1. Separate staircases and elevators for boys and girls.
2. Separate work areas for ladies and gents
3. Separate dining areas for ladies and gents
4. They decline to shake hands with our clients many of whom happen to have 2 X chromosomes.
5. Iron grill creating separate seating areas for men and women in buses.
6. Separate mousepads for girls and boys
7. Your boys also refuse to work on code written by girls, and in our company, I’m afraid team work is critical
8. We have video conferences, and your boys refuse to look into the camera because they are afraid that they might accidentally make eye contact with girls.
9. Some of them are complaining to our security demanding separate corridoors and coffee machines for boys and girls.
10. Their productivity is very poor unless we make our security officers stand around in the work areas. Apparently, they are so used to “squads” that they find life without them impossible.

There are only two genders in Homo Sapiens society and at some point or the other, it is fairly inevitable that some interaction between them is required. So I earnestly request you to please upgrade your college rules to a level slightly above Medieval Spanish Inquisition so that IT companies can continue to flourish in this city.

A Concerned IT Manager.

During the Emergency, Sanjay Gandhi initiated a forcible Vasectomy campaign.

In late 90s, engineering colleges in Chennai initiated a forcible mental vasectomy campaign thanks to rules such as these

Enough has been written about this for a long while now. But finally, even the mainstream media seems to have suddenly realized that something is rotten in the state of pass mark.

Times Now did this recent investigative piece on the what they titled extreme segregation in TN colleges and you can watch part 1 here and part 2 here

Lets hope things improve now at least.

Really?

"Super" Kings?

My wife does not watch cricket and I asked her what was the first thing that came to her mind when she heard the name "Chennai Super Kings", and with absolutely no hesitation, she said "Cigarettes". Like Wills Filter Kings.

Of course, on the other hand, at least Mr Jumaani didn’t make this one "Superr Kiings".

But still, "Super Kings"?

I mean, Chennai Gadjee Kings sounds better. Or perhaps they should have paid tribute to the brilliant ad campaign of the successful Chennai Superstars and named this team Chennai Jujubees.

Or Chennai Macchis

Or even something to sporty like Chennai Killadis

What do you think?

I had a blast today, sampling Virudhunagar kotthu parotta and drinking Jil Jil Jigal Dhanda. But the real fun was when the music started. 2 hours of exhilarating street art, from Silambattam, Therukkoothu, and Singara Melam (Chendai Kottu) and even some Jazz Carnatic electronica from Susheela Raman.

The Therukkoothu from Thiruvannamalai was hilarious and took some earthy digs at contemporary society. It featured Lord Yama, a comical man who is about to be taken by aforementioned for a ride on a buffalo, and strangely enough, Veerapaandiya Kattabomman as well.

Let me present a sample dialogue from that street play.

Comical man: Yama, today somebody knocked on the door and I opened it, only to find a buffalo. A very large buffalo

Yama: Oho. A large buffalo, you say?

Comical man: Yes, and you were sitting on top of it.

Yama: Aha. So I was sitting on top of it

Comical man: Yes, and you told me that you had come to take me.

Yama: Oho. Is that so? And what did you say?

Comical man: I ran to my wife to ask her for help

Yama: Aha. And what did your wife say?

Comical man: She asked me not to disturb her and get lost.

Yama: Oho. So your own wife asked you to get lost. Perhaps you don’t treat her well. What did you then do?

Comical man: I ran to the other folks in the village and asked them to help me.

Yama: Aha. And what did they say?

Comical man: They also took your side. Apparently, you had bought them all "a quarter" sarakku.

Yama: Oho. So the villagers dumped you for a "quarter" sarakku. What has civil society come to. What did you do then?

Comical man: I ran to a "pie-nance" company and asked them for a loan for Rs. 2 lakhs.

Yama: Aha. 2 lakhs, you say? And what did they say.

Comical man: They didn’t ask me any question. They handed me the 2 lakhs, which gave me the comfort that not even you, Yama, can take me away when I haven’t paid the loan back to those guys.

And so on.

The second half of the play featured a dialogue between Yama and Kattabomman and an intervention by a thrisoolam wielding Kali.

All in all, good fun, and importantly, a good eye-opener to rural art forms that are dying out thanks to the onslaught of Tamizh soap serials and 5-movies-a-day TV channels.

