Squalor by the side of an arterial road in Kelambakkam

A garbage transit point on Kovalam to Kelambakkam Link Road in Kelambakkam has been around for quite a while and the only noticeable change is an effort to push the refuse a little afield, a little away from the road, a busy road particularly during weekends.

Animals being guided more by instinctual responses than cognitive decisions, they flow with their biorhythms effortlessly. With an early afternoon sun beating down on Santhoshapuram on Tambaram Velachery Main Road, a herd of bovines are recumbent, their bodies instinctively sensing the possibility of heat stress.

They are chewing the cud and given the nature of their immediate environment, there is concern over that “cud”.

Plastics are strewn across a vacant space, one abutting the compound wall of Nanmangalam reserve forest. As they poke around in the garbage for edibles, they have likely ingested pieces of plastic.

Garbage packed in huge plastic covers sit stubbornly on one patch. Garbage is strewn all the way into the carriageway. If such squalor can be visited on an arterial and busy road such as this, one wonders where interior roads stand.

A habitue of this section notes garbage is being dumped here under the cover of darkness. He gives a clean chit to the conservancy workers of the local civic body -- Vengaivasal Gram Panchayat.

He points out Vengaivasal Gram Panchayat workers keep cleaning the place, but their task is as eternal as Sisyphus’ and just as frustrating.