Loving life

Once again, it is "Theme Day" for the City Daily Photo gang, and this month's theme is "Loving life". 

Mountains, or beaches? I'm greedy enough to want both, but it is rather difficult to find the former within Chennai. The beaches, on the other hand, are a favourite spot for Chennai's citizens. The only thing that could be more fun than doing cartwheels on the beach is to end those with a dive into the water.

Just that over the past couple of weeks, with the jallikattu protests and the oil spill, the beach has had a jolt; but it will be back, like it always has!

Form book

I know little about betting. And I know far less about horse racing. Even so, the name "Original Vel Sporting News" is something I would recognize as being the bible for horse racing enthusiasts in Chennai (and apparently in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ooty, and several other places as well). As a child, It was fascinating to peek into this publication for the sheer exoticness of the names of the horses. 

One of the quirks of this publication, which I couldn't figure out in those days, was the fact that none of the races seemed to be happening in Madras. In the days before the internet and mobile phones - in the days when long distance calls meant 'trunk' calls that had to be booked a few hours in advance - they still managed to get bets out on races in Bombay and Hyderabad and other places. And the books detailed the odds on those races. But never for Madras. It could have been because of the strong public sentiment against horse racing - remember the statues on Mount Road? 

The Original Vel claims to have been established in 1929. A case in the Madras High Court, in 1953, dates its founding to 1936. A record of those court proceedings gives us an idea of what 'Sporting News' could be found in those pages: "The Cricket Test at Delhi" "The Duncan Cup Cricket at Madras" "Five Lucky Charms", "Peter the world-beating athelete" and "Stopping Zatopek"  were some of the articles. But also included were: "The Queen and the Riddle of Minister's summons to Sunday talks at Castle", "Herbert Morrison's attack" and "Hitler's valet held by Reds". Dashed sporting, old chap, but what is it doing in Original Vel? Had such articles continued to find a place in the publication, it would have been fascinating to browse through. But these days, they staple the booklet to discourage flipping through it. And I am not going to pony up 15 bucks to read horse names!

Going swimmingly

In 1995, the seventh edition of the South Asian Federation Games was hosted by Chennai - or Madras, as the city was then called. One of the facilities built for the Games was the Aquatic Complex at Velachery. That's how the city got its international 8-lane swimming pool as well as a diving pool. 

At that time, Velachery was kind of outside the city and so it was an exotic location for setting up such a facility. These days, access to this Complex is much better and by all accounts, it is quite crowded - which, of course, is a big complaint for the users. 

That complaint is offset to a large extent by the quality of the coaches. Most of the coaches teaching here are state level coaches and that brings in a lot of traffic. The Complex discourages walk-in swimmers. But if you want to get in here, you can sign up for the 12-day swimming classes - but then, don't complain if you find the pool too crowded!

What, who worry?

Well, there is nothing specifically Chennai about this, but I did see it in a Chennai store. It is an 'official' board game, with illustrations by the magazine's "usual gang of idiots". As children, those "idiots" were looked up to;  Sergio Aragonés, Dick DeBartolo, Al Jaffee, Mort Drucker, Dave Berg, Antonio Prohias... they were all adults writing to corrupt us children. 

This game itself is Monopoly with a twist. The first player to go bankrupt is the winner. It has several ways to lose money, including cards that allow you to lose $500 by jumping up, with a chance to lose $5,000 by remaining airborne for 37 seconds. All those losses will count for nothing if you end up getting up that $1,329,063 note. There is, however, only one way to win that note - can you guess what that is? (see below photo for the answer)

Wait - did I say this has no connect to Chennai? Maybe not, but where do you think those Mad ras-cals got all their ideas from?!

!uɐɯnǝu ˙ǝ pǝɹɟןɐ sı ǝɯɐu ɹnoʎ ɟı ʇı uıʍ noʎ