Nobody thought the IT boom would slow down, especially after the spectacular rise of the ITES / BPO industry. Real estate developers vied with each other to put up office towers, trying to flog such tiny standalone towers as the next thing in the city to Tidel Park. Of course the major thing they had in common with Tidel Park was the rates; the facilities were of course a far cry from what Tidel offers.Now, when the commercial real estate market in the city is in deep trouble, such buildings can be seen in several places. Estimates of vacant IT- / ITES- ready office space in Chennai range from 2 million to 4 million square feet. Many of these builders are stuck because they had taken advantage of concessional rates allowed by the government on construction material for IT Parks, which means building shells such as this one, probably, cannot be converted for any other commercial use. So they sit, with their gaping holes, hoping for the economy to rev back on to those wonderful growth rates that were being quoted as a 'sure thing' just a couple of months ago!
The gates to the venerable Theosophical Society are quite easy to miss, unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Set on the banks of the Adayar, the Theosophical Society (TS, as it is known to those in the know) sprawls over 270 acres, hugging the river until it runs into the Bay of Bengal. While the gates are rather inconspicuous, the roving eyes of land sharks have not missed the grounds of the TS. There have been attempts in the past to push the Society to give up part of its land for 'development'; attempts that have been rebuffed time and again. TS is old; not just that the spark of the movement was lit in the early 1870s in Vermont, USA: not just that it has been 133 years to the day today since it was founded in New York or that it has been over a century since this site, earlier the garden house of Huddlestone, was established as the World Headquarters of the Society. More worryingly, it is the feeling that the TS is increasingly irrelevant these days, when organized religion is making a vociferous comeback. The Society's goal of Universal Brotherhood and striving for that Truth which is higher than any religion does not appear to be galvanizing the youth or even attracting them to the Society. That's not a happy situation for the Society or these huge gardens that house their Headquarters.Even as I write this, I am aware that I have little knowledge about the membership, or even what the TS does and how well it is doing it. So, my worry may be unfounded, after all - and on this birthday of the TS, I sure hope it is; so, here's wishing the Theosophical Society, Adyar several more centuries of working for Universal Brotherhood!
It is a lull after festival shopping, waiting for the next burst at Christmas and New Year time. Sales are affected and the crowds are much thinner than normal. Even during the great shopping buildup to Deepavali, when this picture was taken, the crowds were not what they could have been. Apart from the crowds, this picture shows most of what happens around the jewellery shops; let the imagination run unchecked a bit and you can hear the girl at the entrance saying that she's been here before, this place doesn't have exactly what she wants; the man in the white shirt, with his back to her is letting someone know that he has managed to get a good deal; the trinket sellers on the right are hoping that some change would come their way, to reward a small child for behaving herself during the time in the shop. And look at that small alcove, housing Vinayagar, the remover of obstacles, where the faithful shopper can pray for a strong negotiating arm (and make an offering too, which in all likelihood will be collected by the shop!). Not just any ordinary Vinayagar, but Selvarathna (wealth of gems) Vinayagar, very appropriate!Finally the auto drivers, in their uniforms, looking at that group with the bulging shopping bags, ruing the lost chance to have taken them in their vehicle - happy shoppers might be too tired to negotiate one more item and the auto drivers could have made a packet, but someone else seems to have got there first!
At first, I didn't quite get it when my friend told me about the new hazard that has come up on the 14th hole at the TNGF-Cosmo Golf course. He told me it was a 'crow hazard' and my first thought was that he was having a dig at my new found ornithology mania. Almost immediately I knew he wasn't pulling my leg, that this was slightly more serious. I remembered Kapil Dev killing a seagull that wasn't quick enough to get out the way of a ferocious drive, in Adelaide, if I'm right. That had to be it, maybe there's a murder of crows out there, with murder being both a collective noun and a verb.It wasn't as bad as that, I'm assured. It is merely that the crows on the 14th and 15th holes have been particularly hungry or something and have been flying down to pick up the ball before the player walks to the fairway from the teeing area. Apparently it is more common than I first thought - googling for crow golf ball will give you a lot of stories about this happening all over the world.Maybe you need to keep a really close eye on the ball!
The Tawny Coster (Acraea terpsicore) is one of the 310-odd butterfly species of Tamil Nadu. Given the limitations of my camera, I had a better time taking pictures of butterflies than I did photographing birds during the weekend trip. This species is supposedly very abundant in Tamil Nadu; it should prefer Chennai, too, for its habitat of choice is the scrub jungle. Being rather tasteless (and maybe carrying some poisons, too), it does not have to fear too much about the predators. Maybe that's why I got to see not only this butterfly at close quarters, but its caterpillar, too!
It went against the grain when Saravana Stores revealed their seven storied building a couple of years ago. The store had a reputation for being the lowest-cost-sellers of any product, from clothes to kitchenware and samosas to diamond jewellery. With that kind of a background, their new building was not expected to be anything more than a block of concrete maximising the number of people who could be contained within. Their older store, on Ranganathan Street was inspired by such a design philosophy and is always packed. Always. And then they went ahead and pulled the curtains off this structure. Not much to look at in the daytime, the curved diagonals on its frontage are still a departure from the pack-them-in school of store building. At night, with the recessed lighting along the diagonals, it is a reasonably pretty sight when one drives down Pondy Bazaar to Usman Road. With this kind of a jazzed up departure from tradition, one expected the store to move out of the 'leading low cost seller' slot. The building may be new, but the business model remains pretty much the same. Keep costs low, in whatever way possible, undercut on pricing, advertise on the Tamizh channels. And the customers respond in the best way possible: the crowds keep flowing in!
