I recently met with a chennai veteran who told me this interesting backdrop to the Burma Bazaar of Chennai, which accounts for most of our media hightlights, that I thought I’d share it with y’all.

So, here’s how the story apparently goes. Back in the days, around the time when we had just gotten our independence, there were quite a few people from the region who were working in plantations in Burma. There was a sizeable working population that was from India, and life went on. When a new emperor/king took over Burma, as a means of doing what Srilanka started off to do as well, the government wanted to increase the chances of locals getting employed, so kicked out all the non-burmese population out of the country. Quite a few countries interfered and so did India, especially TamilNadu.

Out of humanitarian concern, the govt of tamilnadu setup a strip of land, where the refugees could sell whatever posessions they had - most of them were plantation equipment, so that with that money they could start a living. This was around 1962. The selling still goes on :)

How much of this is true, I am not sure, but it certainly rings true from whatever research I’ve done. Have you heard any other story? Can someone add to this, if they do more?

This city has such a rich heritage of the past. Would love to dig up more stories like this.

Photo Credit: The Hindu.

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I am usually the most vocal of critics when it comes to the government and their efforts to improve something.
Which is why, either the government has either devised a way to brainwash me remotely, or they have actually done good. I think it is the latter.

Read more

1

I never thought I’d get into this. The IPL frenzie, I mean. Too much of pompous marketing hype, and a proof of what would happen if cricket was more than cricket and added bollywood and cheerleaders to the mix - thats what I thought. I had initially gotten some tickets from a friend, and had passed it on to some friends who showed more interest than me in the game. But when a couple of tickets were offered by a close family friend with the best seats in the stadium, it was a bit tempting to say yes, than to put it down and Yes I said.

This is the first time I am watching a live cricket match in the Chennai stadium and I am no sports reporter. So I hope the readers of this blog will be lenient should this fall short of an actual coverage.

The game was to start at 4pm today, but the ticket said that folks would be expected there a good two hours beforehand. Knowing how our folks have no sense of time these days - or are just enjoying an extra hour or so lazing on a saturday - we decided to play the first mover advantage and head to the stadium early. We reached there at around 2:45. The sun was still out. It was fairly hot, but a couple of folks - Mirchi Suchi, Benny Dayal etc were trying to keep a few people occupied and entertained with their live music.

At around, 3:30, the teams started coming in, and were going about their routine of stretches and excercises, and ten minutes before the game, the coin was tossed and Kolkata won it, preferring to bat.
Read more

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Hello!

If you can overlook the image of a Muni (demigod/warrior guardian/whatever) guzzling beer, you might want to come to Koyembedu tomorrow.
But first, a little background.

So, there’s a little thing Sharanya Manivannan and I are doing - trying to kick-start a poetry/performance/literature indie culture in Chennai.
And that’s why you should be in Koyembedu tomorrow - it is the fourth event - a poetry reading on the theme of blasphemy. RSVP here, or on my/Sharanya’s blog or to our e-mail addresses.

3

The Tamil Nadu Police, no no, Chennai metropolitan area traffic police are real tamilians. They have tamil in their blood, because they practice the belief of ‘kupakarai vizhandhulaum, meesai la maan ottalai’. This roughly translates to even if they fall face first, they don’t have sand sticking to their moustache. Of course the new age mosaic and non sand flooring surfaces are to be ignored.

How else does one explain the reversal from the new traffic arrangement to the old one along C P Ramaswamy Road and T T K road? If nair chaaya shop talk is to be believed (and it seldom is wrong) it mentions that the entire new arrangement was because Stalin found the traffic on TTK road a hassle, he wished to have free flowing traffic on TTK road, and the system, the nair chaaya shop informs me was promptly changed.

Viola, a month of chaos and confusion was there. The residents in the area of course hated the arrangement for it made their life terrible. And so a month later the system went back to the old one. The police of course today insist the change was because they found it hard to maintain traffic with the new system.
The nair chaaya shop goes onto add that Papa had to prevail over heir apparent that with elections coming up soon, pissing off the electorate is not a good idea, considering their dismal performance in their peetai of Chennai in the 2006 state elections. But the police even today according to the nair chaaya shop insist that they changed the system because it was too hard to maintain traffic (considering they had less to do under the new system with fewer junctions this excuse seems a farce).

