Reading Comprehension
Dated: 18th of Aug, 2012 |
scroll on the bold to get the word meaning |
Passage 02 :
It stands
forlornly on the Ennore Expressway, near Kasimedu. To its rear is the
belligerent sea, which has eaten away most of the land and in front, is a particularly bad stretch of road on which heavy vehicles
rumble along. It is easy to miss and when you do see it, is an
ugly piece of
striated concrete in a
shockingly bad state. In fact, if it was not practically
indestructible, it would have
disintegrated long ago. It is the last surviving air-raid shelter constructed during the Second World War.
Given that unlike earlier wars, WW II had a new
element — attacks from the air — Air Raid Precaution
patrols were formed. Concrete air-raid shelters were put up at various places to house the local
citizenry in the event of an air attack. Air-raid
sirens would
wail and the local
populace was to rush into the shelters and remain there till the all-clear signal was
rendered. Several practice
drills were held.
But when it came to real action, the city
chickened out. The presence of a vast
troop base in Nandambakkam could not
instil courage. When Vishakapatnam, Kakinada and Colombo were bombed on April 4-5, 1942, Madras panicked. There was a
prolonged air-raid alert on April 7 and immediately, thereafter, began an
exodus. It did not help that the Governor, Sir Arthur Hope, rather contrary to his name, lost hope and announced that the city was
indefensible. All except the
essential services were asked to leave and those who stayed were told that it was at their own risk.
By April 12, there was no
evidence of life in the town except at the railway station where hundreds were leaving. It was the upper classes that largely
fled. The poor, with nowhere to go, stayed on. Property prices crashed. The
famed evacuation of Madras lasted three months. The Congress and commercial interests in the city
ridiculed the government’s loss of
nerve. The Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, sent the home member of his executive council, Sir Reginald Maxwell, to administer a personal rebuke to the Governor. The city, rather red in the face, began filling up once again from August.
The air-raid shelter in Royapuram along with several others was never put to real use. Square in shape and therefore referred to as the
pillbox, it has around 350 sq. ft. of space inside, and on all its walls are narrow
slits that afford
ventilation and served as ‘
spotters’ to watch enemy movement. The pillbox later became a residence for one of the families that lived in the seaside slum.
Partitions were put up inside for dividing the space into rooms. Now it is
abandoned. Judging by the stench and
filth, its last function was perhaps that of a
latrine. There are talks of its
demolition, now that the road is to be widened. It ought to survive as a
monument to how our city went into a
flap when faced with a crisis.