If you can paint or draw, are artistically inclined and would enjoy the idea of adding colour to a few walls in the public spaces in our city, you may want to consider applying for a community project that Max Mueller Bhavan is floating in our city in January 2015.

There are people who enjoy what is pasted or scrawled on public walls and those who decry the vandalism.

In many ways, the walls along our roads and streets provide spaces where creativity flourishes. These are posters for cinemas and political rallies, posters for the dead and of sex doctors, graffiti for Left rallies and for eulogising slain LTTE leader Prabhakaran, and one-line promotions of local magicians you may want to hire for your kid’s birthday party on your terrace.

These walls are like tree trunks – there to allow life to take seed, grow and flower. When the acts exceed the limits, they need to be checked.

A wall space that witnesses a lot of activity is the wall of Spaces, the first house on Elliot’s Beach Road and the home of late dance-teacher Chandralekha. It is now a performance space.

The wall space here is used for all sorts of purposes – to protest construction on the Marina beach side, to raise support for a campaign to end encroachments in Guindy Forest, to recall the Bhopal gas tragedy... On some occasions, the images have upset people who shed their fat on the beach. Some have complained to the local police. But the wall space remains vibrant.

An attempt was made in the past to bring colour and creativity to the massive swathes of mortar of our MRTS rail stations. The idea died.

Our MRTS and Metro stations provide space to allow citizens to get involved. To unleash their creative juices. But getting the men and women who head these organisations to say OK takes ages.

Chennai Corporation, under a different regime, signed up commercial artists to colour some public walls. The visuals may have been like those on tableaux at 1-Day parades but they did bring some colour. A new regime cleansed that small effort.

Hopefully, the renewed effort makes some impact. And gets a life of its own.

If you want to take a look at the current project, check www.goethe.de/chennai – (Courtesy: Mylapore Times)

-Vincent D’Souza