On the Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road, a cactus snakes around a concrete signboard that announces the advent of Sonallur Panchayat. On hindsight, that was revelatory. On both sides of this state highway, Sonallur sprawls like a wrinkled green carpet. Hamlets are tucked into those wrinkles. A vast expanse of Sonallur is plain wilderness, with its western section identified as Sonallur reserve forest. An inner compass directs me to the less-acknowledged eastern part of Sonallur and I drive down what is an apology for a road. Sonallur Main Road is dusty and bumpy but is a significant stretch as it leads to Karanai reserve forest, where it merges into a bitumen-topped road that hits Thalambur and finally Old Mahabalipuram Road at Navallur. In fact, residents of these hidden hamlets call this stretch, ‘Navallur Road’.
A concrete signboard on Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road.
A few metres down Sonallur Main Road, I come upon a small lake that seems to have been created for quiet walkarounds. For most of the residents, the lake doesn’t have a name. One resident calls it Sitheri. I head into the forest opposite the lake and, and the feature that registers first in my mind is a criss-cross of trails. Unlike the Karanai reserve forest, which I explored a couple of weeks ago, this one does not seem to have even one significant, well-trodden and broad trail. After a few metres, most trails are truncated and all of them are just a foot-wide. The land seems to present a microcosmic view of human existence. Often, we are not presented with the problem of pathlessness, but with that of too many enticing paths.
A trail in the Sonallur forest.
I decide on one path — as I have to — and this takes me around thorny clumps of green and stunted shrubs. There are not many trees to look at, but the winding pathway is absorbing. I could have walked for well over a kilometre, and from the hum of vehicular traffic, I become aware that the state highway is a just a few steps away. Just when I hope to go further down the path and hit the highway, I notice it disappear into a mess of thorny foliage. As I retrace my steps back to Sonallur Main Road, I cannot help thinking that our paths may never take us where we want them to, but we have to keep walking and discovering new trails in the journey of life, though it may seem to be headed nowhere.
( This column shows you how to be a tourist in your own city )
