Palavakkam: A Village No More

Palavakkam: An Introduction

Palavakkam, in real terms, is a suburb of Chennai, located past the locality of Thiruvanmiyur on the East Coast Road, around 6 kilometres from Adyar. However, in administrative terms, Palavakkam is a census town coming under the Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu. The 2001 census data pegs the population of Palavakkam at 14,369 but this data, ten years down the line seems redundant. Literacy rates are unsurprisingly healthy, and in terms of human development, its situation is fairly respectable.

History

Based on the information I gleaned by way of casual interviews, this place doesn’t have much of a history per se. This particular zone used to be, for all intents and purposes, a fishing village that came under the Palavakkam Panchayat (still does) and was composed of mostly poor to lower middle-class families belonging to the Dalit and Nayakkar communities.

Current Scenario


This is where things get as interesting as they can possibly get for an exercise of this nature. If one casts a glance at the way this area has developed over the past decade and a half, it will be difficult to believe that this used to be a fairly (economically) insignificant settlement consisting mostly of fishermen living in semi-permanent dwellings. This erstwhile village has, in a manner of speaking, become a satellite town. The observable changes are in terms of:

• Retail Stores and Showrooms

Branches of well-known retail chains are popping up along the Palavakkam stretch of the ECR – apparel brands like Puma and Reebok, departmental stores like the Aditya Birla Group’s More and Singapore Shoppe, Cell-phone retail chains like UniverCell as well as cellular service providers, automobile showroom franchisees like those of Bajaj Auto Limited and the Hyundai Motor Company, etc.

• Essential Amenities

Doctors’ clinics, dentists’ clinics, salons, medical stores, electrical stores, hardware stores, smaller grocery stores, three petrol bunks, automobile repair garages like that of Bosch, Ltd. which caters to owners of imported cars on request, numerous eating establishments like the noted Chinese restaurant The Cascade and KFC, among others.

• Connectivity to Chennai proper

The East Coast Road is like an artery that links Chennai proper to these parts, autorickshaws ply on these roads regularly, and buses link this zone to the Thiruvanmiyur bus depot, which in turn is connected to other important bus-stands across the city.

• Residential Areas

Palavakkam is home to several members of the staff of the University Of Madras, who live in a colony, and the huge stone arch at its gate is a major landmark – there are over 200 houses for these people. In addition, there is a lot of private property owned by the upwardly mobile who are not employed by the University of Madras. These are the ones who have plush and swanky, well-appointed (usually) two-storey houses and villas, mostly facing the beachfront or located thereabouts. Also, there exists a branch of Kaakkum Karangal, a home for the aged, the destitute and the orphaned.

Some of the houses close to the beach

• Places of Worship

There is a Ganesh temple close to the entrance to the University Colony. Palavakkam is home to the Seashore St. Anthony Shrine, Diocese of Chingleput – which is an imposing structure. There is another smaller church, the CSI Church of Jesus Christ on the main road, as there is a mosque around 500 metres from it.

CSI Church of Jesus Christ, Palavakkam

• Leisure

Palavakkam, of course, is next to a beach – early in the morning one can see middle-aged to elder people sweating it out jogging and exercising; wannabe cricketers invade the roads in the evenings; and in the weekend one can see hundreds of people thronging the beach and it has become quite the popular evening haunt. Also, there are a couple of private beach resorts – one among them being the Green Meadows Resort and a tennis academy in the area. Further down the road on the ECR, slightly beyond Palavakkam are the VGP Golden Beach, the Mayajaal Movie Theatre and MGM Dizzee World, an amusement park.

The Curious Case of Palavakkam’s Development

It is not very difficult to conjure up an image of the way things stand in this locality if one takes into account all the above factors. On the face of it, it would seem that explaining these developments is fairly straightforward – the city expanded, swallowed this village and consequently, these changes have been brought about.

However, a closer look reveals that that hasn’t been the case: this has not been the case of the city growing outwards and incorporating the settlement into itself, but this has been a scenario where a small, relatively low-income settlement has seen a burst of expansion, and has gradually integrated itself a part of the main city. Chennai has become quite a congested city over the past decade –even though it is still a long way behind Kolkata and Mumbai. My own explanation for these state of affairs is Palavakkam as well as more such coastal locales down the ECR (like Neelankarai and Injambakkam) are witnessing these kinds of expansions because of the fact that the financially well off are seeking to live in relatively pollution-free and pleasant environs, away from the bustle of the city: and these beach-facing localities are giving them the opportunity to do just that. The distance from the main parts of Chennai is not an issue anymore, because of the improved road network. Property prices were much lower back in the nineties, and those who bought plots of land or built houses in an area like Palavakkam have been laughing all the way to the bank – in one case, a 2-storey house in the VGP Layout, Palavakkam was built sometime in the early nineties, sold for around Rs. 35 Lakhs in 2002, and then resold recently for close to Rs. 2 Cr. Classified ads in newspapers will tell us that a plot of land measuring 2400 square feet is quoted at Rs. 1.5 Cr. Also, if we observe the land use patterns, we’ll see that some have opted to purchase plots of land and leave them unused – because there’s no foreseeable depreciation on the property.

So much for the way the rich are shaking things up – what about the fisherfolk who were after all, the original inhabitants of this area? Well, things may have marginally improved for them (better sanitation, steady water and electricity supply), but they have been completely marginalised in so many ways. These people have been pushed farther and farther away by the massive real-estate boom, living in small semi-pucca houses and in shanties – several of them have quit fishing and found other jobs within the city. Plus, the construction of these new houses has meant that there is a significant migrant population (primarily from Assam, Bihar and Orissa) that works here and has, to some degree, increased congestion in those low-income residential areas. In a way, this can be termed as gentrification, which refers to ‘the changes that result when wealthier people ("gentry") acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities’. Because of gentrification, the average income increases in the community, but the situation of the poorer initial residents of the area becomes worse – they are unable to pay rents and property taxes, and usually end up displaced. New businesses catering specifically to the needs of the affluent consumer base move in, further skewing the situation against the relatively poor. Ecologically, the overall general influx has meant that the erstwhile pristine beaches are being laid to waste – by garbage and sewage dumping (waste water from septic tanks is released onto the beach sands – this seems to be common elsewhere in Chennai, or for that matter, other coastal cities and towns in the country).

Voluntary beach cleaning effort undertaken by the residents of Palavakkam

If we look at Henri Lefebvre’s framework as explicated in ‘The Urban Revolution’, he talks of exchange and trade being the primary reasons for kickstarting the process of urbanisation: here, though, it seems to be a case of the affluent seeking out areas of relative peace and quiet in the periphery of an urban settlement., and in the process the area is gradually becoming they very kind of area they wanted to stay away from in the first place. But I guess the beachfront location ensures that the area remains in demand for a while.


PS: Due to the fading light by the time I got there this Saturday, there were not many decent photos I could click with the sub-par camera on the phone. I will upload better pictures on Friday.