If it weren't for the buildings, you could stand at any point in Chennai city and see clearly all the way through to the edges of the city. Except for a couple of places, where the St Thomas Mount and the Pallavaram hills rise like pimples, the terrain of Chennai is... well, a flawless cheek! It is said that the tallest peaks are in the young mountains and that the oldest mountains show up as low, rounded hills. By that hypothesis, the Pallavaram hills in the picture would be a billion or so years old (the Himalayas are estimated as being about 150 million to 200 million years old). With that kind of evidence being put forward in support of their longevity, it should not be a surprise that the locality of Pallavaram pre-dates the emergence of Madras. The name itself is a corruption of 'Pallavapuram' - the land of the Pallavas. It is believed that the Pallava kings ruled from here during the 6th / 7th century CE, but there are very few extant relics or monuments from that period here. In 1863, Robert Bruce Foote, working for the Geological Survey of India, discovered a hand-axe from paleolithic times near these hills. Somehow, this discovery is not well remembered today; with Pallavaram having become a bustling suburb, any mention of carrying out archeological excavations there would be met with violent opposition. So, these hills stand, having seen it all, from pre-historic badlands to the landings at Chennai international airport, just across the road. Ah, the stories they would tell, if only these hills could talk!
17 Across: Large bird can't take off from down under (3). That would probably leave Bertie Wooster scratching his head, especially after he finds the first letter is 'E' and the last is 'U'. But not me. EMUs have been a part of life for a very long time. That's only to be expected, for the EMU in this case is the Electrical Multiple Unit, which is what have been running on Chennai's suburban train systems (as on many train systems the world over) since as far back as the 1920s. In those days, Tambaram was an important point on the rail and road network for it was the first large settlement after leaving the city of Madras, towards the southern districts.With the EMUs came the need to maintain them. The workshop was inaugurated in 1931, almost at the same time that metre-gauge EMU services from Beach to Tambaram were regularized. In those days, the services were run with 3-car rakes; over the years they've grown to the 9- or 12-car rakes that are in use now. With a capacity of about 200 people to a car and each car running at least 10 trips a day, that's a lot of footfalls. Besides handling routine maintenance and safety checks, this workshop is also expected to keep the rakes completely clean and neat. It may not be a bird, but for the approximately 1000 employees at the EMU workshop, it would certainly be a big task to keep the 25 rakes on the Beach - Tambaram sector moving smoothly!
Quick, how many women freedom fighters of India can you name? I could come up with five, after a bit of thought. When the question is extended to women freedom fighters from Madras, the count dropped sharply down to zero. No count can cover all those men and women who fought the British rule in their own small ways, every day, over and over again. Even so, it is particularly embarrassing to realize that the first woman political prisoner of the 20th century has been almost completely forgotten.Rukmini Lakshmipathy had come to Madras circa 1915 to pursue her education at the Women's Christian College and had stayed on, captivated by the fervour of the Independence movement. She was active in the salt sathyagraha at Vedaranyam, which led to her first stint as a guest of His Majesty's government. She went on to become the Deputy Speaker of the state Legislative Assembly, the first woman to hold that position. Apart from Marshall's Road having been renamed in her honour, the only other time when she is remembered is during the lecture in her memory at her alma mater. Still, that faded garland on her statue is a reassurance. There are people out there who remember this lady, on behalf of the whole city!
Was away overnight on a bird-watching camp organized by the Madras Naturalists Society and conducted by my namesake, Dr V.Santharam. The camp was just outside Chennai city - actually I guess the place we went to would fall within the boundaries of Greater Chennai. I had a great time getting to know the ABCs of bird watching - and then going out on to the field and spotting 27 species of birds (that's just the ones I saw; the more experienced birders had over 50 species on their lists). Coming back into the city, we headed in on the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR); or, what was earlier called Old Mahabalipuram Road. It was renamed Rajiv Gandhi Salai sometime ago and the 20km stretch from Madhya Kailas to Siruseri was formally dedicated at the end of October 2008. The next phase of activity on this road, to complete the Siruseri - Mamallapuram stretch and some connecting roads between Rajiv Gandhi Salai and the East Coast Road is expected to take another year to complete. Though towns like Tiruporur, on the OMR, list themselves as being on the IT Highway, it will take a while before Rajiv Gandhi Salai begins to look like a highway at those points. In a month or so, the toll plaza at Siruseri will be functional - today, just after we entered the IT Highway at this point in Siruseri, we casually breezed through the yet-to-be-functional toll booths. I believe that's how the villagers along this part - and several other parts too - of Rajiv Gandhi Salai will pass through, even after the toll collection is implemented!
Well, it did look like a police flatbed truck. I may be mistaken, for the Chennai City Traffic Police uses them but very rarely and moving an illegally parked car is not something that the mighty flatbed would be rousted out for. Moving an illegally parked car is probably against the CCTP's standard operating procedure. On almost all occasions, vehicles parked illegally are immobilized with a wheel clamp, and the vehicle owner will have to wait there until the policemen get back to the place again in their tow truck.
