Subra colony gets a facelift

Chennai was devastated by floods in December. Centre sanctioned flood relief and it was utilised for directly crediting 5000 rupees to every household in the entire flood affected area. A little later, road laying took priority. Everywhere we go the roads were getting relaid or redone. Slowly the wave came nearer home and every other road surrounding subra colony wore glossy fresh tar and dazzling in the pre summer sunshine.

Civic awareness is a bit high and so I had looked up the local adyar times and checked if road laying work has been sanctioned. I was delighted to see it was listed.Waiting eagerly for the JCBs and tar drums for a longish time. Then it was that sometime last week, many workers descended on the road and started sweeping the dust off from the roads.That day we went to sleep quite peacefully. The next day, two of the houses in the colony which had raised their house level and put up a big ramp running to a good length of the road and inconveniencing the traffic had their ramps bulldozed .These two ramps were most obvious, because they were in the blind turning and the width of the road already narrow and having lots of two wheelers parked all over the place, was encroached upon.

Since it a small lane and not connected to any thoroughfare, the work was done over a period of two days, during day time. But it was a well coordinated effort and all tough jobs were done by huge machines. On the one hand I was happy that men and women were spared, backbreaking work in the hot sun with hot tar to handle. But I did remember the hue and cry created when heavy machinery was used for the golden quadrilateral that labourers were being displaced and what about their livelihood?

Here I was able to see first hand, it is only the most inhuman jobs that are taken over by the heavymachines(also the smooth finish of the road), but there are any  number of jobs that are still done by men and women.

Our block of flats also got a fresh coat of paint a while ago. so all in all it is a bright orange black visage that subra colony is sporting now!