Green litter and sylvan neighbourhoods: A walk through Gandhi Nagar, Besant Nagar

A vital bodily function might be compromised without causing any hindrance — till it is stretched by

A vital bodily function might be compromised without causing any hindrance — till it is stretched by an overwhelming event. Cyclone Mandous has blown the lid off a problem that seemed non-existent but was lying unnoticed like sowbug in leaf litter. The problem in fact pertains to the management of leaf litter. As cyclones go, Mandous is probably best descried as a fast-medium pacer, but it was still sufficiently gusty to bring this issue into the open.

In localities lined with towering avenue trees, the leaf litter was noticeably huge on the morning after the storm. That was predictable, hardly surprising.

Here is what is irksome and for those not in the know, bewildering: Over a week after Mandous blew over, in some of these localities, the leaf litter is still plonked like a guest painfully overstaying their welcome.

As a representation of the issue, The Hindu Downtown tracked some of the streets in Gandhi Nagar, known for its sylvan environs — in the afternoon of December 16. On Beach Road in Kalashektra Colony, Besant Nagar, there are green pile-ups.

There are official reports — being shared in the public domain, via Twitter — that the garden waste processing units at Perungudi and Kodingaiyur are trying manfully to deal with the overload. Would it not have helped the current situation if the old arragment of composing green litter at some neighbourhood parks had been sustained?

The answer seems to lie in some of the images — taken a full week after Mandous made landfall — being carried in this page.