Sharma Park - venue for rituals for the dead

At a time when city parks are witnessing renovation and implementation of management methods to make it convenient for visitors, there are a few parks like Sharma Park on Habibullah Road, T Nagar that lie abandoned and are in a state of neglect.

The park is host to a number of civic issues which have been brought to light in a recent meet organised by the Civic Exnora. Among them what stood out was the fact that the park serves as a spot for conducting rituals for the dead.  

Earlier the park was an open area, thus the residents from the adjacent slum areas used it for rituals that has continued as a constant practice even after the space was converted into a park. “People living in the adjacent slum areas, do not actually know that this is a park today. They continue to use it for such rituals,” said  R  Govindaraj, President, Chennai District, Civic Exnora The meet also highlighted the fact that a separate building constructed by the Chennai Corporation  for  the purpose remains unused.

In addition, the other key issues faced by the walkers include illegal activities like  drug abuse and issues like  insufficient lighting, poor maintenance, encroachments, water logging and lack of greenery.

“The lights which were built earlier are broken by miscreants, and the ideal solution to this would be to set up lights in a way that one cannot reach them,” said Govindaraj.

The Civic Exnora on its part proposed to meet the Chennai Corporation Mayor Saidai Duraisamy with the concerns on September 9.