While many a word has been published about it in newsprint, while many a forum has trash talked it in the Internet, while many a 'kuttai suvar' has witnessed animated discussions over the issue, I don't think the last has been discussed about the removal of advertisement hoardings in Chennai.
The popular opinion amongst the citizens of this city has been one of relief; relief that the hoardings have been removed and the "beauty of the city" has been restored!
You see, it is this precise point that I object to. I am actually happy that hoardings are gone, but mainly from the perspective that the whole things was illegal. I only wanted some regulation in the whole setup.
But the patrons of the city actually think that this city has miraculously started looking beautiful once these hoardings were removed! Believe you me, the hoardings ensured that you didn't have to see much of the garbage on the road. It ensured that shrubs that had grown out of control were hidden from our sight. You didn't have to see the poorly maintained, moss coated, stained and broken outer walls of many of the old buildings in the city.
Of course, the hoardings distracted you from the dirty reality by presenting images of people/vehicles etc. With the continuous improvement in technology, these images have started to look closer to life and are also filled with vivid colors. Digressing as usual, I still remember from my school days, a hoarding on Adyar bridge that featured an ad for the Liril soap. Those days, there used to be painters painting the whole thing on the hoarding. For this aforementioned ad which featured the then Liril girl in their "traditional" bikini, the painter who had drawn her image was basically too carried away from the image he was looking at and the end result on the hoarding was quite interesting!
Anyways, coming back to present times, I somehow miss the hoardings. There should be at least a few, but these have to be well regulated. On a side note, my parents are also not happy with the removal of the hoardings. Some of the comments they made after going around the city last evening:
"The landscape looks barren"
"I miss the images"
"The light on the roads has reduced"
"I am seeing too many dirty buildings"
"The city now looks like the forehead of the erstwhile mottai paati types"
1 comment:
What surprises me is that for a society of proud, dignified people things like the "Two-tumbler" atrocities that denigrate their social fabric to unbelievable levels, how come, very little seems to be said for the "countless thousands" of painters who are now out of work, as there is nothing to paint.
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