Two faces of an expanding metropolis
S. SIVAKUMAR
|
Chennai-The Split City captures the place with its warts and beauty spots.
|
Reel and real: Munroe statue
Chennai with its North-South divide abounds in ambiguities and contradictions in its manifold layers. Is North languishing while South is keeping pace with the modern developments? This intra-city anomaly is the undercurrent of Venkatesh Chakravart
hy’s film — Chennai-The Split City, the screening of which was held at the National Folklore Support Centre.
The film sets off with the Munroe statue in focus and takes you on a tour of Chennai. Some outspoken men of stature and the common man express their views on various issues. You listen to two fishermen who are worried about the proposal to build a great wall along the coastline at an outlay of Rs. 2,000 crores to guard against tsunamis. The move they say would sound the death knell of their fishing activity.
Broadway today
Water bodies
Another view points out the systematic destruction of water assets — the Adyar creek, Pallikaranai marsh and Ennore creek — is taking place by normless construction activity and the inflow of industrial pollutants. These creeks are necessary during floods when the level of the sea would be high and consequently floods cannot drain into the sea.
Merchants discuss the rationale behind shifting Kothwal Chavadi to Koyambedu (Asia’s largest market dealing with perishables). The vendors claim that they really “belong” to this area, have digested many ills existing here, but cannot afford to relocate.
Broadway of the past
Capturing a post-tsunami picture, a scene shows people, ignoring barricades venturing into the sea, being asked to go back.
The IT impact
Some well-informed social activists elaborate on how the IT boom is having its fall out on real estate with land value soaring and multi-storey buildings mushrooming swallowing up precious space.
Vigil on sea shore
Viewers asked to look at this option: A Rs. 400-Crore project to generate manure from garbage, which would require 1,500 tonnes of garbage for optimum operation - the site, the dumping ground, being North Chennai. Rao, a member of the residents’ welfare association, raises the slogan “Quit North Chennai” against this project.
The film presents rosy views in favour of development through the booming voice of one of the committed protagonists of the ongoing growth initiatives.
An upbeat Rohit Modi, a participant and a beneficiary, is optimistic about the future of Chennai. He says that prospective investors who land in Chennai from abroad have to be impressed and the best way do this would be through good roads. Road laying is not merely an engineering work but a whole culture is involved where lanes have to be properly done lined with avenue trees, with a mandatory service lane and another for the pedestrians.
Koyambedu market
The sequence of the shots is such that one question leads to another, one argument countered through a fact. This film has tried and succeeded “To be simply true, to present and lay bare what things are — neither more, nor less, nor otherwise, nor other.” And it succeeds in sowing the germ of an urge to Act and Save this city.
You listen to truisms from unlettered men and women, and music of all kinds. There is an appropriate noise track that blends well. You get to “hear” the unheard voice of the enunciator. This film then, is an orchestration of some legitimate fears and its presentation guided by sound investigative techniques.
The closing visuals of this film aptly conveys the crux of the matter — a lad does somersault even as a helmeted-civil-site worker sings in the background, “Chodke Kaha Javunga” (where can I go leaving this place).
Kothawal Chavadi.
The present is not too good but we have optimism and hope to await a bright and better Dawn.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
