No bottle cleaning needed

It is surprising how something remains un-noticed for a long, long time and then, all on a sudden, you start seeing it almost everywhere you look. This flower was also one such. I don't remember having ever noticed it until a few weeks ago, while on a walk to the Nanmangalam forest. It looked very nice and it seemed to be an ideal plant that could be grown along boundary walls of houses. Since then, I've spotted it in a couple of other places and for the life of me I can't figure out how I could have missed this flower.

Yet, the flower had some more mystery for me. It was pointed out to me as a bottle-brush flower and so I googled for bottle brush flowers. Of course there were a lot of results, but none of them matched the flower I had seen. They were close, but not an exact match and that was gnawing away at me. It was only over this weekend that, thanks to Dr. Bhanumathi of the MNS that I learnt that I was way off: the bottle-brush flower belongs to a completely different genus altogether and this one was closer to the touch-me-nots rather than bottle-brushes. In fact, it is sometimes called the sickle-bush and is considered a pest, because it is very hardy and its seeds can lie dormant for up to a year. In some parts of the world, unchecked growth of this plant has caused large tracts of agricultural land to become unfit for cultivation.

After getting to know all that, I guess it is good thing that I haven't seen it too often - I will now be happy for us to enjoy the beauty of this flower in small doses!

Open air movie

Chennai has only one drive-in theatre, Prarthana, on the East Coast Road. As I passed that way close to showtime last weekend, I was convinced that I have to either arrive at Prarthana an hour before the show starts or just leave my car somewhere else and walk to the theatre. The rush of vehicles trying to get into the theatre was unimaginable. And with vehicles trying to jump the queue tempers seemed to be on the boil all around. I don't recall it being this bad when I last watched a movie there, about 3 years ago.

The other option for watching a movie in the open, is to head out to one of the Clubs in the city. Almost all of them have a weekend movie show for members and it is usually a recent film that's screened. For a reluctant movie goer like me, it is a good option to go to the Madras Race Club and catch up on a recent Tamil, Hindi or English movie over a couple of drinks. The movies are shown old style, with at least a couple of changes of the film reels on the projector, when the screen goes blank, and folks use that time to refill their orders of drinks or snacks. When there are friends around, it is nice to continue sitting on the lawn after the movie over a slowish Saturday dinner. Yesterday, it was difficult to resist the temptation to go, for the movie was 'Jaane tu ya jaane na' - we arrived early enough to make sure we got good seats.

A movie here comes with a small drawback, though. The Club is right under one of the landing paths to the Chennai airport. As the aircraft comes from behind the screen, you might not get distracted with its light; but when it roars overhead, you can be sure that you'll miss a couple of words from the dialogue!

Either way, it's ok?

Someone had asked if the change in the city's name from Madras to Chennai has sunk in deeply enough. There can't be a short answer to that; there are many institutions in the city which, for various reasons, continue to carry 'Madras' as part of their name. One such institution is the University of Madras, which recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. Hopefully, it will continue to retain the same name for a very, very long time. I believe it must - and so must the other institutions, else we run the risk of forgetting the Madras that was for the Chennai that will be.

Beginning with the Senate House, the University today occupies several buildings along the Marina. Even though it is very clear what it's name is, there are many who are confused about it - thankfully, the word 'Chennai' does not enter into the confusion. Several people refer to it as Madras University, which probably gets the point across, but is an obvious misnomer - or am I being too exact about it?

It seems to me that the person in charge of putting this fence around one of the University's buildings also had a similar confusion. Luckily for him, he could play it safe and cover both options by just turning a few of the grills around!

Abashed greeting

It has been a few weeks since the Beijing Olympics got over, but for some people, the euphoria over India's performance at the Games goes on. Granted, it is the first time that India had won more than 2 medals in the Olympics, but the level of celebrations seems to be a bit overboard at most times. Of course I was keyed up enough to hand out sweets at work on hearing that Bindra had clinched India's first individual gold, I did feel wretched when Saina lost to Yulianti, I did cheer when Sushil Kumar rode his luck for the bronze, as when Vijender got through to the semi-final and I felt sorry for Akhil - the last especially because I had grandly predicted gold for him. And I certainly respect the hard work and single minded focus that our sporstpersons have, and continue to, put in.

But as a collective, the chest-thumping that has gone on about 3 medals is slightly disconcerting. Especially after having seen the berserk behaviour of Indian cricket fans who go to either extreme depending on the team's performance, I shudder to think of what would happen if India were to bring home, say, 30 medals from London 2012. Would the energy be dissipated across the 30 medal winners? Would the celebrations be ten times as riotous? And what would happen if 2016 sees us drop back to 5 medals? The mind boggles.

Maybe the people behind this congratulatory message were also assailed by similar thoughts, which could be one reason why they have chosen to 'singular'ly congratulate the medal winners!

The technology motif

On a recent holiday, I had a chance to go up to the 5th floor of the Sanmar Group's Corporate Office. It was a nice view of the Radhakrishnan Salai flyover from up there; dominating the scene was one of Chennai's new office buildings. It is difficult to believe that it has been almost four years since the stately old house at that spot was demolished. As I go down the flyover, there is split-second lag before reality replaces memory and then I look up at this 13-storied building rather than look down for the imposing house that used to be there.

Though it was named 'India House', it was better known as 'Vasan's House', after SS Vasan, a one-time owner. Vasan having been a film director, it seemed a natural progression for the house to be used, after his lifetime, as a set for movies and TV serials. It was over 70 years old and with every shooting schedule, it probably took longer to recover, until it was no longer a viable proposition to be hired out. Its gates were shut after the last unit left sometime at the end of 2004; sale - agreement - construction followed and in 2007, Acropolis opened its doors to host quite a few IT companies.

Its first owner, the entrepreneur C.Rajam used the money from the sale of 'India House' to set up the Madras Institute of Technology; with the latest sale, 'India House' has made way to a Technology Park!

The Tamizh Pope

No, George Uglow never had the words "Habemus Papam" said in reference to him. He was Pope only in surname, though he was indeed a Christian missionary. He came to India before he turned twenty - and like many others, stayed on, fascinated by the country and its traditions. He had a flair for languages and very soon, he was fluent in Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamizh. In return, he taught Latin, Hebrew and English at various schools, mainly around Tuticorin, which was where he was based.

