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 8th 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 10th 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.
