Boycott call

Hide seek is a game which children play and enjoy to the hilt. Parents too enjoy watching their wards play the game.

While this game is popular among the children, however, it does not enthuse the grown-ups or adults. The reasons are not far to seek. But in Encroachment Nagar, that is T' Nagar, hide and seek game is very popular and played a number of times a day. The venue is the service lanes on both sides of Usman Road. The main players are the police and the hawkers.

One may ask as to why does it get played at this venue? Well, though the service lanes are meant for the exclusive use of pedestrians and two/four wheelers, because of the encroachment of the lanes by the hawkers selling various kinds of goods, one does not find space even to walk. The game starts as soon as the hawkers sight a police patrol van or policemen. The hawkers run helter-skelter, carrying with them their wares so as to avoid seizure of the goods by the police and get into the side streets. They quickly come back once the policemen disappear from there. The customers who are new to this 'game' often wonder what the game is all about. Those who are used to this hide and seek game stay put, enjoy and wait for the hawker to return and complete the purchase. This gets played as many times as the police would want to in a day. One has to really witness to know the full import of the game.

Jokes apart, we blame the civic body and the police for encroachment by the hawkers/vendors, little realising that it is we who encourage such encroachments. The hawkers flourish because we buy things from them. If we do not patronise them, the hawkers have no other choice but to vacate the place. Knowing very well that we get substandard items, we still go to hawkers and get cheated. We blame the authorities for encroachments. The hide and seek game being played by the hawkers and police and the encroachments will come to an end if only we decide to boycott the encroaching hawkers.

V.S. Jayaraman
31, Motilal Street
T Nagar, Chennai 600 017

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A reader, reacting to Sriram V's Walk in Trichy (MM, January 16th), sends us this picture (above) of Clive Hostel before today's urban sprawl took over. He also writes, "My other enclosure too is sure to interest you. It is of Khalsa Mahal (on left) and the main entrance to Humayun Mahal (on right) at Chepauk Palace when the bureaucrats left work early to play tennis in its grounds."

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Readability please

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