He translated several ancient Tamizh texts into English, including the Naladiyar and the Thirukkural, but ever a punctilious scholar, many of his works were published when he was well into his 60s, after he was sure that he was a master of the language. And he continued publishing his translations, lexicons and guide books of Tamizh until he turned 80; it is said that he finished his translation of Thiruvachagam on his 80th birthday and with it, considered his "life's literary work" closed. He kept his word and there were no more major writings from him in for the last eight years of his life, though he continued to be an active leader of the church almost until his death in 1908.

That's why you find this statue of Rev. G.U.Pope standing on the Marina, unveiled along with many others in January 1968, to mark the World Tamil Congress in Madras.

Porky colours

It is a wonder how anyone who grew up in Madras could ever get around to eating pork. When I was in school, the only pigs we saw were the ones that lived on the garbage dump at the 'Lake Area' near Valluvar Kottam. The stink of the garbage could be smelt one bus-stop away and if you were game enough to look at the mounds of muck, you would see an army of pigs gambolling through them, blissfully content with their surroundings. The only feature that distingushed them from the piles of black filth was their mobility. If they stood still, they would completely merge into the background, for their hairs and skins were blackened by constantly rooting around the garbage.

It was therefore a challenge to any butcher to sell pork. Buying it in the form of sausages or ham from Spencer's was the chosen mode. As pork gained popularity, other 'cold storage' outlets began to stock it, but even then, it was always the processed meat. The only shop that I have seen selling fresh pork is this one near the Saidapet bus stand on Mount Road. For RGS, the positioning was, and continues to be, important. This shop does not sell any old pig; it is 'white pork' that is sold (and it says so even more explicitly, 'white pig meat', in Tamizh).

This shop came to mind after a question at the Madras Day Quiz - What are the ingredients of Chinnamalai Pork Curry? This shop is close enough to Chinnamalai to have been the bespoke supplier of the main ingredient of that dish!

For the record, Chinnamalai Pork Curry (as described at the quiz) is made with pork, mango, brinjal and drumstick!

Vacant lot

I don't remember the movie that I had gone to watch. But on the seats were fliers for Silver Sands, a resort on what is today the East Coast Road. My father told me that the resort was owned by the same family that owned the theatre and I remember thinking that there couldn't have been a more appropriately named family as the owners of one of the most splendid movie-halls of Madras. Were they always called that or did they get their name from the crowds that came to watch the movies? How could anyone not go to a theatre owned by a family named Veecumsee? The Safire Complex opened in 1964/5; it must have been a gala opening, with the big name "Cleopatra" (Richard Burton / Elizabeth Taylor) being shown on the first widescreen in the country. And the novelty of having two other theatres - Emerald & Blue Diamond - in the same building!

Safire was the true sparkler, showing grand movies, mainly English, but Hindi and Tamil as well, if the scale of the movie required it. Emerald was the 'janta' theatre, where the regular movies were shown. At a time when Safire's balcony seats were priced at Rs.2.90, Blue Diamond charged Rs.7 for its tickets. And the movies were sometimes unheard of, released in the festival circuit and largely ignored by both the regular movie goers and those discerning, appreciative film audience. For Blue Diamond catered to a completely different segment: the Rs.7 ticket allowed you entry anytime from 9.00 am (yes, AM!) and you could stay in the theatre watching the same film over and over again, until the last show ended around midnight. Without realizing what I was watching, I've been enthralled by Sergei Eisenstein's "Que Viva Mexico", but have also sat (repeatedly) through some horrendous duds. It was fun to go to Blue-D, but it was not something that you'd let parents know about!

The complex was pulled down nearly 15 years ago. Since then, this empty 1-acre lot reflects the emptiness any true Madrasi feels when s/he looks at it - the Safire Complex was such an object of pride and joy that it seems like nothing can ever take its place!

The 'chosen one' no more

Before the biryani was popularized by a multitude of Chettinad and wannabe-Chettinad restaurants, there were only a few select places that passed the test for true lovers of the dish. There is an apocryphal tale about how a visitor to Madras from the southern districts would be judged when he got back home after his visit: "So, did you eat biryani in Chennai?" was the question that would determine the 'gourmand-ness' of the visitor. If he hadn't eaten it at all, he would be forgiven, but eating it at a place other than the Buhari Hotel indicated flawed judgement.

And then came this hotel, which offered stiff competition to Buhari; 'Bilal' in Arabic means the 'chosen one' and for a while, it probably caused confusion in the southern districts as they tried to figure out how to reconcile this with the biryani at Buhari. It must have been a cushy task, to compare the biryanis of the competitors - I can imagine repeated samplings before the verdict was delivered: "There is no comparision - the biryani served by Buhari and Bilal are far superior to anything found elsewhere!".

Today, Bilal Hotel is no more. New Bilal, a feeble attempt at re-branding, takes shelter under a broader name of New Bilal Hotel and Bakery. Looking neither like a Hotel nor a Bakery, it runs its business from a small portion of the large building that was Bilal Hotel - the other parts have run to seed. A great fall indeed, for the 'chosen one'!

An army of dolls

It is not an organization that has moved with the times; many people do not want to be seen as having anything to do with it. The last time I went there was in 1999, if I remember right. Because the building housing it is slightly set back from the road - the curve in the road providing an impromptu parking bay - one does not often look at the office of KGB in Chennai. I was hoping I remembered the location right, as I was sure people would not want to give me directions to the KGB. We headed along Mount Road and then, where I remembered it to be, there it was: musty and narrow, the people inside uninterested in their work. Typical KGB.

If there is one thing to commend it for, it is the completely pacifist nature of its operations. Yes, pacifist, for this is not a scion of the Soviet secret service. This KGB is the Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan, the sales and marketing outlet of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. It is one of those archaic operations that were set up to give life to Mahatma Gandhi's ideas of bringing prosperity to the villages. It is a good place to shop, but for most of the year, the merchandise on display looks so run down that you'd think several times before buying something. During the festival season, there are some things that can become very specific to KGB; the golu dolls, for instance. If you shop for your dolls at the KGB, it seems almost certain that your golu will have a wide variety. Gods stand next to cows; village folk look on as Vyasa dictates the Mahabharata to Ganapathy; cub scouts salute women drawing water from the village well. And a reasonably wide range of national heroes, for those who would like to wear their patriotism on a golu.

