Residents are torn over the teachers’ agitation outside Acharya Sadan in EE Block. While on one hand they empathise with the protesters, on the other they are suffering from road blocks and traffic jams.

Sreya Ghose’s 90-year-old mother is admitted at CL Block’s Anandalok Hospital but she’s having a harrowing time visiting her. “Vehicles are being diverted from Tank 10 through DL Block and it is causing huge congestion. No rickshaw is ready to ply to or from DL Block, where I live, and I’m having to walk the whole way in this heat,” said Ghose, herself a senior citizen.

On Wednesday, she even witnessed an accident outside on her way to the hospital. “These lanes are narrow, but the diversion is forcing even heavy vehicles to pass through them. I saw a bus hit a rickshaw next to CK Market,” Ghose said.

CK Market is the closest market to the agitation, and the teachers have been going there for tea. “We have been speaking to the teachers who come here and it’s heartbreaking to hear their stories,” said Pintu Paul, a DL Block resident who goes to the market for adda with his friends. “So I introduced them to the owner of Swastineer Canteen, near Acharya Bhavan, so they can get basic food at reasonable rates.”

Paul and his neighbours have also allowed the ground floor washroom of their co-operative building to the teachers. “We feel for them,” said his neighbour Subir Chatterjee. “And this is despite facing much hassle due to the traffic diversion. Normally it takes me 15 minutes to return home after dropping my daughter off at her College More office but now I’ve to take an extremely convoluted route through Tank 8, Technopolis and even the bheris. It’s doubled my travel time.”

Such is the rush outside Chatterjee’s house that parking his car there has become a risk. “In case of an emergency I’ll stay stuck in traffic! So yesterday I was forced to park my car at CK Market,” he said.

Autos are lamenting too. “Our route is Karunamoyee-Sector V but we are having to go through DL Block and return through EE Block. If residents complain and stop us from using their block as a thoroughfare, we’ll have to pack up our business,” says Ranjan Acharya, who is also the former auto route manager there. “It’s increased the distance and we’ve hiked fees by Rs 5. Either way passengers have reduced by 40 per cent as all are trying to avoid this area.”

Basic needs

Acharya Sadan is on a corner plot in EE Block, with the Bharat Petroleum petrol pump on one side and an empty plot and then Rabindra Bharati University building on the other.

“Our petrol pump has given the teachers 24x7 access to our water filters, toilets and phone charging points,” said staff member Anup Giri. “Business is down as much of the stretch under the Metro viaduct is blocked and cars are unable to come from the Karunamoyee side. From the Sector V side, cars are coming but there is such congestion that they simply want to get away from here.”

The space occupied by the teachers is littered with banana and watermelon peels, newspapers, teacups and biscuit packets. A few bio-toilets were installed on Tuesday. In the initial days, hawkers and nearby food joints were doing good business but by midweek, they lost steam as various groups started coming to give the teachers food and water.

On Day One, paratha seller Dilip Choudhury was too flummoxed to open shop. “I was overwhelmed by the crowd. Plus, the Corporation taps went dry as the teachers used up all the water. Now I have the means to cook but they are getting food for free. Only biscuits, cakes and cigarettes are selling,” he said. Only the tea-seller said she was doing good business.

Residents like Sharmistha Mukherjee of DB Block have been going over daily to show solidarity. “I’ve been leaving them 100 bottles of water and 300 packets of biscuits and cakes a day but the disruption to the lives of others cannot be ignored either,” she said. “On Tuesday, I was returning from the doctor’s chamber in New Town and was unmindful when the driver took the right turn from Wipro. We were stuck for very long.”

Also suffering are commercial establishments on the stretch. “No one is able to come,” said Prince Jaiswal, a director who runs the EE Block building housing Blue Plum restaurant, Livello salon and pet crèche and the swimming pool Pet Dreamland.

“Many are stuck at the barricades and are ringing us up asking how to enter. We are explaining the lanes and bylanes but it isn’t easy to understand and so they are turning back,” said Jaiswal. “This is no way to protest if it inconveniences others. The teachers should demonstrate in front of the chief minister’s house and not here.