It was when I studied at DAV Higher Secondary School and later at Jaigopal Garodia Vivekananda Vidyalaya (JGVV) near the tower, that I explored the length and breadth of Anna Nagar.
I have walked down, cycled, biked and taken autorickshaws down almost every road of Anna Nagar. The road leading to K4 Police Station from Anna Nagar West is my favourite, as it is full of trees. I remember hearing the chirps of birds there not so long ago.
To me, Anna Nagar has been a city. Having lived further away from it, this is my go-to locality for shopping , eating and meeting friends. Anna Nagar has good government-run shopping outlets, such as Cooptex, Chintamani and the big, now-refurbished Aavin Parlour.
The area lacks a nightlife but has good restaurants, eateries and shopping outlets to make up for it. The place is also full of parks and the Tower Park has been my typical weekend hangout, where I’d spend hours.
The park is surrounded by shops that sell health-related products, such as the natural cure juice shop near Ayyappa Temple, and the vendors who serve medicinal herbal drinks in the morning for the joggers. My fondest memory of the neighbourhood is from 2008, when my friends and I collectively failed at filmmaking. We had attempted a short film version of Ashokamitran's short story inside the park. Our discussions, our dialogue writing and many of the shots were done inside the park.
I was heart-broken when the bookstores there closed down one by one. It was a bittersweet experience when Odyssey Bookstore closed down. We hit a jackpot by buying their last books at the price of peanuts — most of them foreign editions.
Though the Anna Nagar of today has become noisier, a little haphazard, due to the Metro's construction, it does retain the charm that I remember having enjoyed during the nineties.
(Ram Kumar is a manufacturing communications coach, Ford Motor Company.)