Right now, Durga is the centrepiece; the golu is a traditional arrangement of dolls, specific to Tamil Nadu, during the Navarathri festival. There are still a couple of weeks to go before the festival begins on September 30; but the crowd was thick enough for me to have to wait a while to get a clear picture!

Fading glory

He was the only one to visit the 'Jewel in the Crown' during his reign as monarch. Titled 'King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India', George V visited India twice, once when he was still the Prince of Wales and later, as the ruler of the British dominions. Though he was not a great one for travelling, India appears to have held a fascination for him, judging from his repeated visits. The second visit was timed to coincide with the 3rd Delhi Durbar, a ritual commemorating the ascension of a new ruler to the throne. Neither his grandmother Queen Victoria, nor his father, King Edward, had been present at the Delhi Durbar held in their honour; George V not only graced the occasion, but also was given a new crown; one so heavy that the King's head hurt.

This statue was probably unveiled at around the same time as the 3rd Delhi Durbar, sometime in 1912/13. I can only guess at that, because there seems to be no record of the statue having been installed. On the pedestal itself, the inscriptions have faded out, so there is nothing to be gained from getting very close to the statue, either. In some ways, we are lucky that it is still around: it is obviously not getting much attention despite being very close to the seat of government, so the inference is that it is being allowed to go to seed.

It has caught up with the times; I had mentioned (here and here) how some of the newer statues in Chennai don't seem to have any information about them; these days, the King Emperor has also joined that list!

Spot the difference

There are quite a few places in Chennai where houses have been built quite close to water bodies. Chennai has earned a reputation of being drought-prone and that has probably encouraged folks to get real close to the rivers that run through the city. That's always a problem when the rivers flood, but there seem to be enough and more people who don't mind that risk, or the trouble caused by flooding, if they can have a house for the other days of the year.

This picture is of a house on the banks of the River Adayar, as it curves behind the TNGF-Cosmo golf links. It is a rather unusual sight for Chennai; such greenery, right to the water's edge, is normally something one finds in Kerala. The profusion of coconut trees adds to the illusion that this is set in Kerala. There is one significant difference, though. In Kerala, the water-bodies, be they backwaters or rivers, are very rarely still; there is some movement, caused either by the running water itself or by the boatmen who use the waterways.

The Adayar is completely still, almost to the point of appearing stagnant!

Criss-cross

Oh yes, it has been raining off and on, still. Mostly nights, but there are some afternoon spells, too. Was going over my set of recent 'rain pictures' when I found this one. I had thought it was not a great picture, but today, something else struck me.

We drive on the left of the road; at least most of the time, we drive on the left-ish side of the road. On a rainy day, especially when the road shoulders start flooding, street wisdom is to take the middle path - chances of some fresh cut ditches on the side of the road are always high and the rain water would obviously hide them. Most drivers therefore prefer to not take the chance of their vehicles getting stuck in a rut and the middle-of-the-road approach becomes commonplace. And we did it too, even though this road we were on was not flooded. As we approached a T-junction, I saw this car coming from our left, while we were to turn right. The picture taken through the windshield is fuzzy for obvious reasons - there was a drizzle going on. Both cars crossed and went our ways without any fuss.

It was only after we crossed that I realized we had had each other on the left as we passed! Both vehicles had taken the path of least distance, rather than go around to each other's right!

The original 'Bessie'

There's always an endless quest to find shorter ways to express common phrases, but when I first heard someone refer to Besant Nagar as 'Bessie', it seemed to be completely out of place even as a youthful abbreviation. Maybe it was too close to 'Nessie' and Besant Nagar cannot be - should not be - accused of triggering off images of monsters or mysteries. While I never got around to using 'Bessie', the phrase was quite popular at one time (do they call Besant Nagar that these days?). Also, knowing that the Besant referred to was Annie Besant, it somehow seemed rather disrepectful to her.

She certainly had done a lot to be entitled to respect. Okay, she continued to use her married name even after separating from her clergyman husband, but that's a minor point; divorce just didn't happen in late 19th century England. She believed in her causes, be they women's rights, workers' rights, state sponsored faith and several others that she adopted as her own. One such cause was that of the Indian National Congress which, in its early years, had no thoughts about seeking independence from the British. Annie Besant who was always a supporter of Irish self-rule, started a similar movement in India, the Home Rule League. In some ways, it was her activities that first prodded the British into making statements about self-government for India.

This month marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of her death. The majority of her time in India was spent in Adyar, where the headquarters of the Theosophical Society is located and that was where she died. This statue, though, is on the Marina - even if it isn't being cleaned regularly, the garden around it gives it an aura that other statues nearby lack!

Seeking peace

The Officers' Training Academy (OTA) in Chennai is one of the premier institutions training both gentlemen and lady cadets to be inducted as Officers in the Indian Army. When it was set up in 1962, the Officers' Training School was charged with training cadets recruited under the 'Emergency Commission', necessitated by the Chinese aggression. Since then, it has trained over 20,000 officers of the Indian Army, and also a few from other countries. Because of its origin as a School for the Emergency Commission recruits, there was an air of temporary-ness around it until 1985, when it was conferred the status of a permanent establishment. In 1988, with the change of its name from OTS to OTA, it was accorded level-pegging status with the Indian Military Academy (at Dehradun) and the National Defence Academy (at Khadakvasla). Today, it trains cadets selected under the Short Service Commission and under the Women Special Entry Scheme (Officers).

Located inside a 650 acre estate, the OTA seems far away from the city, even though it is very much within the limits of the Chennai urban agglomeration. In any case, anything that is off Mount Road has always been considered as being part of the city, so the OTA has been very much a part of Chennai since it was set up. On Sundays, the cadets would head to the shopping arcades and movie halls, in small groups. It used to be very easy to identify them as OTA cadets; grey trousers, black shoes shined to reflect the sky, the crew cuts and the red-and-bluish-grey-and-black striped ties. It seemed unfair that the cadets had to be in their uniforms even on a Sunday movie trip; but none of them seemed to mind it at all. I'm not sure if the rules have been relaxed now, but I have not seen the Sunday uniforms for a while now. Maybe they're less stiff these days.

