Placing an invisible Chetpet in the spotlight

Walks decoding neighbourhoods have a thick cladding of facts, usually ferreted out of yellowing documents. Emotions come into play only as the accompanist, never the guitar-strumming, crooning frontman. Facts and feelings meet without getting entwined. A walk titled “Chetpet” takes a detour from this standard format, having almost every fact infused with emotion. Designed as a community-led walk, that infusion is not just acceptable, but desirable. Authored by Yein Udaan, a non-profit in the education sector, this walk is still softly trodden, being just two outings old. In October 2024 and for Women’s Day in 2025, the walk was conducted in collaboration with Madras Inherited. Ashmitha Athreya, lead storyteller and head of operations at Madras Inherited, observes that her organisation imparted to the Yein Udaan team, largely composed of members from an “invisible” part of Chetpet, an understanding of what makes a walk stick in the head long after the shuffle of curious feet had died down; how to delineate the route and integrate storytelling into it. “This is structured as a cultural walk. Community history is central to it. It is a sharing of stories about the community,” Ashmitha explains.