Seeking common ground

A ceiling fan putters away inside the Madras Literary Society, one of the oldest libraries in India and home to around 60,000 books that are stacked all the way to the ceiling. Standing under the shadow of these books, comedian and writer duo Shyam Renganathan and Bhargav Prasad exchange notes and ideas before they invite the audience to participate in the ‘ poromboke Quiz’ organised by a group of activists called the Vettiver Collective.

“Think of a creative name for your group,” they tell us. “There’s a prize for the most creative title.”

Before I can share the creative name that I have come up with for my team (Porombloke and Girl), my partner (the ‘bloke’ in question) and I learn that we didn’t make it past the first round. The reason? These questions are so nuanced. They’re all about… well, porombokes . Those of us who have watched Tamil movies have likely been exposed to the word poromboke (pronounced ‘porumbokku’). Often used by comedians like Goundamani, Vadivelu and Vivek to belittle other characters, the word means ‘wastrel’.

The word’s etymology though, extends beyond this insult. Historically, poromboke means ‘the commons’ — the un-assessed lands reserved for public purposes, or for the communal use of villagers. It is not owned by anybody, nor is it taxed. Alarmed by the appropriation (and degradation) of this common land by real estate developers and large industrial outfits, the Vettiver Collective has started a campaign to raise awareness about the destruction of poromboke land in Chennai, particularly the Ennore Creek.

The poromboke Quiz was organised to continue the conversation about the perilous state of Chennai’s commons. All questions were related to at least one poromboke . Which poromboke was fought over in Mani Ratnam’s film Ayutha Ezhuthu ? (Answer: Napier Bridge). Over which poromboke in Chennai was the 18th-century French-Anglo land war fought? (Answer: Quibble Island). Participants were challenged with difficult and nuanced questions about the commons of Chennai, but occasionally rewarded with the relief question (Which famous song combines the three porombokes of Saidapet, Ranipet and Chromepet? Answer: AR Rahman’s hit song ‘Pettai rap.’) With five teams competing in the final round, it was a team called Do You Mean Wasteland? that clinched first place.

Vettiver Collective is a non-hierarchical group of activists that is not owned by anybody. “The way that cities are developed is actually quite unplanned, despite any kind of master plan,” Satwik Gade, activist and member of the Collective, tells me. “Real estate developers don’t always use legal means in their development. Before, development would happen around the poromboke areas. Today, they are happening within.”

Poromboke areas include marshlands, rivers, floodplains and canals. Despite being common, unowned land, recent years have seen large amounts of interference in these natural spaces. For instance, the Ennore Creek, which drains both the Kosasthalaiyar and the Araniyar rivers in Chennai, is experiencing unprecedented levels of pollution; it continues to receive fly-ash and other industrial waste from power plants, ports and factories.

The destruction of marshlands, the reclamation of wetlands, and the appropriation of salt pans have made the two rivers shrink. Due to lower depth and width, these rivers are not able to carry their waters nor eventually deposit them in the ocean.

According to Vettiver Collective, the floods in Chennai in 2015 were greatly exacerbated because of the blocking of these exit points. Fishing communities in and around the Ennore Creek have risen in protest against the loss of their livelihood as the creek continues to experience greater industrialisation.

If poromboke means common, untaxed land, then how did it come to refer to wasteland (or people)? According to Nityanand Jeyaraman, another member of the Collective, it is precisely because the land is common and untaxed that poromboke was given an ascription of waste. Addressing the audience after the quiz, he said, “We have to make a choice. We have to repair our relationship with nature.”

Musical duo Kaber and Tenma, in conjunction with South Indian YouTube channel Temple Monkeys, released a song last month entitled the ‘Poromboke song’ to raise awareness about the environmental destruction of public land in Chennai.

There is currently a petition on Change.org asking Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha and the Commissioner of Disaster Management and Mitigation, K Satyagopal, to save the Ennore Creek. Amongst other things, the petition calls for the removal of fly-ash from the creek and surrounding wetlands, the de-clogging of the Buckingham Canal and a ban on construction in the salt pans, mangroves and other wetlands in Ennore.

As Chennai readies itself for its first season of rain after last year’s floods, there are activists crying themselves hoarse about the city’s ill-preparedness for high rainfall. The shameful part, these activists lament, is that the government is often ignorant about, if not complicit in, the measures that have led to the perilous and pitiable condition of our environmentally salient land.

During a break in the quiz, the rapper and musician Sofia Ashraf regaled the audience with a funny yet morbid nursery rhyme in Tamil. Translated to “They’ve cut our trees,” the song spells doom for a society that cuts its trees and discovers it has cut off its lifeline by preventing the fossilisation of living organisms — a vital part of the human life cycle.

As I clapped with not little envy for the winning teams, Jeyaraman urged the audience to remember why we were all gathered here. “We have to make a choice about how we want to inject value in to our communities. We might be seen as being against the ‘Make in India’ campaign, but that is what is truly breaking India. There is still a lot that can be saved — we need to act now.”

Sindhuri Nandhakumaris a Chennai-based writer and theatre practitioner

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