One of the best features of the OTA campus is the statue in the lounge area of the Cadets' Mess; even with this poor photo, it is possible to identify The Buddha from his posture. At first look, it seemed incongruous, but as one of the officers at the Academy told me, no one desires peace as much as army personnel do - only that they have to be prepared to kill or die for it, if need be!

Menagerie City - 5

The spotted deer inside the IIT Madras campus are reasonably comfortable with humans. Not that they can be considered 'tame', but they are not really wild, either. A large part of the IIT Madras campus is scrub jungle, an extension of the Guindy National Park. The deer certainly do not understand the boundaries between the GNP and the IIT and were used to moving across all the space they could. Recently, there was some talk of IIT authorities building a wall to ensure their campus area is clearly demarcated; I'm not sure if they went ahead with it. I hope that even if they have done so, there are enough pathways for the deer to move around freely.

Within the campus, the deer walk around unhindered; they do find their way into the living areas, too. At times it might be a problem for the residents. They may look gentle enough, but the more familiar they become with humans, the less nervous they get. Sometimes, they may go so far as to frightening children. With an average weight of about 80 kg, you really don't want to pick an argument with that kind of antler-tipped mass. This one, however, was not too keen on mixing it up with us in any way and moved away quickly.

There are so many of them around the IIT Madras campus, that when the Institute renamed its annual cultural festival, they chose the name 'Saarang' - another name for this spotted deer!

Free hiring

With about two and a half million personnel, the Indian Army is among the largest in the world. Even with that large number, the army faces a shortage of manpower at all levels. Recruitment of enlisted men is more or less an ongoing process, with regular open rallies at the recruiting headquarters. For many of the entry level soldier positions, the minimum qualification is a high school certificate - and there would be hundreds of thousands of such candidates, for whom a job in the army is a ticket to a steady income, not to mention some pride and honour back in the villages.

Where there is demand, there are middlemen. Young men desperate to join the army land up at the big cities every day. For many of them, this visit to the city is their first experience of a world beyond their village. As with any scam, this one too would start small; say Rs.10/- to fill up the form in a way that betters the chance of being selected; and would then go on to a few thousand rupees to guarantee a job as a soldier.

The army tries to warn them - with the Chennai Recruiting Zone covering the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, this warning sign has its message in 4 languages; English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu. One hopes that potential soldiers are not so daring as to chance the possibility of being taken for a ride!

Shop space

Ever since the Usman Road flyover was announced, there has been a tug-of-war between the residents of the streets nearby and the hawkers who had had their stalls on the pavements along Usman Road. Being easily mobile, the hawkers had tried to take up space along some of the roads leading into Usman Road. That riled residents, who had for long traded the inconvenience of entering through a packed Usman Road for the ease of shopping (not to mention the rising value of property, on paper) in the comfort that, even though the approach was chaotic, their street was calm. With the side streets already being used as public parking areas, chaos had reached their doorstep and the prospect of their walls being used as display shelves by the hawkers was the last straw.

In the days after the flyover was inaugurated, the Madras High Court has been kept busy: each time the Corporation proposed a new location - in one of the side streets - the residents have rushed to the Court, seeking a stay on the move; predictably, no one seems happy with any of the suggestions. Tempers are running high; no one has any solution. Sample this; one day last month, the police helped the Corporation officials enforce the movement of hawkers onto Pinjala Subramanian Street and then warned them not to open for business, fearing the wrath of the residents. The ward councillor too beat a quick retreat when he found that, as the sole representative of authority, he was being targetted by anyone who was agitated.

These bundles remain, seemingly marking a grudging truce - storing okay, selling not - between the residents and the hawkers. And the powers that be continue to ponder over a situation that does not seem to have a satisfactory resolution!

Colours of friendliness

Autorickshaws are India's unique contribution to the world of vehicles. I can't think of a similar vehicle in any other part of the world. Though the tricyles of Philippines (pictures from Butuan and Manila) come somewhat close, they are modified two-wheelers rather than 3-wheeled vehicles designed specifically for public transportation. The similarity comes more from the attitude and traffic sense of the drivers, apart from the function that the vehicles perform. The autos - or ricks - across India are painted black with a yellow stripe around the middle of their body. It is only in Tamil Nadu and in Andhra Pradesh that these vehicles are painted highway yellow with a green - or black or red - stripe. I'm sure the colour of the stripe has some significance to those in the know, but it does not seem to have any connection to the attitude of the driver or the accuracy of the fare meter. Auto drivers across the country have their own definition of customer service and friendliness, besides independent interpretation of how the official rates have to be compounded when picking up a fare.

Chennai's autos have earned an especially bad reputation. Visitors to Chennai arriving at the Chennai Central or the airport will be completely thrown off whack by auto drivers who appear to be militantly uni-lingual, speaking Tamizh and refusing to understand any other language. And the rates, of course are doubled or even trebled - if you are a first-time visitor, you could not have imagined a worse way to be introduced to the city. It is not as if the autos in other parts of the city are saintly; only that you have a better chance to haggle over the rates. There cannot be anyone in Chennai who can claim that the overwhelming majority of their experiences with auto drivers has been good; at best, there is a grudging acknowledgement that one can get lucky sometimes. Many efforts have been made to counter the notoriety - regular reports in the papers about honest auto drivers, movies showing them as regular guys, encouraging women auto drivers - but they've not succeeded in any significant way. Chennai's autos are a law unto themselves.

One of the most visible efforts is the introduction of 'Tourist Friendly Autos' - identified by their lighter colour and the tourism related pictures and logos on their body. Begun about 4 months ago with a batch of 39 specially screened (and trained) drivers, this initiative of the Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) has grown to include about one hundred autos in Chennai and quite a few in other cities also. The TTDC has a list of the first 39 on their website, but they seem to be quite wary of adding to that list!

Let the festivities begin!

