Friday, October 05, 2007

What lies beneath

The Grand Canyon is located in Arizona and stretches to Colorado. Its 18 miles wide (By accessible trails its between 20-24 miles). At average the Canyon is 5,000 ft deep. The Grand Canyon is 227 miles long. The Canyon takes up 1,218,376 acres of land. The Canyon is on a tilt the north rim is 1200 ft higher than the south rim. At the deepest part of the canyon is 6,000 vertical feet. The Canyon’s walls are made up of rocks, cliffs, hills, and valleys. The Grand Canyon rocks were formed millions of years ago. Three thousand to four thousand years ago desert archaic people lived in the Grand Canyon. The Pueblo Indians built adobe house around the canyon and made animal figures out of one twig. The Hopi Indians believe that when they die, their spirits emerge here and rest here. There are 75 different species of mammal, 50 species of reptiles, 25 species of fish, and 300 species of bird living in the Canyon.The south rim of the Grand Canyon is a grayish green forest. Inside the Grand Canyon is 30 degrees higher then on rim. Rain comes suddenly in violent storms (usually in late summer).

Chennai is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. Its one of the four metropolitan cities in India. What lies beneath the urban sprawl, the vibrant economy, the cultural potpourri and the long history of the city is something thats invisible. Battered, bruised, brutally abused, both physically and sexually, ignored by everybody, eating out of garbage bins and with no place to call home. This is the situation of homeless women with mental illness. World Health Organisation [WHO] estimates that 1% of citizens of all countries are mentally ill. National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences [NIMHANS], Bangalore says that one woman in six and one man in nine will be in need of help. While men in India tend to be cared for better, women are set adrift. Many of them drift away from as far as northernmost India to a land that doesn't speak their language. They get on a bus or a train and being ignored by the sea of people, they arrive wherever the train takes them. In Chennai they are invariably found within a two kilometer radius of the Central station. They could be brushed away as pan handlers, demented drug addicts or just ridiculed for their appearance and behavior. In most cases they just blend into the background. Thousands walk by to home, to work or to do groceries every day and yet the underprivileged don't exist. This is as much a story in chennai as the story of many of the mentally ill destitute who are neglected and abused in many cities around the world.

Back to Grand Canyon

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