THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With songs, paint brushes and dance moves as their weapons, a group of city-based performers who have called themselves ‘Theruvo-rakootam’ (‘Streetside Union’) have made a pledge to claim the silent broad stretch of tarmac named ‘Manaveeyam Veedhi’ as their own on Sundays.
They have also demanded that traffic be prohibited along the stretch on Sunday evenings. No less a person than Dada Saheb Phalke winner Adoor Gopalakrishnan has made a vocal pitch to prohibit traffic along Manaveeyam Veedhi on Sunday evenings.
The immediate provocation for the Streetside Union is Kerala Water Authority’s move to break down a portion of their perimeter wall, which borders Manaveeyam Veedhi, to create a third entrance into the KWA office. A ‘human wall’ was formed along the stretch on Sunday in protest against KWA's move to dismantle the wall.
“I just don’t understand why authorities are so insistent on breaking down the wall,” Adoor Gopalakrishnan said. “The KWA already has two entrances and now they are adamant on having a third. This is inexplicable,” the filmmaker said. He said Manaveeyam Veedhi on Sundays should be transformed into a place where art comes alive. “Even traffic should be blocked at both the ends of the Veedhi,” he said.
Filmmaker Lenin Rajendran was unusually combative. “This wall cannot be dismantled just like that,” he said. Watching the traffic move along the road from the raised pedestrian walk, Mr Rajendran said: “There should be no traffic here on Sundays. We will make sure this right is also secured.”
Writer Paul Zachariah, like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, wondered why KWA officials wanted to destroy the wall. He said he was surprised at what he termed “the considered nonsense of wanting to pull down the wall”. The Streetside Union banks on the LDF government to concede their demands. It was during LDF's earlier tenure, when M.A. Baby was culture minister, that the stretch was transformed into a ‘boulevard of art’.