The tow truck itself appears to be more for its showpiece value than any help in actually dragging away cars. There is enough space on the truck to place a few motorcycles after physically lifting them up from where they were parked. Even then the tow winch will remain idle, the lifting will be done by one of the policemen with help from parking lot attendents and maybe even passers by.
Which is why this seems to be a special case of illegal parking. Maybe I'm being too uncharitable. It could also be the police were helping out a driver, stranded because his car had a problem. What, do you think, happened?
If ever there is an award for irrelevant statues, this one (and its brother, on the other side of the flyover) will win it, time and again, in a canter. Horse racing, in one form or the other, has been around in Chennai for many years. The Madras Race Club traces its origins back to 1777, though it's formal shape was given only in 1896. Through the 1960s, there was growing criticism about horse racing, that it was driving working class people into a cycle of gambling, debt, poverty, alcoholism and ruin. The strident demands to do something about it led to the Tamil Nadu Government issuing an ordinance on August 14, 1974, banning horse races in the state. Being very pleased with themselves, they decided to commemorate this achievement and commissioned the twin statues of a-man-and-horse. Nagappa Sculptors - then run, in all likelihood, by Jayaram Nagappa - delivered on the commission and these statues have been flanking the Gemini Flyover for the past 30 years or so. But the original ordinance was challenged in the courts, and the implementation of the ordinance was stayed by the Madras High Court - that allowed the Madras Race Club to conduct their bicentennial races in 1978. However, it was only sometime in the early 1990s that the Supreme Court of India struck down the Government's contention that horse racing was to be banned. In some sense, racing never went away from Madras, though it was on hold long enough for these statues to be installed!
Though the sign says '861', it would be more appropriate to call it '1'. On the western bank as Mount Road (I know I should say Anna Salai, but change comes slowly - sometimes, not at all) meets Arunachala Street, stands this building, with no signage to indicate what it is all about. A newcomer to Chennai can be excused for assuming it is some government office, seeing the art-deco style building and the quiet, unhurried ambience all around it. But '861, Anna Salai', is special, for various reasons. In the second half of the 19th century, when the owner of this property fell on hard times, it was bought by A.M.Simpson, a Scot who had come to Madras in 1840. By the 1870s, which was when he bought this site, Simpson had become a very well established coach builder, whose products rivalled those made in London. With his business growing, he needed more space for making coaches than was available in his location further south on Mount Road. As horse-drawn coaches gave way to other modes of transport, Simpson's moved into manufacturing rail coaches; the company is also credited with building the first steam-powered motor car in India, in 1903. Circa 1915, the buildings seen beyond the wall were built, as a frontage to the body building workshops and to house the motorcar showrooms. In 1933, Simpson's became the trading agency for the 4 cylinder 'Vixen' engines built by Perkins & Company, a firm set up in Peterborough, England, the previous year. Over the course of subsequent years, the engines proved to be best-sellers. In 1952/3, Simpson & Co. became the first licenced manufacturer of Perkins engines outside England, upon which the jumble of workshops at this site was converted to a modern-day factory. Today, Simpson & Co. is the flagship of the Amalgamations Group, making the Perkins engines that go into tractors manufactured by TAFE, another company of the Group. Very low profile and unassuming, this first factory on Mount Road does not have any visible external sign of its history, heritage or stature. If one does not notice the stylized 'Simpson & Co.' written on the building, the assumption of it being a government office will take a lot of changing!
Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here, in classifying this passion flower as Passiflora incarnata; I'm reliably informed that it is indeed the passion flower, but the scientific name is entirely out of my own research - these flowers seem to come in a wide range of colours and I'm sure they do not represent just one species. Even though the limb of this flower that I'm going out on is a creeper, it will support my findings and actually turn out to be the P. incarnata.Initially, I put its name down to a description of the way it is constructed, with delicately multicoloured tendrils above the petals, the stamens rising up in a crown over them and the overall effect of tenderness. The passion flower however, was named so because the Spaniards who first saw them in South America were reminded of the passion of Christ - the crown of thorns, the whips, the wounds - in different aspects of this flower. For all its name, it will not fire you up; it is mainly used as a sedative and is also a key ingredient in some herbal tranquilizers. I am not sure how common it is in Chennai, for this is the only time I saw it, near the St Thomas Mount.
I know that I have written something about the greater incidence of 'caste-marks' in Chennai than in many other Indian cities. Even when I did so, I was thinking about single lines on the forehead, either vertically or horizontally, with sandalwood paste, ash or sindoor (vermillion). I must confess that the more elaborate vadakalai and thenkalai marks had completely skipped my mind. They were common many many years ago, but anti-brahmin agitations of the 1960s had led to them being wiped away from thousands of foreheads across the state. In those days, the naamams were a visible reminder of inequities, both real and imagined. The vehemence of the agitations have died down, but their causative factors will never be removed from the society, not as long as there is someone who feels deprived for whatever reason. The naamams didn't make a comeback to their heydays. So it was a bit of a surprise to see this gentleman at a function on Sunday. More so because the function was not a religious occasion at all. Looking at him for a while, I realized that the naamam was not a one-off sign worn for the function; it seemed to be something that he did up every day, just as he would shave his face or comb his hair. It is his identity, his style, part of who he is. Nothing can take that away from him. Even these fashions have their phases. Wearing the naamam because it is traditional. Not doing so because it made one a sitting duck. Wearing it with a sense of defiance, a re-assertion of cultural identity. Not doing so because it just takes too long to get the shape of the 'Y' right, hey, who has the time these days!
