SURYA NAGAR - THE MOST INTRIGUING PARADOX

          By the time I write this, I still have record and observations to complete before sleeping, not to forget the boring classes to be attended tomorrow of which even the Almighty would scare. Still, this has to be mentioned and this deserves a special mention. SURYA NAGAR, the secret kingdom of Narnia right behind College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University. But, this Narnia doesn’t hold much fantasy; it is surrounded by miseries. The situation could be described to any layman through the words of one of the old ladies out there. “You people come from various parts of the country and go out with flying colours from Anna University. We people, with these many children in and around this locality, have not even produced the rarest gem of a kind who has studied at this temple.” Yeah, she meant the word ‘temple’ and I was suddenly taken aback by this striking reality.

          Surya Nagar can easily be imagined and compared with the Aththippatti of Citizen or the Thannooththu of Kaththi (Some people criticize my usage of Tamil movies here and there, stating it is very local. For them, I don’t care if I am local. This is my place, my locality and I belong here. I can’t quote Hollywood feature films which ordinary mass can’t relate to) There are these houses, which, according to me are point buildings (Oh, this is the 8^th grade definition of a 2 mark question, What is a point? “A point is a miniscule region which has neither a starting position nor an ending one.”) No exaggerations, here! In most of the houses, it is difficult to calculate and differentiate between the entrance and backyard. (To be precise, most, if not, almost all houses are practically the size of my hostel room; People from CEG have an easier perspective now) The streets cannot accommodate more than one two – wheeler at a time. I bet even the most skilled stunt professional cannot perform dual bike acrobatics here. There are no supermarkets, no wholesale grocery shops, no cars, no bungalows, no air – conditioned houses (I am not sure if every house at least has a ceiling fan), nothing. For us middle – classes, there is nothing practically. But, there is life with mediocrity; there are human beings with unfulfilled expectations and aspirations – students longing for a school, graduates or diploma holders in want of a job that would at least be able to feed their family with no expectation about savings, old people wanting to live in a more comfortable place that doesn’t leak during rains, that withstands the rigorous heat of the sun, that allows them to at least die in peace. The most sophisticated house in Surya Nagar would not even match the lower middle class apartment of Central Chennai. Behold! There lives a society which is unknown and oblivious of the posh metropolitan full of malls and multiplexes.

          The first time I went there was in my second semester of college of life, precisely in March 2014. We, as part of Leo Club of CEG, had gone there to explain the nuances of tackling the higher secondary state board examinations, which, according to the parents of students, was nothing but a milestone. When we sat with some students to know their situation, I was taken to the extremity of electrocution, as most 10^th standard children found it difficult to solve multiplication tables beyond 7; some couldn’t even cross 5. I explained them with the ‘pen at a shop’ method, which my elementary teacher had told us during my school days in order to make us understand how multiplication works. The story goes like this: You go to a shop and buy a pen for 10 rupees. If your friend buys 10 pens of the same type, what would be its total cost?, for which we would all sing in chorus, “Ten ones are ten; ten twos are twenty; …….; ten tens are hundred.” Praise poured upon for making them reach Nirvana in Mathematics, but the sad fact is there are no teachers to teach them the fundamental basics and logics. After that, I came to know that the situation was gradually improving with the helping hand rendered by an organization to the Leo Club, so as to arrange tuition classes for them.

          Today, I had another chance to get into the Dark Continent of Chennai, with the geographical features remaining the same. There is only one house in the entire locality that has tiled flooring. This belongs to Devika akka, apparently the most informed among the people. We were there actually to give away the salaries to the teachers, who graciously take classes for the students in the evenings. This Devika akka actually welcomed us with a Vanakkam, which usually is used as token of welcome among learned scholars or between people of same age groups. “When are you going to organize the function, thambi?”, was the first question posed to us. For them, function was ‘Vidiyal’, which is an annual event organized especially for these under – privileged students to create awareness about education. Vidiyal actually translates to ‘rise of the dawn’ and the event is aimed perfectly for this purpose. We answered her with a smile, describing the dates of the ‘festival’, which is both informative and entertaining.

          When she saw me clapping hands somewhere in the air, Devika akka casually said, “There are lots of mosquitoes here See there! The impure running water is the cause of all this.” That was the waste water of our college and I impulsively stopped my futile activity of trying to ‘clap the mosquitoes off’. It shook me. Here was a woman who could live in the midst of those dengue – causing tiny beasts in a part of the city, which consists mostly of people complaining about not having the most luxurious car or mobile with them. People who spend or think to spend 3000 – 5000 bucks for Crocs slippers and 1+ lakhs for an R15 please think of it. This is not targeted specifically at particular persons but at least tithe something that would save the lives of these kinds of downtrodden people. Let’s give them a fair chance. Who knows how many of those students with unoiled and uncombed locks would become stalwarts in the future?