For most of India, late-August / early-September marks the beginning of the festive season. Last Friday was the start of the 11-day festival of 'Our Lady of Health' at Veilankanni, which is celebrated all over Tamil Nadu. Yesterday was the start of the holy month of Ramadan and also the first day of celebrations leading up to Onam, a festival in Kerala. Today is a holiday to mark Vinayaka Chathurthi, the festival honouring Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. And then, at the beginning of October, there is Navarathri, followed by Diwali. Each of them is celebrated over a few days so there is a lot of good food, cheer and celebrations to look forward to.

Vinayaka is probably the most prevalent of the deities in the city. There is a belief that if your house is at a T-junction, a small statue of Vinayaka (or even a tile with His image) must be placed in a way that it looks down to the foot of the 'T', so as to deflect any ill-luck that might come up that road. Add to that the numerous clay idols that have made expressly to celebrate the Chathurthi and there is a glut of Ganeshas all over Chennai. There are pujas at each one and if you pause there, you will be given a leaf-plate with some prasad; kozhukattai or modakam, typically, as it is Ganesha's favourite food. And then you can have a bit of suspense as you taste it, because it comes in both sweet and savoury forms.

On Venkatnarayana Road, there is a space just outside the JYM Kalyana Mandapam (Marriage Hall) where a group of devotees build a large Vinayaka every year. When they started the practice, it was a clay-and-papier-mache idol: like any other, only bigger. But for the past few years, the materials have been varied - can you find out how many vegetables it takes to make a Vinayaka?

Power holiday

It is always good to be in Chennai, but once in a while, one is slightly embarassed about the 'privileges' the city enjoys. Embarassed not because those privileges are undeserved, but because the context of those privileges needs to be explained to non-Chennaiites who bristle at the 'unfair' treatment they receive. Right now, it is the issue of power-cuts; normally a power-neutral state, Tamil Nadu has been hit by a combination of factors leading to power availability falling by almost 20%. Power thefts and transmission losses are constants; the official line is that erratic rainfall and lower availability of uranium for the nuclear plant at Kalpakkam are the main causes for the current shortfall.

This shortfall has led to a power cut being imposed all across the state. Factories have been asked to declare an additional off-day each week, as a 'power holiday'. Rolling blackouts have been imposed in all areas. The first such power cut regime came into effect in mid-July; within a week, it was withdrawn for most consumers. Since yesterday, the cuts are back with a vengeance - Chennai will have blackouts for 1.5 hours each day; the suburbs of Chennai will be powerless for 3 hours a day. The rest of the state, though has to suffer through 5 hours without electricity. That creates strong resentment against the city dwellers and there are several demands for more 'equitable power cuts'. But with Chennai generating roughly 4.5% of India's GDP (and about 40% of Tamil Nadu's), longer power cuts in the city will have a huge knock-on effect - and a longer recovery time post the crisis.

The picture is of a substation in the city, just after a new transformer was installed a few weeks ago. Maybe this one too needs a good spell of rain for it to start working!

Sister act

A few days ago, about 14,000 km away from Chennai, a mile above sea level, history was made. A lady urged her supporters to transfer their allegiance to her one-time challenger, a man hoping to be the first African-American to rule USA; she came on pretty strongly, asking her party to make sure that the man is allowed to make history, something that she will now have to wait for her chance (if there can be one more) to do. One hopes that Hillary Clinton's call for party unity will help Barack Obama have a fair go at John McCain without worrying about saboteurs from within the ranks.

A similar display of unity was what was probably in mind when a city from the USSR became Chennai's first sister city. That was in 1966, when the Mayors of Stalingrad and Madras signed the Protocol of Friendship, establishing their sisterly ties. Since then, both cities have changed their names; Stalingrad is now Volgograd and Madras has moved on to be called Chennai. The second sister took a while in coming - it was in 1984 that Madras established a second sister city partnership. Today, Chennai has four sister cities, the two most recent being Frankfurt, Germany, in 2005 and San Antonio, Texas, USA, in February 2008. It was surprising to read that San Antonio had actually "outgunned Houston in securing a sister city agreement" with Chennai; I can't recall anything significant that has come out of the earlier sister city agreements. In fact, most of the cities appear fairly reticent about their siblings. The Corporation of Chennai website does not have any mention about its sisters; a search of the Alamo city's homepage throws up a couple of press releases about its Indian sister; Volgograd's website remains stuck in the past, continuing to show Karate Thiagarajan as the Mayor of Chennai. Frankfurt is like Chennai - no mention of sister cities on Frankfurt city's website.

Denver, Colorado, USA, where history was made on Thursday, is no exception; the city's website shows a 'City of Madras' Park. But thanks to a friend, I understand that action on the ground need not always get tom-tommed - the photograph that he sent me shows that the sign has been changed as 'City of Chennai Park'. So maybe there is a lot that is being done through the Sister City relationships that we don't get to see - and I hope we'll be able to find out what the benefits have been!

Today is 'Theme Day' for the City Daily Photo folks; there are 147 other 'sister cities' taking part in September's Theme Day. Click here to view thumbnails of all participants. Click'>http://www.citydailyphoto.com/portal/themes_archive.php?tid=7">Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Heavenly tableau

According to Hindu mythology, the Holy Trinity is the Trimurthi of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Shiva (the Destroyer). Having finished the business of creation, Brahma reportedly takes little interest in matters relating to day-to-day living and He is therefore very rarely invoked by devotees seeking solutions to their difficulties. That load is borne by the other two; therefore any public celebration will see Shiva and Vishnu being depicted in forms that are traditionally associated with them; Brahma gets to be seen very rarely, if at all.

These deities are regarded as having their primary abodes in very specific locations. Shiva's seat is Mount Kailas (which is probably the only Himalayan peak that has not been climbed in deference to Hindu, as well as Tibetan and Buddhist, beliefs). Vishnu on the other hand lives in the Paalazhi (Kshira Sagar in Hindi), the infinite ocean of milk, lying on the coils of Anantha, the thousand-hooded Sesha Nag (divine serpent). Brahma is content to live on a lotus that grows out of Vishnu's navel. It would be considerably difficult if you had to see the three of them together - that panorama should stretch from the high reaches of the Himalayas to the ocean of milk and then again to the lofty heights where the lotus blooms.

