The new Metro - Rapid sketches of mass rapid transport

On 30th June 2015, the new Metro line in our city was inaugurated. It was, quite literally the talk of the town. The Metro has been under construction for 6 years and last week only a short stretch - a tiny sampling - was thrown open to the public. All the major dailies carried stories and first hand reports for several days, so on Sunday a tiny group of us - 3 sketchers - decided to go on a joyride and sketch the experience.

 I wasn't sure if there would be resistance from the staff to sketching. In many heritage sites across India photography is allowed but sketching is banned! In the Delhi Metro photography itself is not allowed. So I took a really small sketch pad and resolved to keep each sketch under five minutes in duration. The platforms are high up at the top and after feeding money into the automatic ticket vending machines we took some really long escalator rides up to the platform.

The vaulted roof is open down the middle at Alandur station where we boarded the train and the whole station is bright and clean - at least for now.

On the train to Koyambedu there are only six stops. The same distance which in rush hour will take you over an hour can be done in under fifteen minutes. On Sunday morning the train was not crowded but there weren't too many empty spots on the benches either. Many families looked like they had come just for a joyride.... like us! 

More than the parents the kids were really thrilled. Though the ride is short you get a great view of the city from above.

When we reached Koyambedu station we had to climb up a level and cross over the platform before descending again to exit. The level up brought us right up to the base of the arch trusses that held up the station roof. Another quick stop to dash off another sketch. Peering down from the parapet the platforms and trains were laid out below us.

From that level the trusses and space frames were a real visual jungle. Someone reminded us that the ticket token is timed (not sure if it's true) and that we should use it to get out soon.

The Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) has bought automatic ticket/gate machines from Japan. The token is kept against a sensor on our way in and the gate opens.On the way out you deposit the same token into a slot so that it allows your exit. Quite simple but for the ever increasing crowds it was all wondrous and baffling. By the time we came out the crowds had swelled considerably and flustered staff were trying to get people to queue up and wait till the machine reset itself for the next person. Queues themselves are a near impossible challenge in our country, and when you add automation to that the novelty is too high!

I really hope it stays clean, disciplined and the rest of the green and blue lines open soon.

Unidentified Yellow Object

This sketch was done just a couple of buildings down from my previous post. It is less about the building and  focuses more on the machinery which fascinated me. The scale of all these assorted cranes, drilling cabling, hissing machines which move with their own slow purposeful rhythms is quite something. This one had two large cylindrical spools. One with a pair of articulated chains and the other with a fat cable.

One tends to forget that it is operated by a tiny human sitting somewhere in it's bowels. In any case we can't see him or the other hundred helmet-clad individuals who are working under grueling conditions when we usually whiz past the barricades on this stretch of Mount road. 

In the hope of making this post more interesting I endlessly searched the web to try to identify this machine coming up with more and more hilarious search phrases but I just couldn't identify it. If anyone knows what this thing is called please do let me know!

Higginbothams.....What looms ahead?

Last sunday morning I managed to sketch something I've been meaning to capture for a long time now. On the arterial and busy Mount Road there has been hectic construction activity for the last couple of years as Chennai hopes to have the first phase of its Metro Rail Project up and running by year end.

Mount Road is one of the five old arterial roads radiating outward from Fort St George, it was a major road when Madras was the capital of the British colony of India and still has several old buildings on it. Hopefully the metro rail in this area will be completely underground and one hopes further that the structures put up as station entry and exit points are done sensitively keeping heritage structures in mind. One can only hope, though, as such plans are not very openly shared in the public realm in this country.

I had particularly wanted to draw this building - Higginbothams - as it is India's oldest bookshop in existence. Yes, that is right! Built in 1844, it has stood to this day housing books of all kinds and even until twenty five years ago it was the place to go to for book lovers.

Soon after it was built, Lord Trevelyan, who was the Governor of Madras wrote :
"Among the many elusive and indescribable charms of life in Madras City, is the existence of my favourite book shop 'Higginbotham's' on Mount Road. In this bookshop I can see beautiful editions of the works of Socrates, Plato, Euripides, Aristophanes, Pindar, Horace, Petrarch, Tasso, Camoyens, Calderon and Racine. I can get the latest editions of Victor Hugo, the great French novelist. Amongst the German writers, I can have Schiller and Goethe. Altogether a delightful place for the casual browser and a serious book lover"

Today, digital technology, the internet, e-books, the ipad and the kindle are elbowing out the good old paperback while at the same time, over-crowded cities bursting at the seams and choked with traffic jams are trying to magically bring in the infrastructure that was never planned for.

Lets hope the metro project has been planned well. Lets hope the project is completed despite whatever the result of the next election, and lets hope it works beautifully for the citizens of this city.