Chennai: By the time the music stopped, Deputy Commissioner (Works) K.S. Kandasamy was receiving thumbs up from fellow Corporation officials on his well-executed chicken dance.
It certainly was that sort of a day at the Elliot's Beach promenade with the debut car free Sunday program providing not only the residents, but also the armchair bureaucrats of Chennai Corporation time and space to let their hair down.
Commissioner Vikram Kapur was in a buoyant mood as he first took to biking down the promenade with his peers, before indulging in a session of freestyle yoga and later managed to connect a few with his badminton racquet on the sands of the beach.
"I love to bike. It is something that I am very passionate about," said Kapur. "Given an opportunity, I would like to bike around the city but as you know, the city and its traffic does not allow for that to happen. Though I cycled up and down the promenade, the real success or the real heroes, if you may, are the kind of people who cycled all the way to Besant Nagar from areas like Harrington Road just to be a part of this event," he added.
Asked whether the reception that he witnessed for the Car free day program would encourage the Corporation to support more of it around the city, Kapur said the support must come from citizens.
Kandasamy was perhaps the one who fully immersed himself in the spirit of the day. Not only did he enthusiastically dance to the tune of the chicken dance song, he was seen battling the neighbourhood kids in a high intensity game of badminton.
“I have not played badminton in like 20 years. So it feels refreshing to do it," said Kandasamy, who was one of the last officials to depart the scene, well after the event concluded at around 10.15 am.
Mayor Saidai Duraisamy impressed the audience with his yogic skills. “I have been practising yoga for as many as 30 years. The benefits of yoga, I have experienced it myself, I can assure you it will revitalise you,” he said, before demonstrating a few asanas to an applauding crowd.
