From Garden City to Ad Central

When a film company, toothpaste manufacturer or fashion designer wants to get the word out about their wares in Chennai they put up billboards. Lots of them. For reasons I have yet to discern the people of Chennai call these printed vinyl mega-advertisements that are draped over scaffoldings "hoardings". They are often two or three times the size of any other billboard from New York to Tokyo and as often as not posted right at eye level so that you have to strain your eyes to see what is on the street. Though Chennai palls in size to the world's major metropolises, the ubiquitousness of hoardings make every street corner feel like Times Square.

How did a whole city transform into one large advertorial you ask? Most of the hoardings are illegal and exist only because of strong squatters rights and lack of enforcement from an over burdened and inefficient police force. Ad agencies start to build scaffoldings on top of other hoardings, or on public land and simply wait until no one remembers who the origianl owner of the plot really is. From what I understand, ad agencies send kickbacks to the politicians responsible for enforcement, who in turn make sure that hoardings stay where they are built.

The result is that when a newcomer first arrives in the city, the first thing he or she sees is an array of glossy images. Every street corner marked by a billboard becomes an instantly memorable landmark by which they can use to navigate their way around. When I first came here I knew the faces of all three Sri Lankan Airlines stewardesses so well that I whenever I saw them I knew that I had to take a right turn on Nungabukkam High Road to get back to my house in Kilpauk. It was only after a month or so when the board came down that I actually started to look around the city and remember what the street actually looked like.

I am interested in learning more about how hoardings get built up, and the system of kickbacks and enforcement. I might like to write a story on them in the next couple months. Anyone who has information drop me a line or leave a comment.

(Photo: taken on Nungabukkam High Road is just one of a million places in the city where hoardings block out the skyline.)