My family relocated to Chennai in the summer of 2019. I was moving back to a place that I had once called home over a decade ago. I only had fond memories of this city where I had spent the majority of my childhood. I faintly remember the Carnatic music concerts that my parents would drag me to where I would quietly fall asleep and the Bharatanatyam showcases that would take place at Kalakshetra, (a cultural center), which would last nearly 3 hours. Although, what I remember more avidly are my school days and the small apartment that we stayed at in a quiet neighborhood called Kotturpuram.
And now here I was again, back to base. As we drove through familiar roads, I wondered if the city had changed at all. It looked exactly the same. The weather was no different either.
Hot, humid. I would be sweating in no time.
We rented a house in Neelankarai (“blue shore”), a neighborhood that was located towards the outskirts of the city. A five-minute walk from the beach. Having lived in apartments all my life, this was a welcomed change. It was a quick detour off a road that I would get extremely familiar with in the months to come, East Coast Road.
Over the next couple of months, this was the primary route to my workplace where I was an architectural intern for a period of four months. I would spend close to an hour on this road every day stuck in peak hour traffic desperately trying to get home. I heavily relied on public transport as an intern. It was either the city bus or the fairly inconvenient but extremely pocket-friendly option that was share autos. Taking public transportation meant that I was sharing (or rather taking up) space with the people who saw it as their only means of commute.
Every evening, after wrapping up work, I would sprint to the closest bus stop, Santhome, hoping to get a bus that was relatively empty. This was never the case. The regular city bus that I frequently boarded had 18 stops before arriving at my destination.10 of which were along East Coast Road.
Spending an exhaustive amount of time here got me thinking about how this very road acted as a divide that I was blind to before.
If you look up ECR, you will find that it is a two-lane highway that connects Chennai to Mahabalipuram. It is the preferred alternate route to the southern cities of Tamil Nadu. Prior to its completion, the East Coast Road mainly consisted of village roads.
What you will not find is how it acts as a stark physical divide between the extravagant second homes of Chennai’s elite and the cramped localities of the lower middle class.
On the left are the vast plush neighborhoods that face the beach. High compound walls, huge backyards with manicured gardens, and clean roads are common denominators. Most of these homes had a striking view of the sea. These well-maintained streets were frequented by residents for an evening stroll or a casual drive. Upmarket cafes, gourmet stores, and restaurants scattered within the area. Every necessity in arm’s reach.
To the right is where the people that I commute with, retired for the day.
Cramped homes with shared walls, roads that a four-wheeler could barely pass through, a canal that had transformed into a dumping ground.
A roadblock at every other turn. There was no distinction between lanes for pedestrian and vehicular movement. It was everything but a pleasant sight. However, it was what the staff that serviced the aforementioned villas of the rich, called home.
This brings me back to something that I had questioned on my arrival,
Had the city changed?
No, apart from a new building with a glass facade here and there.
Although, what was different was how I perceived it. I was fairly shielded from the socio-economic divide that exists in every metropolitan city in modern-day India. During my time here as a kid, all I had known within the physical limits of my apartment and school, blessed with the privilege of never having to find out how a large chunk of the population lived.
During the course of my internship, the beginning of my professional life, this was an uncomfortable yet necessary revelation that I had the privilege of being ignorant of before. It had changed the way I viewed the city that I once was so familiar with. My childhood memories now co-exist with the unpleasant travel, the exhaustion, and the class divide that we ever so often try to shy away from.
