Motorists play blind man’s buff on a major corridor in Chennai; and its median leaks bipeds and quadrupeds

“No lights for twenty kilometres,” says a traffic police personnel about Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road. That statement ignored the fact that high-mast lamps have been planted in the median at certain key junctions (examples include Kolapakkam and Kandigai) and around educational institutions (examples include Tagore Engineering College, Sri Balaji Polytechnic College, Ramanujar Engineering College and Sri Balaji Arts and Science College). But these high-mast lights (some not so high) but they are few in number, some only partly functional, and collectively, cannot undo that damning remark. For all practical purposes, it is a road plunged in darkness. What gives the poor lighting on the road its barbed-wire deadliness is a structural design element on the ground: the low median. It is so low that even a gnat can put all its six legs in one gentle heave, its wings kept folded in a resting state. Do not parse that idea; that is hyperbole, but you get the point. Except for a 400-metre stretch in Vengambakkam where a high median exists, Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road has a dangerously low median that leaks bipeds (human bipeds) quadrapeds (stray cattle), often taking motorists by round-eyed surprise. Dedicated road-crossings become a joke when every point of the median can be forded with the least of efforts. 

Manga legend Naruto Uzumaki’s heroics include his adroit dodging of antagonist Madara’s Light Fang. Imagine a parallel universe called Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road directing its Dark Fang at Naruto: this weapon is the exact opposite of Madara’s, pitch darkness replacing blinding light, but it is just as deadly, if not more. How Naturo would fare on this “pitch-dark” road is probably open to debate, that is, among non-fans. But no discussion is warranted where regular motorists are concerned; they are bound to struggle navigating the road at night. 

Expect a pat and damning word about the road’s lighting quotient from the traffic police personnel from the Kilambakkam station manning the junction of GST Road and Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road, going by what this writer heard from one of them recen: “No lights for twenty kilometres.” That statement ignored the fact that high-mast lamps have been planted in the median at certain key junctions (examples include Kolapakkam and Kandigai) and around educational institutions (examples include Tagore Engineering College, Sri Balaji Polytechnic College, Ramanujar Engineering College and Sri Balaji Arts and Science College). But these high-mast lights (some not so high) but they are few in number, some only partly functional, and collectively, cannot undo that damning remark. For all practical purposes, it is a road plunged in darkness.

At Melkottaiyur on Vandalur Kelambakkam Road | Photo Credit: PRINCE FREDERICK

As if to presage this reality, a majority of the lamps on what is called the New Vandalur Bridge arching over the section of GST Road that nuzzles against Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road shirt work. And hard by, at the toe of Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road, a high-mast lamp functions with a skeletal staff, barring two, the lights are on indefinite medical leave. 

Low median compounds matters

What gives the poor lighting on the road its barbed-wire deadliness is a structural design element on the ground: the low median. The median (maintained well by VIT) is so low that even a gnat can put all its six legs on it in one gentle heave, its wings kept folded in a resting state. Do not parse that idea; that is hyperbole, but you get the point. Except for a 400-metre stretch in Vengambakkam where a high median exists, Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road has a dangerously low median that leaks bipeds (human bipeds) quadrupeds (stray cattle), often taking motorists by round-eyed surprise. Dedicated road-crossings become a joke when every point of the median can be forded with the least of efforts.