I walk with A, who has just finished school and is probably taking a break year from college. Every few meters up the ramp on the Anna Nagar Tower, we would witness a pair of feet on the shadow-side. Or a lap and an head. Or just hands entwined and legs. Walking forward, it would be a couple. In A, I saw a smirk, and I shared my happiness with him, that love finds more public places these days
We had walked down the corner of the Dargah onto the embankment of the Solpur lake. The raised ground hid the enthrall behind, and it only grazed towards us when we reached the bund. It was cold and the drizzle on our shirts had not dried before the rain caught us. We hid behind a shrub, trying to save one side of our bodies, all huddled together. We made the decision to run to the temple, and the rain stopped soon after
The fort from the backside
  • In the little I know of Chennai, I tried to see more. A, learnt of the Otteri Naalah, I learnt of Binny Mills and what is happening there now. We both learnt of what Broadway is, drove through the Periamedu market and I understood Chennai’s heat a bit more.
There is a lot of names on the walls of the Anna tower, but I curiously found them all in English, and most often names of lovers and friends and other remarks. But this I found uniquely placed. 15G runs to Broadway / Parrys from MMDA Colony.
The nonfunctional lift room on top of the tower now, now remembering names of visitors
I boarded everyday from opposite the Anna Nagar West depot for atleast 4 years. I travelled mostly in the big 10 - 13 seaters, yellow and chuggling along (chuggy - like a good old enfield and juggling). I have a collection of photos going back all those years, of colourful seats and passengers on the share autos
At the corner of Broadway depot, sacks, or ‘sacku pais’ dry on the footpath next to the market
  • We walk through two pillars, made with grand intentions seemingly, but nothing joined them together, no gate, no compound, just an imagined arch… on what was filled with smooth rocks and marsh. Rocks smoothened on what once flowed there. Maybe blue and green in colour, going by what the water in the nearby well looks like.
The two pillars
I’ve written about what the magic of the water felt like on week 18-19. This photo shows a bit more clear what that magic is.
Straight lines are what humanity desires. Straight poles, straight wires, straight buildings, flat floors, and flat ground. It is funny that ground is also a unit of measurement in tamil. A flattened ground with the previous level of soil visible at the bottom of the electricity poles
Tilling implements rest on what is grassland now, and what was farmland before, what is to be? We will know soon. It is right next to the Solpur lake, farming is not permitted, neither are layouts
JCB side
Smooth side
Straight lines of weeds and grasses, tilled by the unintentional treads of the machine of this decade
A Nizam era drain path, through which a first order stream flowed once. Now it is a road. Was it both a road and a stream?
Decades of cartwheels have driven paths onto the hard laterite above the Naubad basin
  • Lakes exist so wells can access ground water. Or atleast they used to. Now lakes exist in cities so they can directly be accessed by machines. Machines access so that humans have running water in homes. Now machines also serve other machines.
Chaukandi looks majestic from this side. As if the hillock is crowned. It is indeed a crown. The Ashtoor toombs can be seen
Marakal Lake with layouts right up to the boundary
‘Lakeview’, notice how close the layouts begin from the lake.

  • I found myself tired and lazy to run beyond 3kms this week in Bidar, I think that my supplement routine - B12, D and Calcium make a big difference.

  • In front of the Rippon building, we drove past the sanitation workers protest against privatisation by the GCC. The GCC is apparently handing over SWM of Royapuram and Thiru Vi Ka zones to private entities. There is a pay reduce and possible lack of contracts for NULM workers (National Urban Livelihoods Mission, which has a history going back to 1999, even before MNREGA?). [^1]

Left
Right
`