The road along Kestopur Canal, between AB and AD blocks, may be named Barnaparichay Rasta, if the corporation has its way. The naming of the road was ratified at a meeting of mayoral council members of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation.
According to civic sources, besides renaming the road Barnaparichay Rasta they would install motifs of Bengali alphabets and popular characters from Sukumar Roy’s Abol Tabol along the stretch.
“We thought of giving a road in Salt Lake a name as it would help people identify it. None of the roads in Salt Lake have names and it gets difficult for outsiders to navigate or drive inside the township,” said mayor Krishna Chakraborty.
She did not explain why the AB to AD Block stretch was chosen when the road stretches from AA to SA Blocks. Nor did she explain why the name was selected.
Barnaparichay, of course, is the path-breaking 1855 book by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar introducing learners to the Bengali alphabet. September 26 this year would mark the 200th birth anniversary of the educationist and social reformer.
Streets in the township are formally known as Avenues and Crossroads — first, second and so forth — they are hardly used by residents. First Avenue would more likely be known as the street from PNB Island to Tank 8, for instance.
After coming to power in 2010, the Trinamul-run civic board had wanted to name streets after eminent personalities but the Opposition had pointed out that the major roads in Salt Lake were maintained by the urban development department and Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority and that the civic body maintains only roads inside the blocks. The project died a natural death. The Telegraph Salt Lake had reported the issue on July 9, 2010.
AC Block
Green stretch
The AB to AD Block stretch is rather green. While one side has homes the other has the Green Verge, followed by the canal and then VIP Road.
Grass on the AB Block side of the Green Verge could be trimmed shorter but overall the stretch is reasonably well-maintained. “People used to come here for morning and evening walks but we’ve kept it under lock and key during the lockdown,” said the guard at the AD Block portion of the park. “A side entrance is open only to allow people to use the municipal tap inside.”
Some sections of the fence are broken and others have wild growth through them, intertwined with cables overhead. Two vats, however, ruin the view. The one at AB Block was almost empty but some trash lay outside on the road. The vat at AD Block had a lot of branches and leaves spilling out onto the road. While the vat itself was hardly full, the garden waste had covered more than one flank of the road outside.
An empty plot at the beginning of AB Block even has a few hutments built on it and if one is lucky, one can spot the beautiful VIP Road flyover on the other side of the road through the trees in the verge here.
The junctions of AB-AC blocks as well as of AC-AD blocks have tea shops and rickshaw stands. The state of the road is better than many around the township at the moment.
AD Block
For the motion
Abhisek Chakrabarti, a resident of AC Block, is tired of telling people he lives “on the khal dhaar”. “People associate the canal with mosquitoes and get a negative first impression of my home,” he says. “Every lane outside Salt Lake has a name and I welcome the idea of having a respectable name for where I live too. It would be easier to give directions to visitors.”
Pallabi Maiti, an entrepreneur, too feels the road deserves a better name than “khal paar”. “It’s a good idea but maybe a shorter name would be suitable. Also, Barnaparichay would be a tongue twister for residents who are not Bengalis. Domestic helps and security guards would hardly be able to remember such a long name too,” says the AD Block resident.
AD Block’s Saumitra Maiti agrees. “No one understands names like First Avenue and Second Crossroad. Barnaparichay sounds secular and apolitical. But a name should have a link with the road. It’s only names like Mahatma Gandhi Road and Netaji Subhas Road that can be assigned to any street anywhere in the country. So why suddenly Barnaparichay?”
AD Block
Nay sayers
Riju Roy, a resident of AD Block, feels the colloquial name “canal side road” is descriptive and functional. “The way renaming Tollygunge Metro station as Mahanayak Utam Kumar led to confusion, so will this. It will be years, if not a generation before people call it Barnaparichay road,” says the IT sector employee. “If it must be renamed, it should be something related to trees, given how green the stretch is.”
Another AD Block resident proposes the stretch be called Bhaba Sarani since the Variable Energy Cyclotronic Centre under Homi Bhabha National Institute, is located here. “Besides, I doubt the chief minister will allow such a move. Some years ago water tanks of the township were named but each of them was, not one. They should do the same with roads — all or none,” he says. “In any case, the major roads of the township are under the CMDA. It is they who can rename the roads and not the corporation.”
Others could not care less. “A road by any other name would be just as bad,” AD Block’s Swapan Kumar Brahma shakes his head. “They dig it up to lay cables and move on without covering the ditch. The footpaths have paver blocks but they are so slippery after the rains that no one dares walk on them. Amphan debris are still lying about, residents dump their trash, the statues are cleaned only on the eve of occasions…Will a name change all that?” he wonders.
Roy mentions how the new Bailey bridge of AE Block now brings in added traffic to the canal side road. "The road is getting congested and needs better traffic management," he says.
Brahma wonders if the christening would have any functional use. Our Islands have statues of personalities now but we continue to call them by their older established names like Island no 3 and 4.
Anita Banerjee, also of AD Block, says she doesn't mind a name as long as the street is maintained. "It would be nice to see the jungle outside cleared even if the pujas aren't around the corner. The footpath on the canal side of the street aren't cleaned either," she says.
Her fear however is different. As it is we are driven up the wall submitting our KYCs and linking our Adhar cards with various accounts. I don't have the energy now to change my address to Barnaparichay Road on all my documents," says Banerjee.
Additional reporting by Snehal Sengupta