Chennai: This was not just another manic Monday. It was far worse. The traffic was crawling all day long not only along the Deepavali shopping hub of T. Nagar but also along all arterial roads. Being one of the last shopping days before the festival, the choking around Ranganathan street could be put down to festival shopping frenzy. What compounded the problem was South Chennai was particularly badly hit by the day's events, which had little to do with Deepavali.
With the Vice-President turning up at Raj Bhavan for a solar plant inaugural and a book release and the former Acting Governor Vidyasagar Rao also heading to his old residence as ge was the author of that book on his eventful Guindy days, there was total chaos around Adyar, OMR and Sardar Patel Road too.
It was choc — bloc all the way in south Chennai as traffic choked Anna Salai between Shanthi Theatre and the old Safire theatre plot bear Gemini. Monday's traffic had increased several fold with all schools and colleges open and all shops keeping their doors open for business for longer hours to notch up the Deepavali sales.
Traffic had come to a standstill on the bridge over the Adyar near the Fortis Malar hospital, with commuters having to wait for more than 30 minutes on one spot before crawling on in the bumer-to-bumper traffic. It took over a hour to negotiate from Adyar bridge to Mount Road beyond the Raj Bhavan.
While beat traffic constables tried their best to manage the situation at junctions by switching off the traffic lights and manually directing traffic, a surprising absence of senior cops of the traffic division seemed to have rendered the situation chaotic in South Chennai.
Adding to the chaos was the rain. At a drop of water, Chennai traffic has been known to slow down. As the rain increased in intensity in some areas in the afternoon, the traffic slowed in inverse proportion. Besides drivers, the two-wheeler riders were also affected by the rain in their eyes and they too had to slow down considerably to negotiate the roads.
It was apparent that on such a special day ahead of Deepavali and the grand functions in the Raj Bhavan at which the Chief Minister was also in attendance, the police had failed in anticipating the chaos and preparing to control it well enough to make a difference.
An usually more sensible city to drive in than neighbouring Bengaluru, the city of Chennai took an image hit with the crawling traffic.