Not for the next few days, though. All you have to do is to go down Theyagaraya Road, towards Pondy Bazaar from Mount Road. You would have to have a will of iron to keep your eyes on the road - every passerby turns to take a quick glance at this representation of the Gods in residence!

Sheets on the street

Why at this place? As far as I can remember, this end of Musiri Subramanian Road did not have anything to do with traditional dhobies (washermen). There is no evident water source nearby and I haven't actually seen anyone doing the laundry out in the open here. These bamboo poles are festooned with various clothes at any time of the day; as they are inside a fenced area, it is reasonable to assume that they are the laundry from the hostel of Vivekananda College.

If so, why is it that every time I pass by, the laundry is dominated by white sheets? Have the hostel authorities deemed that such public display is allowed only for white sheets? And why this particular spot? Can't the sheets be sun-dried on the terraces of the hostel buildings? Musiri Subramanian Road is not exactly a sleepy little side-street, even if it is not a main traffic artery; it is very likely these white sheets would be tainted by the dust and exhaust churned around by traffic. And yet, it does not seem to affect them, these sheets remain untarnished for days.

Whatever be the reasons, it is good to see one more of the surprising reminders of something that was commonplace a couple of decades ago - even if it does not cater to the general populace!

Bar-Stool Bus-Stop

Alliteration is so much a part of life in Chennai, so I couldn't help but doing it when I saw this strip of concrete with the mushroom like contraptions on them. It is evident that it is a waiting area of some kind; but my experience of Chennai has led me to believe that folks waiting for a bus to arrive would have some kind of shelter overhead. And then I remembered all those bus-stops in the 'mofusil' areas; they are bus stops because a couple of generations have grown up putting their hand out for the bus to stop there. There are no concrete structures, no signs, nothing. Just a convenient tamarind tree by the side of the road to protect the waiting passengers from the skies above.

Santoshapuram, where I saw this, is most likely halfway house; it would like to think of itself as part of Chennai city, but hasn't yet been able to solve for all the amenties that are needed. Maybe they thought it is more important for people to take the weight off their feet - no guarantee of seats in the bus - than it is to shelter them. The budget for the bus-stop has therefore been used to provide these bar-stool like seating. Of course, people being optimists feel that it is more important to escape the sun than to rest their feet - the next bus will have enough seating, you see. And so, they find a nearby tree, wait in the shade, the bus stops there and these typewriter keyboard-like seats continue to dare you to come, sit down and feel the warmth of the sun.

Whatever it may be, there seems to be someone who is determined to make a splash of colour at this bus-stop; that orange ribbon may be eye-catching, but it certainly won't make me wish to take shelter under it!

A Retrospective

I had heard of him and there was always an intent to watch the films he had made (at least some of them) . That intent became slightly stronger after Ingmar Bergman's death last year. Not being much of a movie buff otherwise, it was rather difficult translating intent into action. This month, a Bergman retrospective began its journey to 6 cities in India; Delhi and Kolkata have been done, today is the last day at Chennai. Bangalore is next, followed by Pune and Mumbai. As usual, I got around to it fairly late; missed the first 5 days, managed to go last evening and have all intentions of going today also.

In some ways it was a slight disappointment; not the picture itself, but the whole retrospective bit. I'd imagined there would be some material about Bergman, the reason why the selection is representative of the man's work and maybe some talk about the film itself. It was however, a quick in-and-out show; fill up a form, take the pass, watch movie, return home. There were about 70 people who had turned up to watch Sommaren med Monika last evening. It was good to see people turning up to watch a film that was made 55 years ago; many of them seemed to be serious students of cinema and were bunching up together after the screening, probably discussing the nuances of the movie. It is possible that the timing of the show - 9.30 pm - didn't allow for more organized pre- or post-screening activities.

The South Indian Film Chamber Hall, where the Retrospective is being held, has given over the prime time slot of 6.30 pm to hosting a Brazilian Film Festival. I wonder if that is being handled any differently, but really don't have the inclination to sit through a screening to find out!

Skating away

Looking back at 'Western' influences of childhood, it is very difficult to think of too many that haven't grown to be part of my life today - English itself, for starters; the 'western music thing', started off by hearing The Beatles and Elvis; playing cricket on the streets; all of those laid the base for ongoing interests. "Obviously" you say, "the ones that haven't stayed on have been forgotten!": so what am I trying to prove here? Well, nothing much, if it comes to that, was trying to think of something that fascinated me as a child but did not stick on for much beyond that.

That thought was spurred when saw these children practicing hard at a skating rink at the Anna Nagar Tower Park. There were about 25 of them doing the rounds under the watchful eyes of a coach (in blue t-shirt at the right edge of the picture). In the middle was a mother, helping her child with the skates and some others who were taking a breather. Quite a nice sight, but the surprising part was that there were so many onlookers around; a few of them were the casual, nothing-better-to-do-this-evening types, but many appeared to be regulars. There were some sounds of encouragement, a discussion on the sidelines about how one of the children had improved his speed and technique. There was a feeling of a community, bound together by these evenings in the park - one of the surprising spin-offs of encouraging outdoor sports - even skating.

My attempts at roller-skating were usually on the sly upon the terrace of my grandfather's house. The rumbling of metal wheels overhead was guaranteed to get him riled up; it would have been a perfect way to wreck his mood and get him to come storming out of the house to the terrace. But the skates prevented quick getaways - the fun was to get him to chase, and never catch us!

Another day, another quiz

The contrast with a quiz that happened barely ten days ago couldn't be starker. The Landmark Quiz was held in a large auditorium, with cushioned seats, advance registration, assigned seating, coordinated lighting, visuals, slick presentations and tons of prize money. The Madras Quiz on the other hand was in a small hall tucked away inside Karpagambal Nagar, near Luz - finding the hall seemed to be an elimination round in itself, even with Google Maps. And then it was walk-in registration, find your seats, jump up to see the question on screen, have fun and fight it out to show off who knows more about Chennai - no prizes though, ladies and gentlemen, just the bragging rights.

