There was someone at the door. It was past noon; too early for her husband to return from work but Pushpa nevertheless went to check: a man squat, holding on to the iron door, urinating. He was drunk.
“I asked him if he was not ashamed. He stood up and tried to hit me and hit the door instead,” said the 26-year-old housewife. She blames her neighbours, separated by two walls and a roof – a fast food restaurant in front and facing the road, a Tasmac outlet to the left, and on top, a bar.
‘Close outlets’
E. Pushpa is among 1,020 people who signed a petition to the Ponneri RDO on Monday calling for the closing of two Tasmac outlets in Nappalayam, about 25 km to the north of Chennai. The two bar-attached outlets, numbers 8744 and 9082, face each other along the Ponneri-Thiruvottiyur Road and are in the cross-hairs of a grassroots movement that wants to close about 30 outlets across 10 districts ahead of the elections.
Protest today
Pushpa said she will join a May 5 sit-in outside the outlet, to be organised by Makkal Adhikaram. “Men urinate right in front of my house. When they get drunk, they get off the bar and walk on to our roof,” the mother of two girls said.
A large padlock hangs at the door, even when the family is inside.
Ahead of polls in the state, all major parties have promised the implementation of prohibition, in various degrees.
Yet, the people of Nappalayam say they do not want to leave things to chance. G. Dakshayani, who lives behind outlet, 9082 got into an argument with a party’s representative on Monday: “I told them to come back after they closed the Tasmac outlet.”