I did a cursory search for "Chennai Sangamam" in flickr, and found some excellent photos by B Seshadri and Stalin Ramesh

And I am not surprised that the environmentalists don’t like it one bit. Because, once the car hits dealerships in Chennai, the following are very likely to happen.

1. Autorickshaws will become Nanorickshaws. They will even have (drum roll please) Nanometers. So they will probably be more precise (I mean 10 raised to the power -9 precise) than the current crop of meters, which are anything but.

2. Cyclerickshaws will also become Nanorickshaws.

3. Dominos, Pizza Hut, Pizza Corner and the rather yummy Pizzaurant will start to use Nanos for delivery. Today, with the exception of Pizzaurant, which has a sensible policy of not promising unrealistic delivery times, all the other pizza outlets hire accident causing road demons who drive two-wheelers at mach-12 to deliver my Veggie Supreme with extra olives.

4. The friendly neighbourhood vegetable seller will migrate to the Nanovandi.

5. The ubiquitous "Hot Soup" joints will become mobile on their spanking new Souper Nano.

6. The IT and BPO crowd that currently plagues the roads with two-wheels will start to plague the roads with 4-wheels.

7. Fishcarts will become Nanocarts.

8. Saravana Stores will introduce a new Nanoshop concept store where families in Nanos can drive through, pick up stuff they want and drive out. The business model will be built around the central fact that when people try to drive out into the maddening traffic at T-Nagar, they will change their minds and continue to shop a little bit more till the traffic outside lessens (by about 12 in the midnight)

9. Talking of traffic woes, the government is likely to introduce a new set of roads specially designed for Nanos. The gap in between railway tracks. Yes. A Nano will probably fit in. This should ease the burden on the roads.

10. Talking of railway tracks, given the pathetic frequency of MRTS trains, somebody is likely to hit upon the idea of stacking modified nanos (wheels modded to fit into broad gauge tracks) and starting a Nanopolitan Train Service that runs in between regular trains.

11. Since apartment builders rarely pay attention to the need for parking space, elevator companies like OTIS are likely to design a new, slightly larger elevator into which one can drive ones Nano and take it straight into ones home at the end of the day.

12. Small potti kadais will start to sell the Nano along with Panneer soda and murukku. "Thambi. Oru Nano, rendu tea, naalu murukku".

(Original Image credits – Jenskin Jeyamani [link])

While the car is actually designed to pollute less than a 2-wheeler, Chennaiites, don’t exactly have immaculate vehicle maintenance skills (involving once in a decade tuneups, Muthu Engine works and Ramar pillai fuel).

So I am not surprised that the environmentalists are worried.

Let me outright state that I am in complete agreement with you on the following items:

1. Your time is clearly more precious than mine. On a scale of preciousness, I am recycled plastic and you are African blue diamond.
2. Your desire to feel secure by moving around in a convoy of 30 Tata Safaris with assault-weapon toting black cat guards is perfectly understandable.
3. Your need to block regular traffic for 4 hours before and after your jaunts through the city are perfectly valid.

But you see, blocking traffic is a slightly expensive proposition. Not for you, but for us. Let me show you how.

Let us define a few variables first.

E = Exponentially humongous cost of petrol, diesel and other adulterated fuels burnt while millions of cars, vehicles and autos are idling.
F = Frighteningly large cost in Rupees (and not dollars) of regular people’s time (calculated from salary/regular hours of work x time spent in blocked traffic)
F = Frankly ludicrous cost in Rupees of Policemen’s time (calculated from salary/regular hours of work x time spent saluting at your speeding car and waving other traffic aside aggressively with radio receiver in hand)
I = Insane cost in Rupees of extra medical care required by every person not inside an A/C car, as a result of having to breathe noxious fumes from all the stalled vehicles.
N = Nightmarish cost of missed appointments, opportunities, flights and trains
G = Glaring cost of damages incurred as a result of road rage arising from frustration at being stuck in blocked traffic.
M = Monstrous cost of psychiatrists’ fees incurred as a result of depression arising from missed appointments and opportunities.
A = Abominable cost of alcohol purchased from TASMAC stores as a result of aforementioned depression.
D = Despicable cost of medical fees incurred as a result of frustrated appointment-missing men drinking aofrementioned alcohol and beating their wives back home in the evening.
N= Notorious cost of extra rupees charged by Madras autowallahs who blame the traffic blocks as a reason for charging Rs 200 from a ride from Central station to Ripon building.
E = Exorbitant cost of medical fees incurred as a result of being beaten up by rowdy autowallahs who didn’t quite like your “What saar, You are not making Kaamedy Keemedi no?” at hearing the quoted fare as stated above.
S = Seriously significant cost of lawyers fees incurred as a result of increased divorces as wives start to accuse spouses (and vice versa) of being “a totally stuck-up person”.
S = Sheer cost of irony present in the factor mentioned above.

