But then auto rickshaws by Piaggio catched up, it changed the equation. It is actually a 3 seater auto but wider than the usual auto. It doubled up as ‘share‘ auto – not quite legally though.
With their bigger size, auto drivers now squeeze 8 – 10 people in this 3 seater auto with a wooden plank serving as additional row of seats. And it runs like a monster with it’s tail on fire!
Those heavy looking beast lurks and moves fast, and true to auto driving rules, the drivers try to sneak into spaces where none exist. With a high pitch diesel motor, such a rash driving monster is really a menace to pedestrians and two wheeler riders. Accidents involving these monsters were becoming regular. Seems they will replace sand laden lorries as road demons.
They make life difficult for commuters hopping into a city bus. They always squeeze between the bus and bus stop. No wonder we regularly see reader letters in newspapers clamouring for a ban of these ‘share’ autos.
Seems all roads leads to WCTC (Word Classical Tamil Conference) Coimbatore. A temporary board put up by highways department at Palanganatham roundana towards bye-pass road says “Way to Semmozhi Maanaadu – Kovai“!
Since the 4-track road & ring road entirely bye-passes Madurai, this bye-pass road is now within city. A new name is due for this only genuine wide road in Madurai.
Though it’s not common, Horse carriages are still plying in Madurai. A nice way to entertain the kids and re-live the rustic charm of older days when you visit Madurai.
Madurai bench of Madras High Court made an interim order today, allowing vehicle access up to the entrance of Chithrai Streets (but not on Chitrai Streets) to allow cars to drop passengers (maximum 15 minutes parking time!). Heavy vehicles are still off-limits for these access roads.
This is a slight improvement for elders visiting the temple, but bound to create traffic snarls in these narrow Amman Sannathi, West Tower and North Tower streets.
The scene looks very much um… un-Madurai! But, it’s the same Chitrai Streets around Meenakshi Amman Temple. Impressive development indeed. Now vehicles were not allowed in Chitrai Streets and it enhances to the smooth look besides the safety factor.
If you look closely, you can still see the Madurai-ness – sand accumulating along the edges of neatly tiled road as well on the granite footpath. The granite footpath is smooth, but always have noticable spread of sand grains. Maintenance is usually our weak point.
The people living in Chitrai street as well as the shop owners were protesting on block vehicle movement in Chitrai Streets. Authorities should consider priority/reserved parking spaces for them in parallel streets. It will be an inconvenience for them, but should not be a harassment.
While walking on bye-pass road, a Maruti Omni pulled ahead of me. A young man on back seat called out a name – ‘Annamalai, Annamalai!’. At this, a dirty man in rags (who lingers on the fringe of road and seem to have lost in a world of his own) came over to the car, and collected a pack of food & water.
Now, if this sound familiar, you might know or heard about Akshaya Trust of Madurai. Ever since the life of a 5-star hotel cook who’s visit to home town (Madurai) evoked an absolute turnaround on his career, many mentally unstable roadside souls were fed daily. Mr. Krishnan is taking care & feeding them daily for the past 6-7 years without fail.
The Maruti Omni is one belonged to Akshaya Trust donated by well-wishers. Curious about name calling, I approached the car and asked about it. The young man who helps Krishnan in this routine said ‘we named him!’.
The green mini-buses are the lifeline of most suburbs around Madurai. Most of the newly developed areas like Gomathipuram & Yagava nagar near Anna Nagar & a plethora of ‘Nagar’s between Iyer Bungalow & Moondru maavadi have narrow 20ft. roads as main throughfare.
Worse, the roads under village panchayats were poorly paved. Most of these roads have giant craters & will become pools of red slush on rainy days. It is only these private mini-buses that brave the odds for them.
The buses suffer due to bumpy roads & dust conditions. Some of the buses had to push start by commuters themselves while a few others are well maintained. In any case, if you prefer a ride in these buses, be prepared to an assault of blaring music!
Streets starting from most major roads now have a helpful ‘You are here’ type boards. Apart from the streets, it also mentions prominent businesses & other landmarks nearby. In addition to that all the necessary electricity, water & corporation councillor phone numbers were listed.
A really handy information amid the posters in street corners. Luckily, these were largely spared by poster fixers.
I under-estimated the power of the pull ‘Naidu hall’ (Naiha) have among women.
It is now a fashion for bigger shops to spread out to other cities in the region. Alukkas, Jos Alukkas & Bhima are the big name jewellery shops from Kerala, now firmly established in Madurai within the last 2 years. Chennai based mobile shop chain ‘Univercell’ & ‘mobile city’ opened 3 – 4 shops in Madurai.
So when Naidu hall opened their showroom at bye-pass road, it seemed they are following the trend. But the buzz it created among the women are tremendous. For the first three days, it seemed like a mega event, with a musical party thrown in at the evenings. Feedback from school, college going youngsters were that the shop is the hot topic among girls.
The bye-pass road is growing fast in it’s stature. It may soon need a better name.
We were out of station yesterday and coming back to Madurai by afternoon. We are entering into Madurai from south (via Tirupparankundram) and all seemed normal. We were cautioned by relatives (via mobile) that splash news on TVs talk about attacks all over Madurai.
But we couldn’t find any thing abnormal. All the town buses and mofussil buses continue to ply from Madurai as usual. When we reached home, neighbours said that cable TV went off the air from 11 a.m. onwards.
I gathered the news from Dinamalar’s website. All actions seem to be on the northern fringe of city. Dinakaran’s (Sun network) new office building is at Uthangudi, some 3 kms away from city. It used to be a Mitsubishi (Lancer) car showroom. The Madurai bench of Madras High Court is still further away on that (NH47 – towards Trichy, Chennai) road.
Later we came to know that some buses in Aarapalayam bus stand were also damaged in stone pelting. All local cables got their feeds from SCV, a Sun network company that seems to have their vital equipment in the same campus, and hence the entire city went cable-less, except for those who had DishTV or TataSKY. Cable TVs resumed today and viewed all the details on Sun News which keeps on repeating it.
That’s about it. It’s very sad that computer operators and a private security were killed. It’s a power play within a dynasty and innocent chaps get killed in the crossfire. So much for their intention to serve the public.