This was something that most Chennaiites waited for a long time. The old lady of Bombay finally stepping into the city of one of the best and the reputed newspaper of the country. The launch of The Times of India was talked about for a very long time. But finally on Monday it actually got launched. It will be interesting to see how TOI manages to break into the long and everlasting presence of The Hindu. The newspaper that has virtually managed to be a part of every Chennaiites routine. Whoever I am talking to these days is sadistically hoping that TOI breaks the monopoly of The Hindu. Some say they want a break from the ‘commy’ blah blah of Hindu (these are not my words, mere stating of people’s views so Hindu lovers please don’t mind!!) some say they need a spice in their daily news, which TOI hopefully would provide. So the reasons are long and never ending.

It is interesting to see how the print war in Chennai would turn out to be. Because i remember two years back Mumbai witnessed the same boom in the newspaper market. There was launch of Daily News and Analysis or DNA which poached all the Big guys from TOI, DNA again threatened to wipe out the market of TOI, by aggressive marketing campaign and with a hope of delivering fresh insight into news, DNA’s entry was grand. Then followed The Hindustan Times, which again propagated its famous tag line “Le there be light”. Two years down the line the print war has mellowed down. Probably newspapers have figured out their respective audiences

So who ate into whose share still remains a question but it probably encouraged these papers to innovate and break the monotony. Chennai i hope will have the same signs it is probably good news for readers who can expect some good reporting. Apart from this the benefits are also to reporters who have shifted from one paper to the other and managed to get fat salaries ;) advertisers who would probably figure out a better target audiences and people like me who have managed to find something to talk about!!! And as one wise man pointed out once upon a time “Nothing is permanent but change”, so way to go Chennai

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Dear esteemed Corporation,

Thank you, firstly and congratulations on the removal of the hoardings. In your new found zeal to do, you’ve even brought down legit, absolutely over-the-table billboards. But I am not complaining. It does look good. Especially the 20th instance of a faded-brown roof top and faux-art-deco balconies. I also love how the city’s characteristic colours have popped out. While earlier we had the boring reds and oranges and blacks and pinks and yellows and blues, we now have the very interesting moss-green and sun-dried-brick-brown. Quite a morale booster in the morning.

Attempted sarcasm aside, dear Corporation of Chennai, I suggest you work on the wires that clutter up our city’s (um…) skyline. They are ugly, knotty and are a pain to clone out in Photoshop. Gives me the carpal tunnel, I tell you, every time I have to clone out 100 wires hanging from every imaginable (and some un-imaginable as well) poles and hooks before uploading a photo to flickr.

Truly yours,

C

8

Last week I had gone to the movie Anjaathey at Seasons in Sathyam complex. Before the movie there was a slide asking the viewers to stand up for singing the national anthem. This was something new, I didn’t see this happening last month when I went to some other movie at the same complex.

SPB came on screen and sung a beautiful version of Jana Gana Mana composed by AR Rahman, with the mannerisms of a concert vocalist. The problem was, it wasn’t the tune we are taught since our school days and used too. So the entire audience stood in silence.

A few questions. Why this sudden move by Sathyam? Does it really make you patriotic to hear the national anthem prior to a movie?

Related discussion in Chennai Metblogs last August.

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Previous test matches in Chepauk MAC stadium have been a real test of skill for both batsmen and bowlers. Think back to the tied test against Australia in 1986 or the agonising loss to Pakistan in 1999. But this time around, the pitch has been a feather bed till now, late into the 4th day. There has been nothing for the bowlers so far.

Yet this match will be remembered for the highest test score by an Indian batsman. It was in this same stadium that Gavaskar scored his 236 n.o. against West Indies, which was the highest score by an Indian for a long time. It took a great effort from Laxman in 2001 to go past that and Sehwag upped it in Multan in 2004. After seven years, the record has come back to Chepauk.

Do you still think a result is possible in this match?

1

In one of the posts of Vinod Subramanian “Zyng – been there yet ?”, there was a comment by Michelle Binkley  

Hi Vinod, Read more

3

All of us have at one time or other bitched about road conditions and accidents in Chennai. The Government statistics too seem to agree with us. Last month there was a question in Lok Sabha about road accidents in the country.

In the annexure to the question, the Government gives city wise break up of the number of road accidents in metros. Chennai stands second, with only Delhi worse than us.

