At the outset, these are my personal views so no offence meant to anybody.
The growth of the city is certainly putting enormous pressure on the city's infrastructure. The roads have too much traffic, there are no footpaths, and, a little rain, pedestrians are forced walk in the middle of the road. In most roads you will be happy if you can drive at more than 20KMPH.
The lack of enough buses have resulted in something called a 'share auto'. This is a small three wheeled or four wheeled vehicle that carries something like 10 or 12 people packed like sardines. The drivers of these share autos are kings of the road. They drive where they want, park where they want, and honk at you continuously.
Two wheeler drivers and drivers of three wheeler autos are what I call 'cockroaches'. If they see an inch some where, they will just poke their nose in and create an instant traffic jam. Traffic rules and traffic lights have no meaning for them.
Two days of rain, and the roads are full of water. All the roads develop instant pot holes which are invariably 'repaired' just before the next rains. The Municipal Corporation, makes heroic efforts to help people from water logged areas, but I cannot understand why they can never think of a long term solution. Something like 50,000 new houses are coming up in a 10 KM stretch with no sanitation, no waste disposal, no water and other basic infrastructure mechanism in place.
In all these cases, the state government and police have been a complete failure. In a conversation sometime ago, when I posed this question to the Police Commissioner, he just shrugged his shoulders and said there are too many vehicles, and people have to follow rules. And what are his people doing? Giving protection to VIPs, and blocking traffic when some idiotic leader is driving somewhere.
The culture of the city is also changing. The city is becoming more cosmopolitan. Most restaurants and beauty parlours are now overflowing with young girls from Nepal, Bhutan, NEFA, and Arunachal Pradhesh. I am sure, in time, this will lead to the inevitable exploitation of these girls by unsavoury elements. People without jobs in the northern states are flowing in hordes into the city and changing the landscape of the city. Road anger is becoming very common as is the use of rude language in everyday conversation.
The city has it's areas that behave differently. North Chennai is changing dramatically allowing the influx of people. South Chennai is more sedate with house owners being careful in the kind of tenants they take in.
The state government is competing with Mumbai, and is creating a financial district spread over some 200 acres. This will only add to more people shifting to the city and more confusion.
Fortunately, some areas of the official mechanism is yet sticking to old age ideas intermixed with modern e-governance. E-Governance is Chennai is one of the best in the country. Every aspect of the official machinery is computerised and you can access everything through the Net. Paying things like water tax and property tax is a breeze, as is getting water, milk, gas, etc.
Though there are some instances of violence, Chennai (touch wood) is yet peaceful, and people do not walk around with lathis in their hand. But I am very much afraid it is only a question of time.
My wife and I have decided to retire in Coimbatore and are already looking at property there that we can occupy in some 10 to 15 years.
Cheers
