The Adyar River

So far I have mostly shown the best side of Chennai, but there is another side which I will try to document now and then. We are located about 3 blocks from the Adyar River which is one of two major rivers that runs through Chennai to the sea.
This would be a good thing and from a distance it is very scenic, but when you get near the river you are overpowered by a horrible stench. On closer examination, much of the shoreline is covered with garbage and the water is a dark, sludge color. In fact all the rivers and canals in the city are extremely polluted with sewage, garbage, and stuff I don't want to know about.
The waterways are often lined with slum dwellings where people live in shelters made with a stick frame, tied together and partially enclosed with palm thatch, old tarps or scraps of sheet metal roofing.

We live in very upper middle class neighborhood (for India), but these pictures were taken just 4-5 blocks from our apartment.

The divisions from affluence to poverty is even more distinct in the high tech campuses around Char's school. Here you go from high rise modern buildings, nice landscaped streets and people eating their lunch at KFC & Pizza hut at the campus cafeterias, but when you turn the corner you encounter a street that is mostly paved, lined with small concrete row dwellings with narrow alleys between them. Family dwellings are very small, often with only a cloth for a front door. It looks like most of them have no indoor plumbing, and open or inoperable sewers are common.

It is hard as a westerner to understand why people don't respect their environment more. But I realize education is not the only issue. In this land of a caste society, it is karma that some are destined to live in poverty and filth.