It has been Ten years now, the first time I moved to Chennai was in April of 2005. Right after I finished my school and came here to write Entrance after Entrance exams as City of Chennai was my preferred location then. BITs Pilani had its Goa campus started 2 years before that and I was the very first few to take the online exam of BITs then. Somewhere in Mandaveli was the center to take part the exam. I was thrilled. Given that maximum technology I was exposed to was OCR (Optical Character Recognition) in Computer exam on 12th grade stateboard exams.
The IIT-Madras campus to write the AIEEE exam, that is when I realized man, I though college was always all about buildings and cool architecture with curves and stuff, was mesmerized to see a Battery van take me through the campus. Deers running through the campus. The best part is the massive amount of super Nerdy people.
It gives me fond memories to look back to, taking notes( heaps and mounds of them just to clear a few 0.001 mark of some ), countless hours of sleep deprivation to hearing audio recordings of some math genius guy ( I don't intent to lie here but I did skip a few part to hear then latest songs I smuggled from my cousins)
Oh! The best part is seeing the city in whole new dimension with my 18 year young eyes. Lot of new Flyovers were coming up. First time to see the Adyar flyover which would later become infamous in Kamal's movie Vettayadu Vilayadu. Lot more to tell from little over a decade back.
The city did see it's truly remarkable change.All those people I met have grown to become famous and humble people over this past decade. But, the city I grew fond of (loving it every time I say that), has somehow shrunk in its beauty.
By whining and grinding the turmoil of heat over the few years, social media and news mentioning the worst in climate that has become and everybody planning on some summer getaways from the city! Let me tell you what happened to this wonderful city over the years.
OVER EXPLOITATION!
Imagine the time, I use to come to city when I was a little kid for vacation in summer. Mom use to jog me up to all crash courses, computer class, music class, drawing class. (Well not much did enter my grey cells then, except Adyar bakery Puffs and Samosa)
The lane after lane of streets I use to wander over the times on side walks have now become filled with Garbage dumps and Car parks. I remember taking the MRTs to just get to the Marina Beach from the city outskirts of Avadi to get a cool breeze.
I am not a newbee to say all this to people who love city more than me ever but imagination is little to lost when I talk to the younger people than me. All they ever talk about is Hot Summer, Come On!
How do you expect to get a fresh air, when all you worry about is raised buildings and car parks rather than green cover and animal lovers!
Just visit a nearby park. NO butterflies, NO chirping birds, NO uncles to ward you off from saying that the park has closing time. I was sitting in a park recently at around 8 pm. Hoping to catch some fresh air. Not a soul was im sight. Summer heat was ofcourse settling on me. Night time temperature was around 29 degree celcius. The guard who was stationed at the entrance was hearing a song in his mobile phone ( must be in his 50s). I was about to leave at around 9 pm. Just so I could ask him when does the park close. He replied me back, "It's usually closed by 8 pm but today I am going to close it 9:30 pm. Since you are the only one enjoying it"
It striked me then, people have got bitten by the heat bug that they refuse to leave their homes for natural air. It maybe an analogy to compare it to Flipkart or Amazon making people stay home and buy stuff. But seriously! what I contemplate in few years is only big events could draw people out to enjoy out and open air. I am not saying galas and festivals. Something like tremor or storm. Galas and festivals are already hijacked by TVs and Movies. Let me just hope that the world becomes a better place and be responsible enough to say that the wind and air we breathe is all because of what we put out as trees and non-polluting stuff that mother nature can take to her heart!
Happy Mother's day to everyone! I hope Mother nature becomes happy too and not toil us in her wrath in the coming years..
