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A daunting task, indeed
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The dust flew and the hands ached. But the students of Pachaiyappa's College had a mission to accomplish... scrape off the graffiti on the college walls that screamed of election messages.
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DESPITE THE humidity, this past Saturday, a group of young men was busy scrubbing the boundary walls of Pachaiyappa's College. Each young man was armed with a steel-bristled brush but the group was up against odds.
The graffiti experts, who had used the boundary walls as a public canvas to scream their election messages and scrawl the names, had done their job well. The dye was fast, and the base — of paper posters — was conducive for the paint to bite right in. The steel bristles barely scratched the surface. The white coat was as fast as the coloured paints that conveyed the names as well as the promise that each made to all who chose to elect them. From across the road, the canvas was impressive and the messages, loud and crisp.
The students, who were doing the work as a part of the National Service Scheme (NSS) project, had begun early. ``We began work at 8.30 a.m. and hope to finish by 2.30 p.m.,'' said L. Vijaykumar, a second year B.Sc. Maths student of the college. A standard six-hour workday that was unlikely to yield the result the enthusiastic group expected.
``We told these people not to paint on our walls. In fact, our principal said he would lodge a complaint with the police. But these people did not bother and went ahead with their art,'' said another student.
It was past 11 a.m. when I saw the group and decided to stop for a chat. What caught my eye first was that they were obviously tired. The fingers were trained to hold a pen, turn the pages of a book, or to pitch a cricket ball; not wield a steel-bristled brush to scrape out poll-related messages from the walls.
The brush just scratched the surface of each message. It was like using a pin to erase a bold stroke of a permanent marker pen. And each young man managed to sustain the scraping for a quarter minute before unadulterated fatigue compelled him to stop for a breath.
``Only the first year and second year students are working round the campus as a part of the NSS project. The third year students have been spared because of their tests,'' said G. Madanagopal, a second year B.A. (Corporate) student, unconsciously flexing his white-dust coated right arm to drive the fatigue away. If you have ever tried scraping some stain off your wall, you will know how difficult the work is. The amount of dust generated was phenomenal. As the bristles bit into the base, the posters below were exposed. And as the bristles tore the paper base, more dust flew. As the group was working close to a bus stop, some passengers with children in tow scurried for cover to avoid breathing in the dust.
But the youths were unmindful of the danger. They had a mission to accomplish: to erase what some other enthusiastic lot had painted so elegantly on the walls. Even though the artists had flouted all norms of responsible civic behaviour by ignoring the plea: ``Notice ottathir'' (Do not stick bills).
GOUTAM GHOSH
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Visakhapatnam
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