Tuesday 30 December 2008

A New Year wishlist for Chennai

Disclaimer: I have referred to Mumbai as Bombay and Madras as Chennai. This is intentional. However, this is not hypocrisy. This is the way people generally talk about the two cities. Just yesterday, I heard someone talking of a Bombay-Chennai flight. I'll be happy to have someone enlighten me on this issue.

Here's my new year wish-list for Chennai

1. Get a good drainage system - In 2009, please do not let rains that are hardly 10% of what one gets in Bombay paralyze the city and let the politicians have a field day offering relief when a good drainage system would prevent any of this from happening in the first place. It's time civic officials went to Bombay and learnt!
Picture: A flooded street in suburban Chennai (28 Nov 2008) after Cyclone Nisha {Note that the rains were not even as much as Bombay usually receives}

2. Build flyovers, not underpasses - Do not sanction any new underpasses (famously called subways) to connect either side of the railway tracks. Sanction flyovers. A little rain and people living in on the wrong side of the railway tracks such as West Mambalam and Nanganallur are cut off from the rest of the place.


3. Build wide roads, free of potholes - Hope the corporation of Chennai is listening. I repeat. Build wide roads, free of potholes. If you cannot, at least do not call them 'High Roads'. It really sucks. Call it just a road.
Picture: An manhole on the arterial Sardar Patel Road in Chennai


4. Implement the law on auto-drivers - This one's last on my list because I know the impossibility and the impracticality of such a suggestion. But, a faint hope in my heart makes me root for this. Bring the auto-drivers, who are a law unto themselves only in Chennai to book. Send them to Bombay to see their counterpart return the Re 1 change!

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