In garbage, Chennai faces Tristram Shandy paradox

The amazing character Tristram Shandy, according to Russell, began writing his autobiography so very slowly that it took a full year to record one day of his life. In today’s context, assuming he was not washed away by any flash flood, Tristram Shandy would still be writing his autobiography!

“If he had lived forever and not wearied of his task, then, even if his life continued as eventfully as it began, no part of his autobiography would have remained unwritten,” wrote Russell in his “Principles of Mathematics”, while trying to crack some of the puzzles of “infinite series” that emerged from mathematician Cantor’s work. At any point of time, ironically though, Shandy’s would still be an autobiography in the making.

Seeing the little mounts of garbage piling up at key dumping points in the city in the past one week – for every truck load removed to the dumping yards outside the city, at least four trucks of garbage are pouring in from other flood-hit metro areas-, we seem to have a classical Tristram Shandy paradox on hand.

Even hoping this will not run into another ‘infinite series’ given the serious public health implications, the mammoth tonnages of garbage clearance would still be ‘in the making’. Just one collection point figures in one ward severely hit by the floods would bear this out, going by figures given by an official at the site. The ward that on a normal day clears 35 tonnes of garbage is “now handling upto 3500 tonnes per day, 100 times more for just one of the 200 wards of Chennai,” says the official. “The flood hit all sections of the people that even in case of ‘pucca houses’, except for the bare four walls, everything was destroyed,” he avers to explain the mounting piles.

“We are working day and night and hope to remove the core of the garbage in a week,” he adds. The irony continues for it is amid this mini-cosmic basket of garbage- largely mattresses, pillows, helmets, precious silk sarees that womenfolk collected over a life time in places like West Mambalam, putrefied provision stocks, certificates and documents on which livelihoods are built-, that people see bonds of humanity strengthening. Countless little tales of small men taking big risks went unnoticed on the night of Dec 2 when the floodwaters did the maximum damage to Chennai and its neighbourhood.

“It is with this small rubber tyre, I saved myself and five of my friends when the Adyar river came swelling upto the second floor,” heaved Sankar of MGR Nagar, showing it up to people around him that night when thousands displaced from their homes took refuge at the Ashok Nagar metro station. On those three crucial days, the Metro was like Brecht’s ‘Mother Courage’ taking everyone on her lap without complaining.

“We have not seen such floods in Chennai since 1976-77, when MGR (late Chief Minister M G Ramachandran) sent us rice bags,” recalls Rajendran. The 1977 cyclone, after the AIADMK had first come to power, had its impact too on the city though Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Tiruchirappalli and Pudukkottai districts were worst hit then. “But this one has reminded us that people are priceless,” says auto-driver Sundar, almost wailing as his house in Manali area and children’s school certificates were washed away.

And this flood is also a story of repeating socio-political patterns as well. Opposition parties now crying hoarse over Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s pictures on relief material packages, finds a earlier parallel when the Tamil Nadu Assembly debated the 1977 cyclone and flood relief when MGR was the Chief Minister. The irrepressible opposition DMK MLA, Durai Murugan, speaking on the debate on the Appropriation Bill in early 1978, caused a furore in the house as he displayed two aluminium plates – distributed to flood victims at a school relief centre in Thiruthuraipoondi- with the inscriptions of “MGR and Latha (the actor who had acted with MGR in several films earlier)”.

The matter was referred to the Privileges Committee then, which on investigation found all those plates were donated by private individuals for flood relief and not purchased from government funds. Durai Murugan also explained his intention was not to “defame” anybody and hence the panel left the matter at that. It may have a cue for the political class now to pick up in the 2015 deluge aftermath.