Tower Park

When you arrive in Chennai you are greeted by a huge flourescent sign 'Anna International Airport', and as you travel around you come across many things, places etc that begin with 'Anna'

My extensive reseach (2 minutes on Google) reveals that 'Anna' comes from the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (this is the State that Chennai is the capital of), Dr. CN Annadurai.

He is remembered as a person who served the people with extreme honesty and dedication. He had such a mesmerizing and gripping impact on the people that they affectionately began to greet him with the name 'Anna', meaning elder brother.

We live in Anna Nagar (Nagar meaning 'area or locality'). Part of our suburb is Tower Park (or to give it its oficial name Visweswaraya Tower Park), a delightful place that we walk through daily on our way to coffee and also a place we sometimes visit in the early evening when we can, as it is then that it comes alive with people. The tower is referred to by locals as Chennai's Eifel Tower.

In one way it is beautiful and in another very sad, because like most things we have seen, it is in great need of repair. Since we have been here the actual tower has been closed. To get to the top there is a circular ramp that you walk up but it has been locked. The Hostel girls have been to the top and tell us that there are spectacular views from there.

When you enter the park from our place you go through a delightful playground with all the normal equipment. This is where we took the girls on Easter Saturday. The park contains extensive fountains that are very rarely turned on and so are filled with all sorts of garbage.

On our daily walk in the morning the park is pretty deserted. The odd couple sitting and talking but not much else. If you visit after 5:00 pm the place really comes alive. There are vendors everywhere selling all the things we don't want but lots of things little kids love from balloons and fairy floss to toys with flashing lights.

There are families everywhere enjoying the warm Indian evenings. The playground is packed with kids enjoying the swings, seesaws and climbing frames. All with no warning signs, no rubber matting underneath and some with dangerous, sharp metal protrusions. Yes, a playground that would be condemned in Australia, but here it is an utter delight to everyone who comes.

Another great part of the park is the roller skating rink where in the afternoon there is coaching and races for the kids. The cones are laid out to form a makeshift track and adults are there to organise it and away they go. It is great to sit and watch as the kids are encouraged to go harder and faster. We only spotted one 'over competetive' coach who wanted to whip his charges with a length of cord attached to his whistle as they passed him on the corner.

The kids and the parents seem to enjoy themselves and the 'over competetive' coach just gets more frustrated as the evening wears on.

Another evening feature is the groups of people sitting talking. It is like the Indians are suffering from 'Aussie BBQ' syndrome. On one side of the fountain there were groups of 10 - 15 women sitting talking while the males are in the same configuration on the other side.

There are families everywhere and as usual everyone wants to talk to us and have their photo taken with us. We spent quite a bit of time with a Muslim family who befriended us. They enquired about what we were doing, wanted us to tell them all about educational opportunities in Australia and express their opinions on how good the Indian cricket team was and asked us to pray a blessing on their children (which is a very common occurrence in India).

In the interest of cross-cultural unity IW confined me to just a few comments on the absurdity of the cricket statements being made. We had the family photos taken, exchanged email addresses and that night sent off the photos and have since received a delightful reply thanking us.

At a time in the evening when most Australian families would be home putting their children to bed, Indian families are out in evening enjoying the cool weather and 'tiffin' (snacks). This fits into their evening time frame as dinner (for everyone including children) is not until 8:30 pm at the earliest and for some not until 10:00 pm.

The park is a great meeting place and is full of wonderful features. There is a lot of work going on that we will cover in our next story. Here are a few more pictures from Tower Park.