Wall murals in Chennal
Anna Salai, formerly known as Mount Road is one of the major roads in Chennai which is almost 400 years old and has its origins in a cart track which was used by the European employees of the British East India Company to travel from the factory at Fort St George to the holy town of St Thomas Mount where the apostle St Thomas was crucified.
Recently as part of beautifying the city, local government replaced advertisements with beautiful paintings showing the culture and lifestyle of the Tamil people on the outer walls of the public buildings.
This following is the collection belongs to mckaysavage who enjoyed the art and has heart to share with us all. Following is his words and art form his lens.
Built along the city’s main thoroughfare, Anna Salai (Mount Road) in the area of Nandanam Signal, the city has promoted “beautification” of the roadway.
Chennai has been struggling in the battle against encroachment of public space and nowhere is this more apparent that its flat surfaces. Walls, roadways, buildings, all buried under layers of painted slogans and ads, posterbills and unauthorized billboards and hoardings. From the quaint but prolific hand-painted magic show ad graffiti to the movie posterbills for the latest craze they seemed to climb the walls like ivy.
Worse though in the painting department was the appropriation and encroachment of mile and mile of the self-promoting slogans of the political parties (the ruling one being the most prolific).
And then like spiders to the ivy, the signboards, flags, and adverts crawl over any surface, gate, corner or ledge left by the painted, so much so that it can often be hard to see a building at all or identify what it might sell. Giant illegal hoardings host billboard space, blocking sight lines, pedestrian access and even traffic.
But the city, in a positive move we must recognize, has started reversing. They tore down the many illegal hoardings lining the major boulevards and in a smart move, confiscated the iron and sold it as scrap to cover the costs of their overnight removal (I don’t know if they prosecuted the culprits or not. It is not like they are hard to find, posting their contact numbers on their billboards in 15-foot high letters, but at least they’re gone). They have limited their own electioneering slogans (although we are in the lull of election cycles) and started a process of beautification.
Hence this stretch of Anna Salai where they have painted some very lovely murals. Historically these stretches of walls were taken up by graffiti advertising, posterbills and huge stretches of political party slogans. I guess they figured that keeping the walls clean and whitewashed for any length of time was an impossible task, so they decided to cover them with something better instead.
So enjoy the murals. I know it makes the drive nicer for me living nearby. They really are lovely.
And way better than the ads and political slogans were.
