As an unwritten rule, traffic rules in the temple town are there to be flouted.
Parking of four-wheelers near the Ranga Ranga Gopuram in Srirangam, where a police board clearly bans parking, is a clear testimony to the callous attitude of public and authorities towards such directives. Invariably four-wheelers outnumber two-wheelers at the site.
Though the four-wheelers have a separate parking lot at East Uthirai Street, most of them do not bother to use it because their masters might have to wait for a couple of minutes more for the vehicles to arrive when they come out of the temple. The drivers who stay put in the vehicles for hours together contribute to a different problem.
Though the pay and use toilet is hardly about 25 metres from the parking lot, most of them choose to use the space behind the temple car in front of the Ranga Ranga Gopuram as the public convenience, which causes intolerable stench.
A vagrant has been lying under the temple car for long and the spot has turned into a cesspool.
The residents, who are afraid of incurring the wrath of the drivers but unable to put up with the stench, wonder how the authorities who pass by continue to turn a blind eye to the issue.