Sunday afternoon and the traffic at the Kathipara grade separator is either approaching apprehensively or moving away from it in relief - maybe confusion, too. At each stage of its construction, traffic had to adjust to slight changes in routes. In the first few days after the entire intersection was opened to traffic last week, there was complete confusion. The signs, while they were present, were just not clear enough to cut through the intuitive driving of the Chennaiite. It is unreasonable to expect him to know that, one fine morning, he has to turn left, so that he could circle around and join the road that takes him to the right; he just looks at this newly laid road and says, "Okay, this is where I have always turned right, and I'll do just that, now. What a wonderful road this is!". Before he knows it, he is going the wrong way - just like an elderly gentleman, who was coming back home. In the fading twilight, he was probably unable to figure out the new traffic routing and so went up a down-ramp. The poor man died next morning and the grade separator had claimed its first fatality within 24 hours of opening. It was too late to help him, but the police seem to have beefed up their presence at the intersection, to guide confused drivers. The light traffic yesterday afternoon allowed careful drivers to figure out the intricacies of the first clover-leaf intersection in this part of the country. With two more coming up, at Koyambedu and at Padi, some say there will soon be potential for grade-separator-tourism!
Not too many Indians are clued in about their national or state symbols. Part of it could be lack of any rituals around any of the national symbols. It could also be genuine confusion caused by a multiplicity of symbols; for example, India's national animal is the tiger (Panthera tigris), but a child could be forgiven for thinking it is the lion (Panthera leo persica): for India's state emblem, from Ashoka's Sarnath Lion Capital, shows 3 lions but not a single tiger. On the original Lion Capital, you can actually see 5 lions; it is placed on top of an inverted lotus (Nelumbo nucipera gaertn), which is India's national flower. But the lotus is also the symbol of the BJP and therefore not usually paraded about when the BJP is out of power.The reason for placing all these explanations before getting to the subject is quite simple. Until a few days ago, I did not know much about the state symbols of Tamil Nadu. The big fact I knew was that the gopuram on the state emblem was that of the temple at Srivilliputhur. Beyond that, I was clueless about the symbols of state. Oh, well, the website of the state government also does not have any information about them, but buried somewhere deep inside was a document that acknowledged the palmyra tree (Borassus flabellifer) as the state tree of Tamil Nadu. It may be easy to forget this fact, more so because there are far fewer palmyra trees in Chennai than before - in fact, the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) is probably far more abundant in the city.If you have ever tasted the jelly from inside those black fruits on a hot day, or even the candied panankalkandu, however, you will never be able forget this tree, will you?!
Another theme day for the City Daily Photo bloggers group goes by, without my realizing it. And I'm kicking myself, for the theme is something that I could have easily found something for. But didn't register, didn't have photos ready. If I had known, chances are I would have done something on the lines of what several others - including Eric, in Paris; Greg, in Hobart; Anu in Mumbai; 'BitingMidge' on the Sunshine Coast - had done. The pavement book sellers in Chennai are not the force they used to be, but they are still there, just the same. Many of them have shifted to pirated books, rather than the second-hand ones they used to trade in, quite a while ago. But that is material for another post.Today, I'm just putting up this picture of the 'welcome page' in front of the Fort Museum. Merely walking around Fort St. George will provide material for a lot of books, if one could write them. The officers of the British East India Company did put a lot words on to paper - letters, diaries, bills, whatever, but there have been very few that have been strung together as narratives of life in the early Raj. There are a couple that I have found; In Old Madras, by B.M.Crocker, which has a lot of fiction, even about dates and places, but makes for a good read if you are in the mood. The Raj at the Table, by David Burton, on the other hand has little specific connection with Madras, but you can imagine the expatriates sitting down to 'homologated' breakfast, lunch and dinner!
I used to think that the tiny red and black seeds of the Abrus precatorius could be found only in Guruvayoor, the temple town in Kerala. I used to think these seeds existed on earth only for toddlers to play with them in front of Lord Krishna, where he could watch them and revel in their delight. Of course, the kunnikuru is more widespread than that, even though it is not native to India. It was only much later that I learnt that A. precatorius is considered a weed; in days past, they were supposedly used by goldsmiths to add lustre to the ornaments, though I don't know in what way. There is also a belief that each of these seeds weigh absolutely the same (about a tenth of a gram) - that was useful for jewellers to weigh their ornaments against these seeds. These shiny seeds were also themselves used as jewellery beads, too.Nature, however, has a different take on the significance of colours; bright, shiny red indicates danger, more often than not. In the case of these seeds, it holds true. Harmless when whole, the broken seed releases a poison. So, even if you wander into this thicket to pluck these tiny seeds, make sure you do not chew on them, for the poison released can be fatal to humans.No such worries about the young children playing with these seeds at the temple - they know better than to pop red seeds into their mouth, because that is the way nature made them!
