Chennai: This early culture shock seemed to rate big on the personal Richter scale then. Walking on a footpath in Australia about three and a half decades ago, I stopped at a pedestrian crossing and was trapped in the classic horns of a dilemma. Do I do as Indians do and simply step on to the road or I should I try and learn if there was an Aussie way to crossing the road? Do Down Under as the Aussies do? To my great surprise, all the cars to my right came to a halt even as I gingerly considered placing my right foot on the zebra lines. Amazing! The pedestrian has the right of way out there when there are no traffic lights at a pedestrian crossing.
Hardly had I crossed a third of the road when the cars to my left slowed down and stopped. I was king for a few moments as I covered the rest of the ground to the other pavement without fear gripping my mind over a motorist trying to bulldoze his way through the crossing as they would in India. It seemed a different world, a wondrous chain of broad pavements, well marked crossings and the motoring discipline in which rules were rules. It was a kind of ‘PK’ experience, not so much eerily shocking as pleasantly surprising.
Footpaths are made for walking? That was the real culture shock. Back in that time, Chennai’s footpaths would not have been as bad as they are now when they seem to have principally become receptacles for big ugly rubbish bins and all that trash strewn around the bins rather than inside. There are then the vendors to consider as they have taken away much of the space, their livelihood issues being thought to be too vital for us to protest too much, and then the ubiquitous two wheelers of today, which find pavements not only convenient places to park but sometimes to be used as speedways as well.
In the old days, only cobblers would be sitting on the pavements and a book shop like the one on Luz Church Road the exception rather than the rule. Take a morning constitutional on the Boat Club road and you would be in for a modern culture shock. The pavements sport some of the best greenery you could find in the city – manicured lawns, flowering plants, green shrubs and the trees.
This seems on first sight to be one way to take over more square feet of the most valuable real estate in the city. But there seems to be an underlying logic to owning the pavement as well. The morning and evening walkers amble along on the road anyway and so why offer them the privilege of pavements to walk on?
While reserving space on footpaths outside your home is strictly illegal, the civic authorities may have better things to do than take on the high and mighty.
They did try though when they brought huge concrete blocks to standardise the walking spaces, but there was resistance from the residents. And who do you think would win a contest like that? Not the civic body. Maybe, there is a hint in this for other home owners who could also beautify the footpaths outside their homes and add to the greenery of the city.
Regardless of the legalities, what the Boat Club road residents have done is to prove that greening up the surroundings can work wonders and bring down the ambient temperature by a few degrees on the Celsius scale. And that is exactly why the Boat Club avenues, with trees offering shade, are the most popular walkways for those aiming to log some miles on their sneakers, burn some calories and earn a few health brownie points.
