The Hindu Business Line : Give the bulldozers a big hand

A GREAT sight that awaits visitors to Chennai these days is `clearance' on a grand scale. No, I am not talking about `sale' on Usman Road and thereabouts, but about the demolition of encroachments big and small, political and uncivil, `holy' and otherwise. It seems as if all of a sudden roads have become broader and we are getting our money's worth for the tax we pay. When driving at night, however, be careful not to ram into a bulldozer at its job of reducing to rubble what was once a shop in the middle of a road or perched on the footpath.

The cynical are quick to remark that the encroachments that are given the shove would be back with a vengeance, but I am optimistic. If usable vacant places become parking lots, or are fenced up properly, one can dissuade stray elements from squatting there. Also, it should be everybody's duty to protect the common places from misuse.

Interestingly, it is not unusual to come across a few large-hearted ones who would scorn at the idea of removing irritants from public places. "A merciless act!" they scream, demanding sympathy for the homeless and the poor who are driven to using the platform. I think that is a sentiment in the wrong place, because what you would often find is not the meek that deserve mercy, but the anti-social ones who end up usurping any patch of common property and establishing their own fiefdoms.

The problem with many a philanthropist in urban ambience is to look for channels of sin-washing just outside the car. You find this type at traffic signals, pushing the power windows button to lower the glass just enough to sneak a coin out to a waiting urchin dressed in rags and pushed into begging by a bully don. Similarly, one needs Gods to glance at on the fly, so you don't have to stand in a queue at a temple.

To achieve a reasonable God-man ratio, there are all those mini-temples on either side of the road, on traffic islands, inside parks, under transformers, around the corner and just anywhere. It beats me to think if one can become devout by nodding at all those Gods and Goddesses that lie on the commuting route, between home and workplace, all the while driving, thus endangering other road users. So, it is good that the demolition squads don't spare places of worship (POWs) of all denominations that have sprung up unauthorised and prove as shelter to some vested interests.

But the kind-hearted would miss their usual avenues for charity, it is argued. One simple advice is this: If you want to do something, go whole hog and go to where it is required, rather than expecting things to happen at your doorstep or car window. Ditto with religion.

Climb the steps, trek the hills, cross the river or whatever, to visit your deity, instead of converting road junction and bus-stop into POWs. Because, as they say, divinity and its cousin charity are processes, rather than commodities.

EeAndOhEe@hotmail.com

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