Coimbatore: It is immediately apparent that this is an old street. And if you could ignore or wish away the inevitable open drains, garbage and gobs of spit on the road, it could be quite charming.

Every building here has probably been whitewashed myriad times wiping out any trace of the old, but now and then you catch a glimpse of the year of construction of a few of them.

Just at the entrance to the street stands an old house that has 1947 proudly emblazoned on it. Curiously, the smells on the street are not all unpleasant. A smell of karpooram wafts past and a Ganesha temple passes you by.

It was constructed in 1931, you learn. The aroma of sambar podi takes over the next stretch of the road.

These are the good bits.

Sadly, the sidewalk here, like many others in the city is in a mess. Drains take up most of it. Half hearted attempts have been made to cover them, but largely they are there for everyone to dump their plastic into.

You have to step smartly if you see a bus approaching and hug the walls on the side and make yourself as small as you can, as otherwise you may have to be scraped off the road.

When the bus number 7 bears down on you, you are only a hairsbreadth away from extinction. There is simply, quite literally, no room for error.

There obviously was a pavement at one time, but the houses, shops, telephone boxes and electric poles have made it their own.

Almost every house has steps from its doorstep to the road directly spanning what must have once been the sidewalk.

Where there are no steps, there are slopes to enable house owners to easily drive into their parking spaces.

And every other house has a little wall jutting out into the road creating a little entry foyer for itself.

So if you want to get to the cobbler sitting a few yards down the road (also on the pavement), you walk a couple of steps, vault over the little walls if you want to get to the other side or, if you dare, hop down on the road to go around it.

But watch out for the speeding vehicles.

There is parking on one side of the road (it is a one way street). But that has not stopped shop owners on the other side of the road from parking their mopeds in front of their shops, on the pavement.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail