A Turbulent Travel Experience Through Madipakkam

A Turbulent Travel Experience Through Madipakkam

Today I was commuting to Guindy from Tambaram in B51, which would ply through the notorious Madipakkam. When I tag a sense of notoriousness to Madipakkam, it is because of multiple reasons:

1. Bad roads. You can see the bus jumping high up to a skyscraper level in the various potholes of the street.
2. Unmanaged traffic chaos prevailing almost all 24x7 and quite interestingly this remains unmanned by any traffic cop. Interestingly, we have the following police stations lining up this 15 km stretch -- Madipakkam Police Station, Adambakkam Police Station and St. Thomas Mount Police Station.

I first thought of sharing this on my travel weblog but it caters to more than just commuting through this stretch and hence writing a brief description in my personal weblog.

For sure if any one goes through this road, they would need the help of Amrutanjan almost quite immediately to seek solace and relief from backpains. I used to wonder whether Chennai cops are really security conscious since with such an amount of chaotic road conditions, I just imagine Madipakkam to be another hideout of terrorists (similar to the one that would be shown in Tamil Film Roja, where the track used to wind, unwind, tangle and entangle; and with so many obstructions in the simple 15 km stretch that starts from Medawakkam Koot Road and terminates at St. Thomas Mount Railway Station. Interestingly, the four kilometer stretch from Eechangadu to Medawalkam Koot Road which was serving as a highspeed bypass road for Pallikaranai has also been ruthlessly and callously dug by the good samaritans in the state administration for reasons best known only to them.

In the bus in such a road condition, I used to wonder how effectively the conductor is able to quickly jot down the ticket entries when each 'stage' passes by. Today, I had to make some quick jottings when someone was telling a message on the phone and I really got pissed up by the violent amuck turbulence that shook me like anything between Eachangadu junction and Kilkattalai. If at all there is Olympic contest of writing in moving buses, I am sure we can field our MTC conductors who have taken the Madipakkam route and they are sure to win us a lot of laurels and tonnage of gold medals.

In Tamil some one commented a while back, perhaps in a comical way though that 'Madipakkam is so called because there are so many bends in the little stretch'. In Tamil, 'pakkam' or 'pakam' can be roughly intrepreted as 'stretch' or 'segment' and 'madi' means 'bends' or 'curves' (applicable to clothes in most cases). The tamil equivalent sentence would be "மடிப்பு நிறைய இருக்கறதால தான் இது மடிப்பாக்கமோ?". Not sure, if there are people representatives from this stretch who are really aware of these bad things about their neighborhood and doing something for the betterment of the same. On a personal front, I wrote a couple of email petitions to Chennai Corporation but the good devils over there didn't bother to write a reply even. Some one told me that it falls under panchayat and not under Chennai Corporation. I am trying to see if I can get hold of the respective Panchayat and submit a petition to them to mend these maladies for the welfare of the people.

The worst thing in Madipakkam is that during monsoons, the area gets inundated like anything that transportation services are literally cut. During acute monsoons even boats are summoned to serve the region. Some one has even recorded a video of this during the previous monsoons and shared across over here.

With all these cons on one side, there are some good things to speak about Madipakkam too. Perhaps as the Tamil proverb goes where there is a big slush, the beautiful Lotus blooms from there ("சேற்றில் பிறந்த செந்தாமரை போல்"). It is also said that Lordess Mahalakshmi (The Lordess of Wealth)came out from Thirupparkadal only after some of the most cruel things came out. Some of those entities were: (1) Moodhevi (The Lordess of Impoverishment) (2) The World's Worst Poison (Alakaala Visham). Perhaps, Madippakkam represents this history and reminds us only after wading through all these tussles and hassles, one would be able to witness the bliss.

Let us see them too.

1. The beautiful Sri Ayyappan Temple in Sri Ayyappa Nagar.
2. The street next to Sri Ayyappan Temple has been named as Sabari Salai.
3. Sri Oppiliappan Pattabisheka Ramar Temple (Ram Nagar), Madippakkam