to tread the water with the Gods.

Night service

There was a time when certain services were meant to be only in the night. No, The Man from Madras Musings is not talking about THOSE kinds of services (let’s keep MM clean) but of matters like garbage disposal and road-laying and repair. These, however, have all become daytime activities now.

For the past few weeks, MMM has noticed arterial roads being blocked at peak traffic time by huge garbage disposal vehicles which move at a leisurely pace. They stop at all odd spots and then two men get down, rake the garbage that lies close to the bins (we in Chennai never throw our garbage into bins, rather, like a game of darts, we aim for the bin, but anywhere close to the bin is also acceptable), place it in the bin and then heave the bin on to a mechanical device which, with much noise, hoists the bin upto a cavernous jaw-like structure into which the garbage falls. The jaw then champs away with evident relish, taking care not to mangle the bin as well (O the joys of modern technology). Having had its fill, it returns the bin, which the men then heave off and place on the road side before waving the vehicle ahead. All this while the traffic behind waits, not so patiently. This is the time to give the rich Madras bhashai an airing and expletives are exchanged much to everyone’s delight.

As for road laying, the less said the better. MMM who suffers from foot-in-mouth disease made bold to ask a supervisor who was loitering aimlessly even as a few men relaxed in a shallow pit as to why these jobs could not be taken up at night. “Because sleeping at night is not the privilege of you upper classes alone,” came the answer. Obviously the supervisor has not heard of call centres.

- MMM