As far as I have been able to figure out, there are only two flyovers in the city which have been named for someone. No prizes for guessing the first one - it was the first flyover in the city. Most people however continue to refer to it by the name of the locality where it is at - Gemini. That practice continued with the new flyovers which came up, whether it was on Peters Road, or at IIT. I am not sure if the officials thought of any other names for those flyovers, but none have been christened, officially. For some reason, this flyover, which opened about a year ago, was treated differently. It was named. There is only one reason why they named it what they did. Over 40 years ago, in January 1969, a statue of 'Kalaivanar' N.S.Krishnan was unveiled at this junction and ruled over it from a traffic island at the centre. It was the last public function attended by Aringar Anna, the then Chief Minister - and a mentor, at least in their minds, to several present-day politicians in the state. Kalaivanar himself is also a much revered personage; such a combination bestowed the statue with a great deal of emotional value. The construction of the flyover meant the statue had to be removed. It was brought back though it is now to a side of G.N.Chetty Road, under the flyover. If that wasn't enough to soothe the statue's sentiments, the flyover was also named after N.S.Krishnan - it is called 'Kalaivanar Mempaalam' (Kalaivanar bridge/flyover) - thus becoming the second named flyover in the city. There are rumours of the flyover on Cenotaph Road being named after Moopanar, but there has not been any announcement of that yet. If you still haven't figured out the name of the first one, it is simple enough. The one at Gemini is called 'Anna Mempaalam'. Well, you can try to argue that it is just an extension of Anna Salai on which it is located, but that wouldn't get you too far!
When it first started off in Chennai a few years ago, it had the 'Madurai' tag to it and was called 'Madurai Murugan Idli', following in the footsteps of the all-time famous Madurai Muniyandi Vilas. The similarity ends there. Murugan is all about tiffin items, whereas Muniyandi is all about heavy duty food; where Murugan is completely vegetarian, Muniyandi cannot be appeased without meat; and now, where Murugan has sought to play down the Madurai connection and become part of the Chennai mainstream, Muniyandi will never think of stooping to such levels. Maybe Murugan Idli is more Madras than Madurai these days. Their website lists five locations in Chennai and only three in Madurai. Anyone walking into Murugan Idli expecting several varieties of idli is bound to be disappointed. They only have the regular soft idli, but several varieties of vadas, dosas and uthappams. Dreams of Kanchipuram idli, rava idli, ghee idli, idli upma, or even the miniature '14 idlis' are missing completely. There is idli and then there are the other tiffin items. It wouldn't be so bad if there was some level of consistency to the texture and the taste of the idli; sometimes it is hot to the point of being sticky and at other times it just melts in one's mouth. About inter-location variances, the less said the better. There is always a niggling doubt if all the outlets are run by the same management - except for the steel receptacles to hold the flimsy plastic water cups in place, there is little else that's common to them. But when they get it right (and they very often do), the idli is just ambrosia. That's when one understands that all the others are just pretenders, there can only be one idli, as some of the purists say!
There was a time when traffic on GN Chetty Road was a nightmare, but ever since they began building this flyover on it, traffic seems to have thinned out a lot. Maybe that could also be because Thirumalai Pillai Road was made a one-way street, emptying out from GN Chetty Road, about the same time. So was it all that was needed to be done to relieve the traffic congestion?This photograph was taken a couple of months ago and it looks like it will take at least two more months before this flyover is opened to traffic. Will this flyover also go the way of the one on Usman Road? One hopes not; GN Chetty Road used to have a fair amount of tree cover at this spot. Almost all of it has been stripped away to make space for the flyover and the carriageways on its sides. At that time, there was some consolation in believing that the flyover would help make life better. It would be worse than criminal if it turns out that the solution to the traffic problem lay elsewhere.And if that does happen, I wonder what the old man in this story (? Fact??) would feel. Or has he been devastated enough, already?
