The Chintamani cooperative supermarket may have been razed to the ground, but it has earned a mention in history by organically blending into a story called Anna Nagar
Chintamani Supermarket has been knocked down. And it has a litmus test to pass: Landmarks are put to a popularity vote after they are gone. That is the downside to being a landmark. The best ones survive physical removal, their “ashes” interred with “the everyday”.
Is Chintamani in that league? Or, would it be expunged out of our collective memory?
The cooperative supermarket has two things going for it straightaway. One, it lent its name to a well-used bus stop, and a busy signal to boot. Two, it fits in organically with an unusual story called “Anna Nagar”.
Landmarks with bus stops named after them are likely to have a free and long ride into the future that they themselves are not a part of.
Ponds Bus Stop — on Grand Southern Trunk Road in the Nagalkeni area of Chromepet — has indelibly scripted…