Districts drive-thru Part III

Districts drive-thru Part III
Kumbakonam-Neyveli highway and dog farms
A farm for raising Doberman pets in agricultural farmland is as incongruous as an alphonso grove in the Sahara. But there it is. Bang on the road from Kumbakonam as you head towards Neyveli. And a couple of fish farms in the same area tell you that changes are sweeping in the food belt of Tamil Nadu.
Of course, when u drive towards Panrutti you get a glimpse of native produce, unlike in the Thanjavur highway where in the past your car would thresh over grains spread all over the road. From Panrutti you see loads and loads of jack fruits piled anyhow on the sidewalks. A bevy of men and women rushing back and forth. Heavier vehicular traffic as well. Somewhere along the route, a huge hoarding of Sachin clicks into your vision—someone has taken the trouble to display IPL scores in Tamil, exhaustively detailed with data on every round of the tournament.
Posters of ‘Angadi theru’ and ‘Paiyya’ grin at you here and there. But for the most part, the villages are asleep.
Emerging out of the Thanjavur-Kumbakonam highway—which is really only two lanes, and in some places tough going, specially over the bridges—is refreshing. You leave behind brown earth, scraggy ponds where a lily or two is struggling to survive. No bird songs in the air. No summer bees humming the siesta hour. And somehow you get the feeling that this is not a restful summer.
But from Panrutti its a different picture, and when you hit NLC in Neyveli, little heaps of garbage piled on either side of the sprawling industry startles you. Although the complex looks green and well maintained on the outside, you cannot help but compare it with the exterior of BHEL factory in Thiruverambur in Trichy. Even traffic is ore organised there.
But to get back to Neyveli: Clearly, plastic consumption is on the higher side. Red cashew fruits, the heart beat of export from this pocket beckon you, sitting atop the jack fruit pile. But ask them if it has been a good harvest, and you will get a woeful answer.
But a mood changer happens the minute you enter Pondy. The first pavement display is one of wine shop . Unlike other districts, where ‘meals ready’ boards would welcome you from the pavement. A sense of orderliness pervades you as well, reiterating the fact that Pondy is one of the few well designed towns in southern history. There is far less encroachment of pavement and road space here compared to the arterial roads in most districts.
I realise I have merely scratched the surface, in driving through a couple of districts, but even there the decadal changes are too overwhelming. I head to the Promenade, the fine restaurant run by Hidesign. I take the beach road and just when I should take a left turn, guess what I run up against? Civil works under way, so the road is closed. I make a determined detour and land up in Promenade. The lovely basket cane chairs outside beckon me, where I can hear and see the sea and smell the salty air. But the bearers politely tell me I will be uncomfortable. With a sigh I settle in the leather straight backed chairs inside.
A French woman, clad in a summery yellow chiffon sari and a crocheted had gives me a huge smile, while she tells the bearer that what she wanted was tea, not coffee. I smile, order an iced tea and raise a toast to my daughter who made me take the trip—part pilgrimage, part family function and part funereal – while she herself is in the midst of her semester exams.
The taste of fresh herbs tell you that they have a chef who knows how to make your taste buds jump to life. Hours pass by and I recall passages from Hemmingway and Steinbeck. I wish I could do a Travels with Charley. The beaches come alive, with families arriving, poor, rich et al. The sands do not discriminate.
I get on to the ECR. Speeding vehicles, people on cell phones while driving, two-wheelers making unscheduled U-turns are all pointers that I am heading home. It is nearing sun down and the sky is a like the teasing veil of a Rebecca. Grey, orange, with a tinge of blue. I look at huge salt pans on my left, while the backwaters to my right play hide and seek with me. Yes, the private farms on this stretch are flourishing to such an extent that the greenery on this stretch rivals anything that I had driven through when I set out. And I wonder why our kitchen vegetables cannot come from here, instead of elsewhere, stretching our kitchen budgets.
The toll gate mercifully is a one stop shop, for the entire stretch, unlike the upward journey where drivers have to navigate over badly engineered speed breakers, in the nearly half a dozen toll plazas. Except Villupuram where there is a nice gradient.
I turn into Thiruvanmiyur and the holiday is over. Call taxis whose drivers never seem to take their thumbs off the horn, darting pedestrians, beggars at traffic intersections, signals that do not work, and the smell of hot, oily bhajjis from road side shops. The light summer breeze that cools the air, the smiling faces as front doors open.
I am home.