CHENNAI : The design of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board tenements in Perumbakkam displays a profound lack of understanding of the relationship between the people here and their animals — pets or livestock. For many of the residents, rearing livestock was a supplementary or sometimes, primary source of income before they were resettled to Perumbakkam. Without a secure shed for cattle, residents who are already struggling to find viable jobs after being resettled, are increasingly forced to give them up.
Sivabushanam and her daughter Raji together had a milch cow, a calf and ten hens when they were first brought to Perumbakkam from Kattabomman street around six months ago. Today, they have all been sold off. Sivabushanam, who lives on the seventh floor, had tried to keep the cattle a few metres away from her block, where she found some space. “But everyday was a battle. Every night, kids playing in the area would untie the cow and it would stray. We were unable to keep an eye on it because we live on the seventh floor,” she said.
“Every morning, two or three members of our family would go looking for the cow. Even if we found it, there was often no milk left because the calves got to it first,” she added. She and her daughter used to earn around `10,000 a month selling milk from the cow and around `2,000 a month from their hens — an income that they have now lost. “We now sell flowers and make whatever little we can,” said Raji. But mainly they are getting by, for now, with the `25,000 they earned from the sale.
Arumugam, who faced a similar problem with his cattle, sold off his cow in haste, for `23,000. “If I had some more time, I would have sold it for around `40,000. But I was scared the cow would go missing,” he added. For the daily wage labourer, the cow was the source of a steady income. He has now gone into debt.
Outside block 21, a dozen hens and four goats wrestle for space with the petty shops on the raised sidewalk. Fifty-four-year-old Fathima Mary sits in watch. “I live on the fourth floor. But, I spend many hours sitting here, making sure that the hens are not killed by other animals.” Two years ago, foxes ran amok, feeding on poultry and cattle left unsupervised, said residents. “We lost a lot of our cattle that year because there was nowhere safe to keep them,” said Arumugam, a resident.
When contacted, slum board officials said that the residents should bring the matter to the notice of the officials. “For a protected shed, we have to look into several concerns — the space for it, security and infrastructure. It is a new experience for us too, dealing with livestock,” the official said.
Fifty eight-year-old Rathna left behind more than just her home in Tiruverkadu. “I had three dogs that I had to leave behind because they said we can’t keep dogs here,” said Ratna, as she goes through the photos of her dogs on her phone. “For months after I came here, I used to think about them every time I sit for lunch. I always made sure I fed them before I ate,” she added. She has not found the courage to go back and look for them. “What if something had happened? I would rather not know.”
Officials ask residents to refrain from keeping dogs in the tenements here — an order that some residents find a way around. “We make sure that our dog is kept away from the eyes of officials. He does no harm to anyone. So far, we have managed but we don’t know what we’d do if they find out,” said one of the residents.
For some others who are not as brave, the loss adds to the overwhelming grief of losing their homes and all things familiar. “We left our ‘Karuppu’ with our sister when we moved here. We take our sons every now and then to see him,” said Roshini. Dogs, not as lucky as Karuppu, were left behind without homes mainly because in most cases, the dogs were fully grown mongrels.
It was common for the residents here, who came from informal settlements to raise a dog, especially for security. “Due to the nature of our houses in Thousand Lights, a lot of us raised dogs to guard the house and the belongings. But it became more than that as time passed,” said Sathya. While officials argue that the restrictions for pets are in place even in private apartments, the residents here say that unlike those moving into a private apartment, they did not have a say in where they were being shifted. “We don’t have the luxury of standing our ground and opposing them,” said Sathya.
‘Endless possibilities’
K Sudhir, architect and director of Peoples Architecture Commonweal, is of the opinion that the people in informal settlements, have used traditionally used the endless opportunities that come with being on the ‘ground’. “From growing drumsticks at their doorsteps to rearing goats, chicken and sometimes, rabbits, to making use of the floor to build small things — to hammer and chip, people survive on all kinds of opportunities to make ends meet,” Sudhir said. “Even if they don’t have even half the space they do in their squatter settlements, they make do with the space they have outside instead — to place cots, to hang clothes, keep their water drums and to park their tricycles and auto rickshaws,” he added. “Even if they live cheek by jowl, there is hardly the friction that one sees in the tenement set-up.”
The argument that the government uses from time to time — of the houses being larger and made of a permanent material when compared to the huts or hovels that they used to live in, is merely diversionary, in his opinion. “What happens is simply that the government has commodified and commercialised the land that these people have tended to, for years,” he said.
Considering what it has come down to today, the design of these resettlement colonies have ignored the need for community spaces, said Vanessa Peter, policy researcher, Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities. “Adequate housing also includes cultural adequacy. The designs are insensitive to the needs of the community because of the lack of a community consultation process and insensitivity,” she said.