Whenever given the chance, the monkey species called Homo sapiens has always deceived one another. Deception is its favorite pastime. Despite discovering countless ways to control this deceptive trait, the species has yet to find a permanent solution. Even though this monkey species now calls itself human, the deceptive nature within remains undiminished.
Passing by the Nellai Junction bus stand, I often forget my own problems and feel like an outsider belonging to a different species.
Let me tell you the reason for this. Yesterday evening, when the intensity of the heat remained unabated, I crossed the Nellai Junction bus stand. An elderly woman, unable to bear her weight on her frail legs, let out a heavy sigh and sat down right on the gleaming concrete floor with her heavy bundles. On another side, a mother wandered frantically across that grand commercial complex, unable to give even a sip of water to her crying, parched child. She finally begged and received a glass of water from a nearby shop.
This misery unfolds inside the Periyar Bus Stand, built under the Smart City project at a cost of about Rs. 85 crores. Every single day, this happens to someone. While individuals pass through their personal struggles, the human brains that meticulously designed multi-crore, three-story buildings and grand commercial complexes seem to have completely missed a basic point. How did they lack the fundamental sense to install a few seats for the elderly and women waiting for hours to travel to Tenkasi and Surandai? They claim bus stands are for the convenience of passengers, but sucking up the tax money of ordinary people and forcing them to sit on the bare floor—what kind of exploitation is this? Is this the meaning the government attributes to the word 'Smart'?
An even more heart-wrenching contradiction hides in a petition submitted by the Nellai Junction Periyar Bus Stand Merchants Association to the Corporation Mayor on the 22nd. During the recent floods, mud buried one of the borewells, leaving only a single borewell to supply water to the entire bus stand. Even the pay-and-use toilets do not have water. The merchants actually pleaded with the government saying, "If the Corporation cannot provide a new borewell, at least give us the permission; we merchants will unite and install one at our own expense." Can we simply walk past this dark reality where citizens, who properly pay their taxes and rent, have to beg the government to spend their own hard-earned money for a basic right?
Showcasing gleaming buildings and making us believe that it is 'development' is nothing but the ultimate modern version of the deceptive trickery that has continued from the early humans to this very day.
