Their are two sides to Link Road, a road that connects Dams Road in Anna Salai and Ethiraj Salai in Egmore. And these two sides are clear as daylight, their dissimilarities standing out for everyone to see.
One needs to look only at the walls on these two sides to tell them apart.
The side that girdles the Cooum sports a new pavement. Along with the new pavement came a painted wall.
The other side has a wall that draws attention for its lacklustreness. It is drab. The only interesting part is the numbers that have survived time and weather. These numbers hark back to a day when roadside hawkers were assigned “shops” on this road. Due to lack of patronage, they turned their back on this road, looking for greener pastures.
With the plan to establish vending zones afresh in the air, would it make sense to revisit the old project to have this road as a vending zone?
Clearly, an effort has been undertaken to redeem this road from squalor, but it seems to have impacted only one vertical half of it. It is better to keep the foot on the pedal and effect a total transformation of this road, which might even do well as a health walk track.
Besides, even on the side that was spruced up and given a new look, there is a lesson on what neglect can do to some of the better patches. Weeds are growing around some of the newly planted saplings, as illustrated by one of the images.