Well, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' it ain't, for sure. It is nice to see the shed at this park painted with pictures of wildlife. For a change, the painting is pretty good: in fact much, much better than what one has been led to expect from artists working on a government commission. Over the past few years, Chennai's parks have become less known as hangouts for riff-raff and are being more used by average citizens on a regular basis. And I think it is really a good idea to have such pictures of wildlife near the parks, because the message is going out to an audience that is reasonably receptive. And with parks becoming more popular, that audience will only grow.That's a good thing for wildlife in general, of humans becoming more sensitive to their needs. With so much of threat to their natural habitats, it is a conservation challenge; at least the animals shown here are not so endangered that conservationists have to resort to borderline methods to shore up the genetic pools. None of these animals is native to Chennai; but if you travel out the Vandalur zoo, you can see at least the lion, deer and kangaroo. I'm not sure about the rhino, but I'm certain that the giant panda hasn't been anywhere close to the city.But then, that's what I used to think about ostriches, until I saw close to a hundred of them near Chennai!
It is month since the 320th anniversary of the Corporation of Chennai, so it is as good a time as any to talk a bit about the man whose name is synonymous with the Corporation's offices today. George Frederick Samuel Robinson, the First Marquess of Ripon, was a Viceroy of India towards the end of the 19th century. But much before that, he had served a term as the Secretary for India under the first Earl Rusell. Between the two appointments, he also served as the Chairman of the Joint Commission to draft the Treaty of Washington, between Great Britain and the United States of America, sometime in the 1870s. It is likely that the Marquess' thinking was shaped by how the former colonies had progressed after freeing themselves from Great Britain. He must have anticipated the clamour for self-rule that would rise from India and to head it off, he was prepared to allow native Indians to exercise more powers. Not all of his efforts were in vain; he managed to contribute significantly to local governement, by having appointed officials replaced - or matched - with elected ones. He repealed legislation that required Indian editors give undertakings to not publish any articles criticising the governement. His actions did make the Marquess quite popular among the Indians, but I am unable to find any specific reason why Madras has been so much in awe of him. Be that as it may, when the Corporation of Madras moved to its current premises in 1913, it was Lord Ripon they chose to honour, for all his efforts in bridging the gap between the government and the governed - you can't miss this statue, it is one of the very few (if there is any other at all) black installations in front of a shining white building!
The pavilion at the M.A.Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk is named after C.P.Johnstone. I am sure he has done great deeds on the cricket field, to have the pavilion named after him, but that can keep for a later post. One of the odd things I remember reading about Mr. Johnstone is that if a team-mate was approaching the half-century or the century mark, he would sit in the pavilion wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. And he would not change until his team-mate either went past the milestone, or got out before doing so.But what would he do if there was someone closing the day, or even the session, on 49 or 97? Maybe that's why he wanted the whole pavilion to himself!
In most of South India, the Deepavali holiday is today, while it is tomorrow in all other parts of the country. That's okay, it is basically an extended holiday, what with Deepavali, Diwali, Bhai Dhuj, New Year, all of it happening in different parts of the country through the whole week. Chennai's Deepavali has been growing quieter year after year and this year continued that trend. But the reduction in decibel levels of the fireworks has been combined with an increase in their smoke output; there's so much of smoke around the city that it feels more like early morning on bhogi day. With the rains stayed away the whole of yesterday and also today, the fireworks had a lot of dry ground to support their displays - and we had a good time of it, for about 2 hours, non-stop, today.Happy Deepavali, everyone! No one will deny that the world needs a lot of light, laughter and happiness amidst all the gloom that's around us - so let this Deepavali bring a New Year of prosperity and joy all around!
I don't dare say anything about how this can happen only in Chennai. It could happen anywhere, anytime to anyone. I've knocked over a glass on quite a few occasions, but last evening was quite unique, so I just had to put up this picture. We were at the Madras Cricket Club, talking about an upcoming conference. I reached out for something (can't remember what - anyway, with what happened next, everything else was forgotten for a few minutes) but my hand brushed a half-empty Coke bottle, which then gently leaned over on to a half-empty glass of rum and Coke. The glass then, quite gently, sheared itself rather neatly at the point where it was empty and the top portion landed on the table, looking for all the world like a wrist-band or something.The only reason I can think of for this polite behaviour of the glass is the presence of an executive from Saint Gobain's Chennai plant, who was at the table with us - when the experts are around, glass behaves itself, I guess!
If you're in Chennai.If you have to be out driving.If it is raining like a drop to fill buckets.If the roads are flooded, or flooding fast.Wouldn't you be glad, That you're in one of these?If there is a pothole.If the cyclist skids into you.If the auto behind you doesn't stop in time.If the scampering goat leaps onto your bonnet.Would you be glad,That you're not in one of these?
If you can think of all the aboveAnd treat those two imposters just the sameYou certainly deserve to be in one of these!
If you think something sounds familiar, you're thinking about this!
The Government of Sri Lanka is right now in the middle of one of its most sustained offensives against the LTTE in the past two decades. It appears that the Sri Lankan army has the upper hand currently and are pressing home their advantage. The fierce fighting in the island has forced many to cross the Palk Straits, bringing with them their tales of atrocities by the soldiers. Some of the more hardline Tamizh political parties have been quick to pounce on this as a cause - and the Tamil Nadu government decided to nullify that political advantage by throwing its weight behind the cause, too. To 'highlight' the sufferings faced by people in Sri Lanka's war-ravaged north-eastern regions, a human chain was to be formed in Chennai, stretching through the city into the suburbs. It was scheduled for October 22, but the rains on Tuesday led the organizers to reschedule it for today. One can't blame them if they were in a self-congratulatory mood at 2 pm, about an hour before the chain was to form. But it certainly says something that in a matter of 15 minutes or so, the skies darkened up and let loose one of the most sustained spells of heavy rain that had large sections of the human chain break away; much of the rest had to move to the middle of the road, because the rainwater flowing along the road shoulders did not allow them to stay to a side.Recipe for disaster? Of course! Traffic was completely paralyzed in many places; one driver estimated a traffic jam stretching for about 12 km through the city. I know that we managed to do about 3 km on Mount Road / Sardar Patel in an hour before we aborted our trip and turned back - just at the right time, thankfully. The return took us 7 minutes. The traffic behind this section of the human chain remained stationary for well over an hour! 
