Nameless in an urban jungle 

AS Chennai Corporation is reportedly hunkering down to the task of correcting nameboards across its zones, The Hindu Downtown invites itself to streets that have an identity crisis in Chennai.

Signage pushed to the ‘backyard’

Imagine walking right through a house, pausing at its farthest end (backyard, if you like) and puzzling out where one is, if one has indeed ended up at the right house. One can expect befuddlement verging on the afore-mentioned scenario at a street in Vettuvankeni. A first-time visitor to First Avenue Main Road, one who has strayed on to it with as much clue about it as about the hypothetical Planet Nine, would put a name to it only after he has taken a few strides down the road. Despite being a heavily populated road, it lacks a name board at the entrance to educate such rank outsiders about itself. The only indication of its name arrives in painted letters (now faded) on a private wall many paces into the road, as these image from November 10 show.

By leaving its street unnamed, this nameboard has some passersby casting around for a name. Recently, when quizzed about the street’s name, every fifth response threw a fresh light on it. It is Nedunchezian Salai (in Sholinganallur), but some call it Infosys Road as a compound wall of the software major’s premises borders on it. Some call it Market Road. Some others, Fish Market Road. A market is indeed located on the road, and both descriptions are on the mark. The road also has a primary health centre, and some may name it in a manner that has a clear reference to it. Though this silent street nameboard might indirectly spread awareness about the various facets of the thoroughfare by being silent, it cannot continue to abdicate its duty, which is to call the street by its designated name, Nedunchezian Salai.

Imagine two spokespersons (not one, but two) for a neighbourhood take the stage to speak up for it. There is an air of expectancy, but it is met with silence, stone-cold silence. No burst of air from their zipped lips. That is the picture one encounters at the entrance of Thandavarayan Street, off Santhome High Road in Mylapore. At what marks the street’s frontispiece, two nameboards are parked and they are as voiceless as a boulder, further pushing into oblivion a neighbourhood that is hidden from plain sight. The two silent nameboards as seen on November 2.