The teams that went up on 'stage' (a makeshift platform, actually) for the finals certainly deserved their bragging rights. A tough preliminary round sorted out all those who knew only parts of the City and the teams that went up knew a lot, from the names of the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, the Commissioner of the Corporation of Chennai to that of the oil tanker which played a role in resolving the fuel crisis of July 1 and the location of the PK Srinivasan Maths Research Foundation. The finals saw some stiff competition before the winning team (VV Ramanan & Ramkumar Shankar) came through with a 1-answer margin. The point however, as Vincent D'Souza, the quizmaster and one of the founders of Madras Day said, was to create an interest and appreciation of the variety that Chennai city offers.

And the variety was reflected in the events of this year's Madras Day celebrations - heritage walks, nature walks, photowalks, exhibitions, food festival, book releases, the Madras Musings lecture series - now that it is all over, I just can't wait for the next birthday party!

Edge of the forest

One can drive up and down the Velachery-Tambaram Main Road for years without suspecting the presence of some wonderful natural riches by the side of that road. As you head to Tambaram, leaving Medavakkam behind, you will notice a grove of eucalyptus trees bordering the road. If you should look up slightly, just over the top of the trees, you will spot a small hillock in the distance. What we usually do not realize is that we are crossing the southern edge of the Nanmangalam Reserve Forest, a 320 hectare area of scrub jungle, surrounded on all sides by the newer real estate developments of Greater Chennai.

On Sunday, we knew where to stop, because we were going for a short hike into the forest, a walk put together by the Madras Naturalists Society for the Madras Day celebrations. Though termed a 'forest', the area has very few trees; even the eucalyptus is an import from Australia. The vegetation here is scrub jungle, which once upon a time covered most of this part of the world. Bushes grow up to be about 6 feet tall and that's good enough to get lost in! The land rises slowly and then, all on a sudden, you get to a clearing and peer down into a granite quarry - one of three or four which were worked out and abandoned about a century ago. These days, rain water flowing down to collect in these quarries creates artificial lakes that shelter a variety of bird species, some lizards, small animals and a scores of insect species. The poster boy of the forest though is the Great Indian Horned Owl, which nests along the crags of the quarries and pretends to be supremely unconcerned with all the humans gushing at it. We did not get to see even one of those birds, but there was so much to see that we didn't mind tramping around through the scrub for a couple of hours.

Scrub it may be, but it is still largely unspoilt wild land, coveted by quite a few. This guard shed with its complement of 2 guards is the bulwark against the forest being completely run over by poachers, petty criminals and land grabbers who are waiting for the slightest chance to get a toehold in!

Local Language

The Madras Day celebrations ended today and one of the last events was a book release; a compilation of essays by various authors on their impressions about Chennai. My first thoughts on listenting to the description of the book was that I must get around to reading it - it will be a challenge, but I know I must.... it has been a long while since I read a book in Tamizh, but this one sounds too good to be left unread, or even unsampled. One of the good parts of the Madras Day celebrations is that it has tried to reach out to places where these kind of celebrations are normally not taken to. It sometimes sounds much better hearing about impressions of Chennai in the native language!

Tamizh is indeed a unique language. Evolving fairly independent of Sanskrit, Tamizh has been in use for at least 2000 years. The armies from this region took their language with them when on their campaigns into the island of Ceylon and to the Malayan peninsula; today, Tamizh is a national language not only of India, but also of Sri Lanka and Singapore. Though the dialects spoken in those countries is very distinct from those of India, it is quite easy to understand them if one has learnt Tamizh at school / college levels; however, someone who has picked up the langauge listening to the day-to-day exchanges in Chennai will be all at sea trying to figure out the meanings. Chennai Tamizh - naw, that doesn't sound right - 'Madras Bashai' is a mixture, a Tamizh base into which phrases from several other languages are thrown in and which must be spoken in a way that sounds like an invitation to arm-wrestle. If that has been your only exposure to the language so far, you are forgiven for wondering how could anyone make any sense of it.

Which is probably the reason why, when the language became the first ever to be declared a 'Classical Language' in India, this Institute was set up in the city. We need to be reminded that the language is also part of a heritage that goes back a couple of millenia - and I'm sure next year's Madras Day celebrations will include some events to push that thought!

The photowalk

Chandrachoodan (http://www.selectiveamnesia.org/) has been running a wonderful concept called 'Chennai Photowalks' for a while now. While it is normally once a month, he had organized three in the past few days, to celebrate The Madras Week. The last one was yesterday and I was determined to make it for this one, at least. By the time I reached the starting point - the Tower Park at Anna Nagar - I was late by 30 minutes. Having spoken to Chandrachoodan on the way, I knew that the walk would start off vertically, to climb the Visvesvarayya Tower and I could catch up with them at some altitude. As I got to the Tower, I found quite a few people who seemed to be lugging around fairly high-tech photography equipment and all of them were at sea level - turned out that we were too late to be allowed up the Tower. It was a disappointment, and I am sure it would have been a bigger one for the few who had come all the way from Bangalore to join in the Madras Day Photowalk.

Anna Nagar, where this Tower Park is located, was the first - and probably the only - properly planned and laid out part of Chennai city. Until the late 1960s Nadukkarai (the middle bank - probably called so because the River Cooum makes a U turn around a piece of land), to the north of Poonamallee High Road was agricultural land. A trade fair held in Madras in 1968 was centred at Nadukkarai and that brought it to the attention of a lot of people who were looking for a quiet residential area close to the city. In a rare instance of long term planning, the whole area was laid out with straight roads, spaces for schools, parks, shopping and community facilities. And with all of this done, the locality was named after CN Annadurai, the first non-Congress Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Giving it such importance was necessary, for it was a challenge to attract people to come and live in this place - it was really the back of beyond.

Surprisingly, considering the movie background of many of the state politicians, the one feature Anna Nagar lacks is a good cinema hall - if it had that, it would probably have declared its independence from Chennai - as this post suggests!

Happy birthday!