Chennai was once a region of scrub forest, of which a large tract remains, spreading across Guindy, covering the IIT Madras, the Raj Bhavan and the Guindy National Park. Of course, over the course of the centuries, the original vegetation has been supplemented by several non-native plants and trees. Many of them have adapted well to their new habitat and have flourished, even through the harsh dry spells of the 1990s and the early 2000s. Might sound a touch unbelievable today, with rain having come down so much that some of the lakes near the city have overflown; Chennai was in near drought conditions hardly a few years ago. Maybe that could be an explanation for this patch of cacti on the beach - greenery needed, but shouldn't use too much of water, preferably shouldn't use any water at all. Or maybe they had to adapt to the salty water, being so close to the sea. Or is it just protection for the deer garden ornaments that have been placed there, wondering how they managed to land up on the beach!
Fairly historic day, today. India's first moon mission lifted off early in the day, from the launch site at Sriharikota, about 100 km north of Chennai. We had had some plans of driving down to watch the launch - but with the weather being what it is, it did not seem like a good idea, especially considering that we would have to watch the launch from somewhere outside the gates of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. In the early days of the Centre (it was set up in 1971), Madras was the place to go for the scientists working at 'SHAR'; these days, Sullurpet seems to provide enough entertainment for them. In any case, with several missions lined up, entertainment will probably be the last thing on their mind.Chennai continues to be a major feeder hub for the Sriharikota Range. It will take about 3 hours to get to SHAR by road - of which a third would be spent in getting out of the Chennai traffic. The trains are faster, but they take you only as far as Sullurpet and you've got to get back on to the road after. Sriharikota is actually an island, so there is also the option of taking a boat from Pazhaverkadu (Pulicat) and getting across the Pulicat lake.Having decided long ago that today's post / picture would be about SHAR, I had not made any alternate plans despite the rains. These clouds may not be of this morning, but they are definitely the clouds over Chennai a few days ago!
About six or seven years ago, Solker Industries would have been right in thinking that they were on to a good thing, when they supplied the Chennai Traffic Police with about a hundred solar-powered booths. The idea was to have the traffic policeman on duty stay inside this booth, in which he could shelter from the sun - and have the sunlight power his wireless set in the bargain. Sitting inside this booth, he could even call out advice to the vehicles or berate those blatantly ignoring the rules. However, the booths were unprotected in the nights. The batteries disappeared with unfailing regularity and after a while, many of the booths lost their windows and doors, too. The market for silicon is probably vastly underdeveloped, otherwise the solar panels would have also gone missing for sure. Very soon, there was no real reason for the policeman to sit inside and he went back to his waiting-by-the-roadside routine. These booths are useful, still, as temporary storage - what gets stored in them depends on where the booth is located!
The monsoon has been showing a classic pattern over Chennai; strong spell of rain, then the sunshine, going back and forth through the day. Finally giving up, the sun goes away quite early in the evening leaving the world to darkness and to the frogs that have come out from nowhere. But this picture was taken in the middle of the day, sandwiched between two spells of rain, so it is bright enough. That's like the Deepavali seasons of many moons ago; using every bit of sunshine to warm the fireworks that have been bought way in advance through some system of pooled purchase. It is just a week away from Deepavali now and many things have changed. People are much more sensitive to the noise pollution - which may be another way of saying that people have become less sensitive to others when setting off fireworks. More restrictions on use have come up, the fireworks themselves have become more powerful and dazzling (and of course, more expensive). But over the years, Deepavali morning has become more muted; I can't help feeling that very soon, individual fireworks would be banned and folks will have to be content with watching a firework show rather than setting them off. That will be a sad day, indeed.But until then, these firework shops will spring up every Deepavali to make sure that everyone has a blast!
The gambit of using religious imagery to stop people from dirtying some spots has been around for a long while. Chennai has always been a reasonably God-fearing city so it is no surprise to see a sign like this, asking people to not dirty the wall and to refrain from putting up slogans or posters on it. The imagery of the three major religions broadbases the appeal (and maybe to remind folks that all roads lead to God, or something like that?).Chennai, as I said, has always been a God-fearing city. People here are considered more devout than the norm. One big reason for this could be the greater prevalence of visible 'caste-marks' such as the tuft of hair at the crown or the use of naamam on the forehead among the Hindus. Even senior executives in various offices, or senior public service officers used to be very comfortable sporting some such marks; in my experience, such display is only on some festival day in other large cities of India. Whatever that may be, the appeal here seems to have worked. This part of Jagannathan Street, just off Nungambakkam High Road used to be far more messy. I don't know when this mural came up, but it has definitely made the place much cleaner!
