The Gender Park\u2019s proposal to set up Night Eatery Street on the Manaveeyam Veedhi has been shelved, all thanks to Manaveeyam Theruvorakkoottam. No it wasn\u2019t a compliment. Objections from film-maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, writers Sugathakumari and Paul Zacharia and other prominent people forced the Gender Park to alter their project.<\/p>\n
I know there is no use in raising this issue at this late time. But as a Trivandrumite who loves my city, I thought I should say something.<\/p>\n
Manaveeyam Theruvorakkoottam has raised several objections against the Gender Park’s Night Eatery Street. But are they all genuine and valid reasons?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s true that, government declared Manaveeyam Veedhi as a cultural corridor way back in 2001, but that doesn\u2019t mean the street can only be used to host cultural events. However, Manaveeyam Theruvorakkoottam acts like as if the street belongs to them. People of Trivandrum also have the right to say how that street should be used. Nobody asked the people of Trivandrum when they declared it as a cultural corridor. We the people say the street should be used for both Night Eatery and cultural activities.<\/p>\n That is a very twisted logic. All artists loves crowd and more the merrier. Manaveeyam Theruvorakkoottam missed an opportunity here. If the food stalls come, more people will come to the place every day and people love to mix food and cultural events while enjoying their evening. This way artists will be able to reach a wider audience. If you go to Paris or London, you can see this every day. It\u2019s called ‘Busking’.<\/p>\n Night Eatery Street consists of 7 food trucks only<\/strong> and Manaveeyam Veedhi has a length of 200 meters. Unless if each truck has a length of 30m, there is no way 7 trucks can take over the whole street.<\/p>\n The food trucks will be there only from 7 pm to 2 am. The rest of the time is free for cultural activities. If this is not acceptable, then it shows the intolerance and selfishness of the cultural activists. They only use the street on Sunday\u2019s while rest of the days it remains\u00a0free. By the way, has anyone seen any cultural performance at Manaveeyam Veedhi after 9pm?<\/p>\n It\u2019s true and there is no question about it. But the proposed Night Eatery Street was to be run by women entrepreneurs and not by multi-national corporates like KFC or McDonald\u2019s. The project will ensure steady income to these women from poor background. Their families will not starve anymore. Art and cultural is enjoyable only if you have a full tummy. Again this shows the selfishness of the so called guardians of art and culture.<\/p>\n One of the members of Manaveeyam Theruvorakkoottam said and I am going to quote this \u201cHere women could stay on till late in the night. Now, as they encourage night life, the kind of crowd that hangs out here will be different<\/em>.\u201d<\/strong> Well, we thought cultural activities are forward people with progressive minds. Clearly not!<\/p>\n The group has proposed some alternative sites like road adjacent to Kanakakkunnu, Museum-Nandavanam road, Attakulangara, East-Fort, Thampanoor etc. Are these proposed sites really good? Well, I disagree. Ambience matters!<\/strong> That is the main reason why everyone loves Manaveeyam Veedhi. If the proposed sites are good as they claim why not cultural activists go there. Gandhi Park is a nice place. It even has a stage.<\/p>\n I also wish to say that the people of Trivandrum is not against art or culture. If anything, this city loves culture more than any other city. If you ask anyone in Trivandrum, they will tell you they want both. We want the food and cultural to co-exist in Manaveeyam Veedhi. Nobody objected when government declared it as a cultural street. So it\u2019s not too much to ask Theruvorakkoottam to extend the same courtesy and not to act selfish.<\/p>\n It\u2019s sad to see that a small group of people can have their way while the interest of the majority is not even considered. Remember what happened to Attakulangara School?<\/p>\n This is why we can\u2019t have nice things!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Gender Park\u2019s proposal to set up Night Eatery Street on the Manaveeyam Veedhi has been shelved, all thanks to Manaveeyam Theruvorakkoottam. No it wasn\u2019t a compliment. Objections from film-maker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, writers Sugathakumari and Paul Zacharia and other prominent people forced the Gender Park to alter their project. I know there is no use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-news","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}#1. Manaveeyam Veedhi is a cultural corridor<\/strong><\/h2>\n
#2. Crowd would make it difficult for any performance on the road<\/strong><\/h2>\n
#3. The Food trucks will leave no space for cultural activities<\/strong><\/h2>\n
#4. Art & Culture is more important than commercial activities<\/strong><\/h2>\n
#5. There are many alternative sites<\/strong><\/h2>\n