The Chennai Corporation has further pushed the deadline for the completion of the Rs.34.16-crore vehicular subway at Villivakkam to April.

Senior civic body officials said that though the facility to replace Level Crossing- 2 (LC -2) looks complete from outside, civic body officials said work on stormwater drains, service lanes and wells is on.

The Southern Railway, which is responsible for the portion beneath the tracks, would take some more time to complete dewatering and lay the wearing coat. The Corporation would have to connect both sides thereafter.

The work on the subway began in 2008 and the deadline has been pushed several times due to various factors, including land acquisition, removal of encroachments, shifting of service lines, delay in concrete box pushing by the Southern Railway and water seepage and logging after the rains.

If you look at the picture in the original news article, the construction looks far from complete

I was reading a review of an interesting book that was about the murky world of organ trade when I came across this rather interesting nugget that Villivakkam was notorious for kidney trade in the 1990s, so much so it was called Kidneyvakkam!

I don’t recall hearing this before, or perhaps I was not listening to what was going on in my neighbourhood.

Did you know anything about this?

If it had not been for a short jaunt I took along an unintended path, quite on a whim, a couple of weeks back, I would have never known that there existed something called the ICF Lake (also called the Ayanavaram Lake). For someone who had been staying in Villivakkam for ever, you would have thought I should have have known.

It was a fairly dark and gloomy evening and I just walked from across the ICF Stadium and into a lane opposite and just kept walking for a while. Seeing a long but unkempt garden, I was kind of sucked into it. While fooling about the garden vaguely trying to figure out for lost treasures being hidden there a la the Famous Five of Enid Blyton (some people never grow, do they), I was struck by something on the other side of the garden. In failing light, I first thought it was a large puddle of water; nearing it. I found that it was a large, in fact very large, lake.

It is even larger than what the picture above suggests. Apparently the lake always does not look as clean as it does above

The picture right above gives another view of the lake, with even a jetty sliding in – though I believe the jetty is in a far worse condition right now than what can be seen now.

The reservoir was created way back in 1930, and about 1,500 feet long and 900 feet wide. The water was used as the major drinking water source for the nearby localities till 1950. Today the water from the reservoir  is used by the Southern Railway for washing purposes in its workshops. Is that why this large reservoir is left uncared for?

Location of the lake: This is very close to the ICF Stadium, almost diagonally opposite to the stadium.

I was going through this interesting article on the benefits Chennai has had from rainwater harvesting.

First things first. I think RWH is one of the best things that had ever happened to Chennai, and whether or not you are a ADMK supporter, I am sure you will laud her for her focus on getting the RWH implemented.

Anyways, coming back to the article, what interested me in the article was the graph in the beginning. It shows how the TDS (total dissolved solids) has decreased in the various Chennai towns between 2004 and 2009, presumably owing to rainwater harvesting. TDS is a measure of impurity – the higher the TDS, the more impure the water is.

I am reproducing the image below (hopefully, The Hindu will not complain)

The above picture shows that Villivakkam had had one of the lowest TDS even in 2004, and by 2009, it still maintained its position as having one of the lowest TDS.

Who would have imagined that our town will have relatively more pure water than the rest of the towns! Contrast this with socially hep-per part of the towns such as Besant Nagar, which had one of the highest TDS (and thus most impure water). Of course, by 2009, owing to RWH, the water in Besant Nagar appears to have become more pure than that in Villivakkam (though only marginally).

Interesting stuff, what do you say?

Ok folks, can you figure out which lake this is?

Hmmm, am sure many of you would have figured out – the lake at the Agastheerwarar Temple, near the Villivakkam Bus Stand

On the MTH Road, about 100 meters from the Nathamuni theater (which Wikimapia describes as an old theater that has been there for eternity, true enough), on the opposite side of the road, you will find a grand restaurant calling itself Diet Fast Food. I live fairly close by, so you could say it has been my great fortune to read this thoughtful name for a restaurant.

I thought fast food was usually unhealthy because food has to be eaten slowly and chewed well for good digestion – which is why a movement called the Slow Food Movement has come about. In addition, most times what you get in Fast Food menus are unhealthy food stuff (OK, not always, but most times).

Thus, it requires some nerve and imagination to call a fast food restaurant Diet Fast Food, but that is Villivakkam for you

Of course I had expected that Wikipedia would have an entry for Villivakkam – is there anything at all in the world for which Wikipedia DOES NOT have an entry!

What I did not expect the Wiki entry to have were a good set of detailed, useful lists of places, and even transport routes.

Sure, Villivakkam is a lot more than what you will find in the Wiki page, but I would say it is not a bad start!

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on Villivakkam