The poster is pretty clear, isn't it - or is it? In these days when almost every business around is going slow on hiring, why wouldn't one respond to a 'wanted' ad? No matter that it almost sounds underworld-ish in wanting 'kuthhu' (to stab) dancers rather than 'koothhu' (performance) ones. The line clarifying that it is only a competition highlights the edginess. And anyone from 14 to 60? What kind of competition is that? Oh, it is for Vasanth TV! But wait a minute, isn't there some ban on children below 16 participating in such shows? Then, someone tells me that I'm over the hill. Koothhu is old fashioned, kuthhu is what this dance is all about. (Can't you see the models getting ready to execute that perfect round arm swing, which would end in the pointy end of the knife punching through whatever material is in its path?). And, you old fuddy-duddy, there is no ban, just some people like you overreacting to a one-off incident! Whatever it be, it just shows that 'reality shows' like these competitions are among the easiest to produce - so hey, if I want the TRPs, I'll let everyone participate on TV!
It's about 4 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. Kids are just getting back from school. Mothers are rushing them through their tea and tiffin, changing them into street clothes, having them all ready by the time father comes home, slightly earlier than usual. Father will have a quick wash and then all of them will troop out, by car or two-wheeler or an auto or the bus, trying to beat a few hundred other families with similar motivations. In a couple of hours, streets like this one (Prakasam Street, bordering Panagal Park) would have become parking lots for all the families trying to get to the shopping hotspots nearby. The Pondy Bazaar-Panagal Park-South Usman Road belt had already started filling up at 4.30. Over the next two days, the throng of people will be unimaginable, even though the wisdom is that pre-Diwali sales will be down by upto 40% over last year. It is easy to believe that figure when you think of all the doom and gloom around, but the crowds around the shops make you wonder how in the world did last year's shoppers get a toe-hold in there. Much of this year's festival shopping may be over, but during the last weekend before Deepavali, there is bound to be a rush that waited for the rush to get over!
You may not be able to figure it out from the photo, but it is actually pouring down; well, maybe if you click on the picture, you may see some white streaks. You would dismiss it as being just another of those mild showers that make Chennai interesting. But today was special. Unlike those earlier this year, it was the real thing today. The Met department has officially announced that the North East monsoon has hit Chennai yesterday, within the range when it is supposed to: in fact, it is slightly on the earlier side. That's certainly good news, because Chennai depends on this season to provide it water to last through until the winds come down from the Himalayas over the Bay of Bengal the next year.Somehow the monsoons are not as much fun as they used to be. With so much construction all over the city, water does not find its own level very easily; and when it does, it is in the middle of that road you want to walk across. Building traffic dividers across some of the bigger roads has stopped the free flow of water into the storm water drains or the canals that would empty them into the Bay of Bengal, eventually. The water stays, obeying the rules, to the side of the road that it has fallen on, doing no good to anyone, waiting for the next spell of sunshine to change it into mud, before evaporating away completely.A couple of months ago, there was a report that nearly 4 million recharge structures were to be built to harvest the monsoon run-off waters. Surely Chennai city will need a significant proportion of those!
Tamizh is a language that claims a history going back to over two millenia. In the course of those years, it has obviously morphed several times, to keep pace with changing tastes and times. The last such major change implemented on the script was sometime in the late 1970s - I seem to remember it as being necessitated by a redesign of the keys on a Tamizh typewriter. To an extent, it is understandable that the script I studied in primary school is not the same that kids these days study. There is something else which is not that easily understandable. In fact, accepting it as understandable is equivalent of smashing a much loved and very necessary monument. One of the earliest Tamizh lessons in kindergarten was a kind of sing-song way of memorising the alphabet. Called aathichuvadi, its first part not only taught kids the Tamizh vowels, but also had each of the 12 vowels fashioned into a one-line homily about how to lead a virtuous life. This aathichuvadi was written by a lady named Avvaiyar; the statue indicates she lived in the 1st century CE, while some folks claim there were more than one lady poet named Avvaiyar and the most recent one lived in the 13the century CE. Even taking the most recent date, the aathichuvadi has been a part of Tamizh teaching over the last 700 years. But sometime over the last 30-odd years, the aathichuvadi seems to have slipped out of the Tamizh text book and thus out of the minds of young people - that's the power of change, to be able to obliterate 700 years of constancy within a generation-and-a-half!
Sometime ago, I'd written about how the TN Government website as well as the website of the Union Ministry for External Affairs have been lagging behind in listing representative offices of other countries in Chennai. The latter has updated its site to list the Honorary Consul for Zambia; External Affairs being a Central subject, it is not surprising that the state website hasn't included that information yet. Around the same time, I found that Switzerland's Honorary Consul, Mr. Muthu Ramanathan, was based on TTK Road. Now, I travel a fair bit on TTK Road and had not seen anything to indicate the presence of an Honorary Consul there. Some days ago, however, I realized I had been looking at the wrong elevation. The sign was not at eye level as you go on the road, but just above! The white cross on a red field is very distinctive, of course. Learnt something else about it - the flag of Switzerland is one of only two flags in the world that are completely square! Any guesses as to which the other one is? Go on, guess, before you take a look at this site!