NUMBER OF CASES OF ROAD ACCIDENTS DURING 2004-2006 IN METRO CITIES:

CITIES 2004 2005 2006

CHENNAI 4873 7875 7359

DELHI 8218 8531 8385

KOLKATA 2164 2366 2379

MUMBAI 3340 4360 4151

TOTAL 18595 23132 22274

Look carefully. Of all the cities, Chennai’s road accidents have increased dramatically from 2004 to 2005. Is this due to (ironically) the increased number of road works all over the city? Or due to the expanded Greater Chennai Police limits? Or plain increase in number of bad drivers?

Whatever it is, be careful while on the road.

Lok Sabha Question
Annexure to the Question

2

A few weekends back I went for a turtle walk after a  long time. Well a really long time one can say, it was my first walk after 3 seasons, or in other words 3 years. In these three years a lot had changed, first being the direction of the walk. Earlier we walked from Besant Nagar beach to Neelankarai, now the its been reversed. The hatchery which was earlier located in Neelankarai is now located near Adyar Estuary. The distance is now a roughly 30 percent more.

Apart from this, the biggest change would have to be the crowds. Regular walkers inform me that on weekends, the average crowd is 30-40 people. That’s a phenomenal number compared to the earlier crowds, which averaged around 15 people. There of course were the days when 40 people turned up, but that was a rarity rather than being the norm.  The larger crowd obviously meant that it has become a joy walk, actually it always is that for everyone except the scouts who go ahead looking for tracks, or those who have to carry the turtle nests back incase any are found.

The stretch now is more lit up, it’s brighter than it earlier was. Over the years the area somehow has lost its charm. During my first walks in the late 1990s, beyond Thiruvanmayur was the brigest stretch, Valmiki Nagar had a few lights, otherwise there was hardly any noticeable lighting in the area.

The distressing fact about this season is the number of nests found. With the season almost over, only 60 odd nests have been found, it’s a marked drop from past seasons when twice that number of nests would be found. It’s partly due to development of t he coastal front which has lead to the few turtles nesting, while trawling also has contributed to a significant number of turtles being caught in them.

In all, very soon, in a decade or so, they just might not be enough turtles nesting on the Madras coastline to make it worthwhile for people to walk.

Hello,

Yes, I realise I haven’t kept up my end of the bargain and haven’t answered questions raised in this post. My defence: time. Or rather, the infinitesimally small amounts of it that I end up having. I intend to catch up with that this weekend.

So, anyway, to the point of the post.

Sharanya and Meena (and I) are organising a poetry event this Friday at Mocha. An open-mic session - which means we’ll keep the mic by the door. Errm…it means everyone’s invited and everyone can read out. Friday, 21st March is not only Good Friday, it’s the World Poetry Day. So the idea is to kill two birds with one metaphor. The idea is also to bring poetry to Madras city, and do it closer to the city than Thalankuppam was.

Head out to Sharanya’s blog for the details. But if you are click-lazy, here’s the short version.

What? Original + Translated poems, to celebrate World Poetry Day & Good Friday
Where? Mocha, upper-reaches.
When? Friday, 21st March, 10 AM
Why? Um, it sounded like a good idea?
Who? Sharanya Manivannan, Meena Kandaswamy and Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan

1

Ezhunthru Ya! Orama Niruthu!

For a minute, I didn’t know what I had done wrong. Then I realised I was wearing no helmet. By that time the cop, dark and fat, had my keys.

I stared back at him. I was the press, after all. I knew what would happen. I had been through this charade a thousand times. Read more

9

The Chennai Corporation recently announced that it would not fine those indiscriminately dumping garbage in the streets at least until July 1. Earlier the fines were to be imposed from April 1 to act as a deterrent for people from dumping garbage not just on the street but possibly from each other’s backyards as well.

Most people would have it that we are a lazy people. We don’t take out our garbage. Neither do we segregate it. Well, for that matter neither does the corporation. My college thesis was on how the city was dumping garbage without segregating in one of its dumps on the outskirts.

The only fear I had when the fines were announced were over whether they would be implemented properly. What do you think? Would you not spit on the road if you were compelled to pay fines? (That rule is not yet in). Do you think you rather live in unclean streets rather than trusting this city corporation?

The official reason for the delay is that the corporation needs time to build some 100 public toilets and and buy compactors to remove garbage before bringing in the fine regime.

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