So as you can see, multiplying all the variables, we get

Total Cost = E.F.F.I.N.G.M.A.D.N.E.S.S

And in fact, it’s so large that nobody even bothers computing it. So before you ignore this post for being yet another rant on VIPs blocking traffic, let me reassure you that, for a change, I have a solution. An elegant solution to completely get rid of traffic blocks. Helicopters. Yes. All your security, convoys and the cost mentioned above are being incurred by the taxpayer in any case. So I suggest that you use helicopters to fly from point A to point B in any city. The cost of a helicopter is about a lakh an hour, I am told. But the key thing to be noted is that

Cost of Helicopters < E.F.F.I.N.G.M.A.D.N.E.S.S

In fact, the only reason I use the modest “<” symbol here is that there is no equivalent mathematical sign for depicting “mindbogglingly small compared to”.

Go ahead, and splurge our tax money on helicopters. Even fit them with saunas and home theaters if you want. And oh, get armoured copters if you wish to feel safe in addition to reducing your commute time by a factor of gazillion. It will still be much cheaper than what you are costing us today. So just get your respectworthy posteriors off the road.

Thank you
A Madras Citizen typing this from his laptop while being stuck in traffic waiting for some VIPs to get from point A to point B.

ps: If you VIPs prefer visual modes of communication, what I am saying is,

Let’s move from

To

My name is Krish Ashok, and I will be hurling all forms of nouns, verbs, adjectives, disjointed similes, questionable metaphors and thanni-illaa-kaadukku-transferred epithets at you, the Chennai Metblogs reader, from now. Why, you ask? Because I’ve been invited to hurl aforementioned items at unsuspecting readers of this blog. That is of course, reason #1. Reasons #2 through infinity go “I am strangely attached to this city, from the Kaiyendhi Bhavan outside Brilliant Tutorials to the strangely unreadable “Music Academy” lettering spelled using musical instruments that only partially resemble alphabets inside that venerable hall of Carnatic virtuosity and elitist pomposity. I love the fact that this city has 2 meteorological seasons – hot summer and lukewarm summer, two commercial seasons – pandigai (festival) shopping and thallupadi (discount) shopping, and 2 cultural seasons – The Carnatic season and The Rest of The Year.”

And it has some quintessential residents. And I don’t mean the celebrities like chess grandmasters, actors/actresses and music composers. I am talking about those people that every one in Chennai knows and yet, they are not celebrities in that sense of the word. They don’t live in palatial houses in Poes Garden or Besant Nagar and they are not on TV all the time or featured in The Hindu every other day. Here are three of them that come to mind.

1) P James
Legend has it there were 2 copies of the Rosetta stone. One in Egypt, found in 1799 during the Egyptian campaign of Napoleon. The other, unknown one is said to have been unearthed in Chennai, but was considered to be of no use because of some graffiti scribbed in black ink.

I have known P James from when his ubiquitous grafitti used to read “P James” followed by a 5 digit phone number. It then became 6 digits and eventually a mobile phone number. I have even had the opportunity to watch a show of his a long while back. He is not quite PC Sorcar, but a kindly old man who could impress the rare breed of kids who could still be impressed about anything, what with TV, video games and the internet changing the very definition of the term “childlike wonder”. But I am told he tried forming a company to promote his own brand of magic shows and that more or less ruined him financially.

2) Asana Andiappan
The yoga guru, with a name to match.
Asana Andiappan greets you with folded arms and a leg that seems to be conducting a conversation with his head after having twisted itself around his neck. He is rather famous and he even has a spiffy website!.

3) The Non-laughing dudes of Golden Beach
Many years ago, a cousin of mine came very close to making one of these gentlemen laugh, but at the very last moment, the man let out an aggressive grunt meant to scare my cousin and proceeded to walk off his pedestal while his replacement took his place. Apparently his shift had ended. Have any of you managed to make one of them laugh?

So readers, who else comes to mind?