It was 369 years ago that Francis Day, with his dubash (interpreter) Beri Thimmappa negotiated a grant of land for the British East India Company to build a 'factory' upon. Though Day was encouraged by his chief Andrew Cogan, their bosses in Surat remained sceptical that this bit of land, roughly 10 square kilometers in size, would amount to anything. But Day was firm: the friendly Nayak, the availability of cloth at a far cheaper rate and the natural protection offered by the rivers Cooum (to the west) and Elambore (south) made the site eminently suited for trade, much more so than his base at Armagon, further to the north. (It is also said that Day had a thing going with a lady from the Portugese settlement at San Thome, and it was therefore more convenient for him to be based closer to her - but that gossip is nearly four centuries old and has never been verified completely...)

Right from those times, the Bay of Bengal has been kind to Chennai. Even after the Port of Madras was built, the long stretch of sandy beach, the Marina, has remained largely unaltered - maybe it has extended just that little bit more into the sea. North of the Port, the areas of Royapuram, Tiruvottiyur, and Ennore have faced large scale erosion, and the sea has eaten up a good potion of the land, but south of the Port, the sands of the Marina probably remain as they were on August 22, 1639, when Day completed the transaction and was granted the firman to commence trading.

Ignore some of the signs of the modern day on this photograph and you can almost convince yourself that those ships you see out in the 'Madras Roads' are merchantmen of the 17th century, waiting for the tide to rise for the masula boats to ferry their cargo from the newly established factory at Medrasapatnam.... Well, it is Madras Day after all, so let the imagination run free over the last 369 years!

The launch of the Empire

Setting up a hafta vasool racket in a Shropshire town and being expelled from three schools during one's early teenage years is normally predictive of behaviour that would end up with capital punishment. But an 18th century father's frustration led to this boy being sent off to India, to work with the British East India Company, sometime around his 18th birthday. And where does he land up but in Fort St. George, employed as a lowly clerk. With some good timing and street-smart skills picked up from the Shropshire market operations, this clerk showed signs of being a 'heaven-born general'. And so it came to pass that Robert Clive returned home in 1753, as a Captain of the army, with several exploits of derring-do credited to him.

But the campaigns out of Fort St George had given him the craving for the soldierly life. He returned to India and was the key man in pushing the expansion of the British East India Company's interest not merely through trading, but through military action to take control of markets or, more possibly, factors of production. It was Robert Clive who brought Bengal into the British fold, laying the foundations to build the Company to become the power wielder of the sub-continent.

But before he left Madras, he married Margeret Maskeylne; by this time, Clive was a legend even in Madras. The Governor threw open a newly constructed building for the newlyweds to live in for the short period between their marriage and their return to England. And thus did this building get it's name - Clive House!

A re-release

I wish I could say that all the Madras Week celebrations have been keeping me occupied, to the extent that today's post barely meets the deadline. Sadly, that's not the case; though I did have the opportunity yesterday to attend the re-release of Prof. KV Raman's book on the history of the Chennai region, upto the time of British occupation. To me, that has been one of the good things about this year's birthday celebrations - that there seems to be some more inquisitiveness about what this whole place was, before there was Madras.

It is generally accepted that in the middle of the 17th century CE, there were a few villages around what is now Chennai, all of them vassals to whichever king had ascendency; these villages, like others of the day were all centered around a temple and were more or less entirely self-sufficient. Prof. Raman explores the history of these villages through the inscriptions found in these temples, and traces their history back to about the 9th century. But he doesn't stop there; he brings his considerable expertise to play in educating us about how the region around the city is a keysite for paleolithic settlements. Very early in this book, Prof. Raman throws Chennai's antiquity back to stone age times - Pallavaram, near the Chennai airport, is the first site in India where a paleolithic relic was found. With this kind of excitement being provided by a quick sampling of the book, I'm looking forward to more such as I read through it entirely.

Prof. Raman could not have foreseen that there would be a gap of almost half-a-century before the second publication of this book of his. It just goes on to show the utter lack of studies about the pre-British history of this region. With the kind of support that the Madras Day has generated this year, it is likely that we will be seeing some competition to Prof. Raman's books - and it will not be a day too soon!

Who goes over?

When this flyover was being built, I'd hazarded the premise that the traffic around Panagal Park on Usman Road has thinned out. A couple of days ago, I was walking down that road to take a look at the completed flyover, which was inaugurated on August 14. I noticed a decent-sized traffic jam, the very thing that the flyover was expected to minimize. The reason? Many vehicles were skirting the flyover and several of them were pausing to let people off in front of the GRT showroom. Those that weren't interested in GRT's jewellery were possibly looking at going to the shops just beyond, and on Prakasam Road; there were others making a U-turn under the flyover to get at some other shops. I guess the story was very much the same at the other end of the flyover, for there was little traffic coming down it, too.

I am sure there will be several explanations for the flyover not being used. Maybe people didn't know that the flyover is open for traffic; maybe they thought it was operating only one-way. Possibly, the weekend traffic does not need to use the flyover. Once the pavement shops are relocated, people will not need to crowd under the flyover. Whatever explanations are offered, I hope that none of them tries to claim it was unnecessary to have a flyover there!

The 'Gunners' in Chennai?

Even though Fort St George became the launch pad for the British Empire, it does not appear that the original intent of the Fort's construction was to use it for warlike purposes. The walls were meant to protect the British traders (and maybe the Portugese ones, too) and their merchandise from being plundered by their neighbours, native or European. The first buildings inside the Fort were the 'factory' for sorting and storing goods, the Governor's House, St. Mary's Church and houses for about 100 families who qualified to stay inside the 'White Town' of the Fort.

As we've seen elsewhere, the French began to covet this Fort before long. Of those conflicts was born the need for the Fort to have its own ammunition store. So, after the Fort was recovered from the French in 1749, reconstruction included building the Grand Arsenal. Col. Patrick Ross, who was in-charge of redesigning the walls, also laid out the design for the Arsenal, with storage areas on the ground floor and living spaces above. John Sullivan's execution of this design survives to this day and at least partially, the Arsenal continues to be used as originally intended. We were allowed into the rear portion of the Arsenal thanks to Madras Day celebrations - these areas, occupied by the Army, are normally out-of-bounds for visitors.

And so one got to see the words 'Madras' and 'Arsenal' together. If you were hoping to see something about the football club, sorry - it will take quite a few more Madras Days before the Gunners come to Chennai!