The names are meant to inspire trust. Surely, when you see names that have words like 'Benefit', 'Nidhi' (meaning treasure) or 'Permanent' in them, you feel a warmth, imagining these venerable organizations working hard to make sure your money grows. The premise behind all these organizations is simple enough; the trust that folks you see every day, who live in the same locality, will not indulge in trapeze acts with the money you've given them. You believe they will invest it prudently and will share their profits with you. Someone once said there were about 200 such organizations in Chennai; some of the more high profile among them, like the Royapettah Benefit Fund and the Alwarpet Benefit Fund strayed from the straight and narrow and went belly-up about 10 years ago. Since then, the surviving Nidhis have been very low profile. It is partly due to some fairly severe restrictions imposed on them by the government, which hampered their ability to leverage funds and also forced them to provision for overdue loans much the same way that banks had to, while restricting their operations to only specific areas within the city. With such difficult conditions imposed on them, it is a wonder that the entire business model did not collapse. The Mylapore Hindu Permanent Fund has been in the nidhi business for over 130 years now. With so much of chaos facing its larger cousins, these organizations must be feeling glad that they've been under so much of regulation for the last few years that there is almost no chance of them failing!
Once upon a time, Chennai was typical of the stereotyped notion of an Indian city. Visitors from faraway lands felt cheated if they were not shown a sequence of cows on the roads, holding up traffic because they were holy and no one dared tell them to move on. After a while the cows were replaced by buffaloes - probably because they were low-maintenance and cheaper, I guess. And then, slowly, the buffaloes too have disappeared. Now, the city buffaloes make their presence only in stories about folks raising them on terraces of their 4-storied apartment. The buffaloes may have gone, but an even earlier resident of the city is going strong. The chital / sarang herds of the forest in Guindy have been going strong. Driving late at night on the Velachery Road, it is common to see a herd nosing in the trash dump near the aptly named 'Alsa Deer Park' apartments. About 18 months ago, the problem of motorists crashing into deer around the Guindy / Velachery area became so acute that a herd of about 15 deer was relocated to the grounds of the Poultry Research Station in Nandanam. Here's part of that herd - now about 20 strong - resting in the shade; on a lucky day, I can see the whole herd from my balcony!
PS: If you'd like to see the earlier 'Menagerie City' posts, here they are: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
A couple of years ago, when this statue was to be unveiled, a pubic interest ligtigation was filed against its installation. The petitioner wanted the court to order the governement to move the statue somewhere else, because it would obstruct the view of Gandhiji's statue on the Marina. The Madras High Court took a slightly easy way out by advising the government to not install the statue and warning that it would have to be moved away should the court order so in future. With that, the immediate storm passed and the statue was unveiled on July 21, 2006, the fifth anniversary of 'Sivaji' Ganesan's passing away. The court has probably not passed its final orders, because it continues to remain where it was installed.'Sivaji' does not deserve the ill feeling that was generated around this statue in his honour. After acting in over 350 movies and being hailed as 'Nadigar Thilagam' (a translation fails me... crown jewel of actors?), he certainly was one of the most influential actors of his time, even if you think many of his performances were overdone. Yes, they were for sure, but those came after almost two decades of doing a variety of roles; his early movies show him to be an almost effortless actor, reeling off long stretches of dialogues - soliloquies, actually - in just a single shot. But he was caught in the 'dialogue trap' and there came several inane roles where he was forced to over-emote; towards the end of his career, he regained his touch and his last few roles left us asking for more. So here he stands, looking north on Kamaraj Salai, almost as if he is waiting to hear from the court about what his next move should be!
It was a common sight on the way to school. Along one side of Kodambakkam High Road would be the production units, potters using long sticks to spin their wheels and then coaxing the clay into shapes of every kind. The clay stock itself would be shoulder high, seeming to be solid walls - but as we return from school, we could see that stock depleted and the day's work baking either in the sun or in little kilns that were given space besides the huts of the "Potters' Colony". All those pots and decorative pieces would move to the footpath on the other side of the road, where the sales team would line them up and tempt the passer-by into picking up one or a dozen.Pavements are great places for bargains in Chennai; had written about the seasonal fruitshop earlier; terracotta has seasons, too. A couple of days ago, there were hardly any pots on the pavement. They had given way to all these faces - including a large-ish Durga in typically Bengali style, sandwiched between the demons all set to ward off evil eyes. If you look closely, you can spot the blue Krishna dolls, probably left over from a golu batch. In a week or so, all these would have cleared out to make way for various kinds of decorative lamps, ready to meet the Diwali demand. And then, after the festival season is done, it will be back to decorative pieces and flower pots. With the kilns having been banned in this area, the potters are all gone. At least, the production has moved somewhere out of the city; the old-timers still live here. Like in many traditional crafts, fewer youth take to pottery for their livelihood. The number of these shops on the footpath has reduced - very soon, such pieces may only be found in some airconditioned showroom. Before that day comes, go out, grab as many of these as you can!
Though it originally began as a day to worship weapons, Ayudha Puja has long ago moved on to be a day to worship the tools and implements of one's trade. Yesterday was the day of the Ayudha Puja and across the city, all kinds of 'tools', from CNC machines to computers, were cleaned and decked up for the puja. Almost every vehicle had a garland of flowers in front of it. Offices had had their signboards washed and sprayed with sandal-paste & kunkumam. On Harrington Road last evening, these autorickshaws were lined up to participate in a puja being conducted by their welfare association. They looked all nice and neat, washed, polished and with smears of sandalwood paste. Though they all look the same anyway, the effect was even better with small banana stems on either side of the vehicle, all of equal size - and then the standardized garlands making them almost indistingushable.It was a nice sight alright, but that didn't stop one from wishing these folks would swear to turn over a new leaf in their treatment of passengers!
