namma mejura

Yes, three times a day. That’s the ‘current’ situation (pun intended).

A 3-hour cut in the day, a 1 hour cut in the night before getting to sleep and finally another 1 hour cut between mid-night to 6am. It’s now official 5-hours power cut daily. Unprecedented – is the term that comes to mind.

But should we be complaining? or be thankful to Government?

People in rural areas were protesting 9-hour power cuts daily. That too when we had 3-hour power cuts in the city last week.

WATRAP: Over 500 farmers and women staged a road roko here on Friday protesting unannounced powers cut for up to 9 hours every day in the last week. Bus services were crippled and shops remained closed for four hours.

Read more at: http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/30/stories/2008083060600600.htm

Now that we have 5-hour cut, the rural people might suffer longer. However, the much pampered Chennai city is not affected much. In Chennai, the power cut duration is increased only to one and half hour daily from their previous one hour cut. Perhaps, the official Tamilnadu begins & ends in Chennai and the remaining areas merely a tail that can be wagged as desired.

Tamil historians used to boast that Ancient Madurai under Pandyan kings had wide roads. They truly built a planned city with outer walls etc. But the roads are not that much wide. It pales in comparison to historic roads & roundanas in Mysore (ofcourse Mysore roads seems to be of recent origin while Madurai roads may be thousands of years old, not a real comparison there).

Now to an interesting question. Which one will be widest & most happening road in Madurai?

The wider roads in Madurai are at best four-laners, usually two lanes with a median at the centre. So don’t be disappointed.

The Alagarkovil Road at Goripalayam used to be an important & wide-looking stretch in 80s, but the 80 feet road from KK nagar to Kuruvikaaran Saalai was more wider & comfortable.

It showed signs of developing into a bustling shopping district, but it’s parallel road on Anna Nagar took over.

The Anna nagar main road doesn’t have much platform space, but is four-track. It now has the vibrance of a shopping area, but lack of parking space hinders it to realize its full potential.

All these roads were on the northern side of River Vaigai. On the south there used to be no wide roads to speak off. There is a small stretch between Teppakulam and Nirmala School which can look wide, but it isn’t a happening stretch.

Now, to boast a most happening road, the southern side takes over. The Bye-pass road, with service roads on either side, ample shoulders after wide canals & avenue trees made it a natural choice for shoppers. Sure enough, shops have flocked for this road and is fast becoming an elite shopping & happening place.

Naidu hall, World of Titan, Raymonds, Vimal, Megamart, Sony World, Panasonic Brand shop, Basics and local big shopping names such as Milan, Anandha & Anandha, Madura Shoes… bye-pass road surely overtook all other roads in the city.

The central part of the road needs to be widened. Work on this is moving on snail’s pace. Once the new NH 4-track north-south Golden Corridor bye-pass is completed (hoping for March 2008), much of the container lorry traffic will be reduced, leaving the current bye-pass road to develop into a full shopping area.

It might need to be renamed by then. Guess it will be named after Gandhi (MG Road, reminding bangaluru!) or Anna (we have many identical named areas as in chennai, but we dont have anna salai!).

So Madurai’s most happening & wide road is …. the Bye-pass road (sigh, strange name!)

As the curtain downs on the Olympics at Beijing today, talks were in the air about our achievements in sports. It is definitely not flattering to know that India won the first Gold in individual events in Olympics only this year. That too because the winner’s father is a rich man and sponsored most of his training expenses.

One of my ‘pro-West’ cousin talked about the way the athletes were prepared in West, the facilities they have & the commitment etc. But I’m not sure how he will explain Ethiopia which won 4 Gold 1 Silver & 2 Bronze medals. Anyway I do not doubt their commitment. We seriously need to review how sports is being managed in our country.

Well this post is not directly relevant to Madurai. But this subject is very much in the air here

We have just two public playgrounds in Madurai. The Race Course & the Arasaradi Railway Ground, which now attracts huge crowd of walkers & joggers who tries to fight off their obesity & bulging belly. But the athletes & players were invariably from not so affluent sections without much exposure on best practices.

Twenty years back I used to lament about living in a slow city (nee, village) called Madurai.  But over the last decade, I’m glad that Madurai is growing slowly when compared to other cities in Tamilnadu.  With rapid expansion, even Tuticorin & Erode seems to be growing faster than Madurai.

It takes at least 50 minutes to commute on a four-wheeler to cross 10kms within city in Chennai during peak hours.  Worse in Bangalore.  Coimbatore is only marginally better.  Compared to this, Madurai is scoring highly even though it has narrow roads.

Seems a blessing in disguise!