Muscle memory does not work the first time around
On the pavement of 100 Feet Road where it meets Arcot Road at Vadapalani junction, a SWD manhole lid stands upturned like the roots of a cyclone-hit tree
These images were taken on July 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PRINCE FREDERICK
Muscle memory applies to a diversity of activities. In Chennai, that includes sidestepping “pitfalls” on the pavement. The thoughtless ease with which pedestrians avoid “open-mouthed” SWD and sewage manholes, depressions in pavements/ roads and other “traps” has to be seen to be believed.
On the pavement of 100 Feet Road where it meets Arcot Road at Vadapalani junction, a SWD manhole lid stands upturned like the roots of a cyclone-hit tree. In the two images from that patch, two pedestrians swerve from the path of danger in distinctively personal styles. Both of them would be in each of the two frames. This is a case of simple random sampling aimed at illustrating a common scene on that patch.
One of them walks on the carriageway and climbs on to the pavement when the danger is past. The other — the younger of the two — is absorbed in a conversation on the mobile, walks on the pavement, towards the path of danger, but deftly dances around the perilous spot.
But muscle memory kicks in only where the feet is familiar with a terrain. A pedestrian walking down that pavement for the first time at night can walk straight into that “trap”. Most of the time, they will stub a foot against the upturned cover. On a rare occasion, it can be serious, when a senior citizen walks straight into it.
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