The Urban-Rural Divide by Sudhish Kamath : Summary
The Urban-Rural Divide
Sudhish Kamath, a resident of Chennai had written this newspaper article, describing the urban and rural division between the interior city of Chennai and the outskirts of Chennai.
The vast difference which he had experienced within a half an hour travel outside the city limits, made him come up with such an article. He eventually distincts his views about being in a rural area as The bad stuff and The good stuff. He enlists the good and bad stuffs as follows:
The bad stuff:
Power cuts - 12-16 hour
The power crisis, Sudhish mocks the working reality of the government. He tries to bring out the helplessness of the government in resolving the issue with electricity by stating “We've now invested in an inverter and might need help from a generator or solar power if the situation continued”.
Traffic - Two hours less a day
No matter what mode of transport people use, everybody will be spending two hours in traffic to work and back from work. The travel time towards the city limit will only take half an hour by bus, car or motorcycle but the traffic takes an extra hour.
No phones/broadband
Though people in the outskirts of Chennai are ready to afford a Landline or Broadband internet connection, there is no facility to avail these services. As there’s no many neighbours who require the use of Wi-Fi, he stated “Unlike the city, there's no neighbour around to steal Wi-Fi from!”. He mocks the situation by coming up with solutions to rely on data plans and using smartphones to access the internet.
No roads
Since the time of mapping and selling of the plots (30 years ago), people in the outskirts are looking for the 60 feet road to travel rather they have only paths to travel. Those paths which will turn into a pool during the rainy season and which needs terrain vehicles to travel through the dirt, long and bumpy roads.
No Address
The not so necessary address was replaced with the colours of houses. People tend to find others by saying “Look for a pink house. It's the yellow house between the violet house and the rose house.” as there are not many houses.
The good stuff:
Money saving
As the cost of an independent house in the outskirts of Chennai is affordable and less in comparison to that of the city, much of the money will be saved. Sudhish makes fun of this situation by stating that with the saved money: “you could actually buy yourself a big diesel car or two and, more importantly, afford the fuel.”
The joys of having a garden
With the resources and space available he was able to do organic farming and grow varieties of trees like guava, banana, pomegranate, lemon, coconut and mango. Alongside he is also enjoying the freshness of air, fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Privacy and space
The pains taken to travel and visit a person living in the rural part will filter out the pesky neighbours or relatives.
Traffic
“No roads means no traffic”, says Sudhish, bringing out the perks of living in the outskirts. Places outside of the city limit will take only an hour to travel to other cities like Bangalore and the green backdrop of nature with all trees and fields will bring peace and happiness while travelling. With all its boon and ban rural spots will bring sheer joy and it will help people to see what life is.
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