A peek into a riverside garbage hotspot

Crystal-clear waters coursing steadily and reflecting the orange of a setting sun. That is the idle, almost-Pollyannaish hope of this reporter on any twilight hour spent watching the Cooum with its sluggish waters thick as glue and too inky-dark to let the dying sun on the western sky shimmer orangey in those waters. Scrubbing the Cooum squeaky clean and turning that ambitious hope into reality would take the “hyssop” of a massive governmental, inter-departmental, long-drawn effort. As the waterway takes a squiggly course through Chennai, it is weighed down by sewage and effluents. Freeing the Cooum of those burdens requires multiple interventions.