It was going to be a marriage of convenience — not just to the two partners involved, but “Everyone” around them. The “Everyone” encompasses at least a couple of neighbourhoods in Egmore.
The planned union was between two stormwater drains — each found on one of the two stretches of Pantheon Road, which connect to the Egmore Roundtana — but not with each other; not yet. One is avowedly from British times, and it does bear the clear imprint of stone masonry from those times. Given its age and the number of monsoons it had weathered, this SWD is well-preserved.
The other SWD is in the first flush of youth, deriving its strength from concrete and thermo-mechanically treated bars.
The marriage was going to be solemnised at the Egmore Roundtana. Given the bustle at this roundabout, Greater Chennai Corporation and the traffic police had to lock their heads together really hard to draw up an execution plan that would be swift on its feet.
The best bet for a swift operation, pre-cast slabs were massed up on both sides of Police Commissioner Road. Preparations for the Big Day were under way. At the “final reading of the banns”, Metro Water drains showed up and played spoilsport, bringing the planned union of the SWDs under a cloud. As a GCC official close to the development put it back then, due to alignment problems with Metrowater drains, the work is being put on hold. These drains were spewing out their contents when digging for the SWD link-up work was being carried out.
For some time, this dug-up portion outside the police officer’s mess was kept cordoned off, as hopes of resuming the work lingered.
However, fear that more digging would likely cause another stream of “effusive protest” from the Metro Water drains forced GCC to decide to enter the monsoon without ensuring a partnership between these two SWD systems.
The precast slabs are still waiting for the union to happen.
The GCC official familiar with the developments in this area notes the SWD work at the Egmore Roundtana will be undertaken after the pending SWD work on Casa Major Road is completed.
Attending to the missing links
Greater Chennai Corporation’s stormwater drain work can be explained best with loan words from stitching. The running stitch signify stormwater drain projects that ran like Forrest Gump, without taking a breather, the entire line being completed at one go. There are any number of examples from across Chennai to illustrate this.
The zigzag stitch explains efforts that required the work to travel transversely across the road (the best example of this came from a section of from Dr Ranga Road) and also to connect two SWD networks from two streets a busy junction (the best illustration arrived at the junction of Thirumalai Pilla Road and Bazullah Road. The blind-hem stitch is usually reserved for mending a cloth with a tear. It applies to SWD networks that have missing links. “Blind-hem stitches” are now being effected along Sydenhams Road in Periamet; as its SWD network could not meet its deadline last monsoon.
