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.

Why are you talking on the cell phone? But, I am parked, I lied. Orama Po! Onna Ellaaam…

My friend had just arrived at the airport and was calling me. I had to pick up and had been driving for the last two minutes till the signal with the phone in my hand. Neenga keeya appadi edukka mudiyathu. I am in the press. Please give the key back, I said.

For a minute, we matched stares. I backed off but so did the cop. He opened his palm and stretched out his hand. I took my keys.

Then he realised he could not possibly let me go. He had gone too far and had been defeated. So he make me walk with the vehicle until we met with the SI.

There was a gang of three. Eager eyes, I thought.

Enna Pressu? I named my newspaper. Ennathu? I repeated the name. Sir pressam. He is been on the phone for 15 minutes, said the cop. Id cardu irukka? I took it out and gave it to him. He inspected it gravely.

Oru carda vachukkuttu enna vena panratha? Athallam romba thappu, sir. Would I finally pay my first fine in Chennai?

By this time, a cop on a bike arrived. For 15 minutes he was on the phone, he began. Sir, pressam, this one whispered.

Pressunna vidu pa. Poi tholaiyattum. The last was a murmur.

Then the dark cop pointed out the board. Don’t talk on you mobile when you drive, it said. Or something close. I don’t remember.

The warning lasted whole of 2 minutes. As I left the fuming gang of cops, my friend at the airport called again. Before I knew what I had done, I picked up the mobile. But this time I parked after dropping the mobile into my pocket.

On the drive to the office, I was wondering why the cops never fined journalists or take them to court. I even thought it was be right to be fined for speaking on the mobile and not even wearing the helmet, which the cop pointed out as I was leaving.

Is the police too lame to take on the journalists? Do they have too many skeletons up their closets? What pleasure can they possibly take in being so rude?

Either ways, I guess I have to leave my phone alone while driving.

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.

1. Loving Tamil

I love it when people around me speak the same language I do. The year I spent in Hyderabad, I always felt like an alien because I had to struggle with my rustic Hindi. Thankfully, auto drivers were polite to me. Often I would long to speak Tamil at home and all my four roommates back then were Malayalees. Chennai became second home to me largely because its population is on the same page I am.

2. Movies in multiplexes

I was ecstatic when the state government passed the order asking multiplexes not to price movie tickets beyond Rs 120 in Chennai. This is the only order passed by MK that I love him for. My movie addiction is much lesser than what it used to be, but at least my fledging film reviewing career is taking off thanks to the multiplexes, especially Satyam. I recently read how Satyam overprices its popcorn to subsidise the ticket. I love that. I don’t have to buy popcorn to watch a movie despite all the rubbish about how the both go together.

3. Roasting in the sun

I actually love the city’s climate. If it rains around the year, I would feel blue. I know the Chennai climate-haters well and why they love to hate the heat here. But for me, the summers, and lately, the extended monsoons are a continuing source of joy.

4. Marina in the morning

I love Marina at 4 am. Sometimes after my night shifts, I walk to the beach from my house in Triplicane. Winding my way up Triplicane’s dirty streets has a pay off in the end. At that hour, you can’t quite see the beach. You just know it’s there. Sometimes you can catch the surf. It needs someone with more than my vocabulary to tell you how this feels. I might make it corny.

5. Piracy

Everything, they say, is fake in cities and true and genuine in villages. For once, the fakes are better and cheaper that the real thing. My hometown of Nagercoil is no more a virgin market when it comes to piracy, especially MP3s, but no one there yet sells DVDs of Korean and Iranian films. You got to love Chennai for its rampant piracy. Well, at least you got to love piracy because a Sony movie on DVD costs Rs 600. Moser Baer yet doesn’t have a good collection.

6. Food

I love the food here. It’s always good value for money. Eatalica, French Loaf, Murugan Idly Shop, and the scores of Andhra messes and Kaiyendhi Bhavans in and around Triplicane are my favourite haunts. I fell in love with Idly in Chennai something I continue to be embrassed about. I used to fuss about that back home.

7. Bloggers

For a while, Chennai was the blogging capital of India. I don’t know who started that rumour, but even if that claim isn’t true anymore, there are bloggers here, and a lot of them. I have met a few offline and they are funnier and often genuine, articulate people. After helping to organize the first blog camp, the Roof Top Film Festivals, and the blogger meets at my place, I realise I love my fellow bloggers in the city as much I love blogging itself. One of the last things I did was go on a photowalk. For some stuck with a desk job, a photowalk can be a lively thing, and it certainly was for me.

8. Steeped in culture

Every city is defined by its culture more than its politics or climate. Perhaps only geography defines cities as much as culture. Like Hawaii is defined by its proximity to the beach, Chennai is defined by its culture, which even at its most degraded and corrupt is still something to soak in. So city-like and I love it. When I was in Thiruvanmaiyur, it was a thrill catching girls driving bikes with the Salangai still tied to their legs.

9. Hangouts

Then there are the hangouts. Like Amethyst, which is a palace, and clothes stores like Fab Mall (where I haven’t bought a thing) and West Side. Books stores like Landmark and Odyssey. Cinema Paradiso. You really can find a thousand places like that in Chennai. Some of them are big brands and are probably present across cities. But I will always associate West Side with Chennai and my shopping experience of the city. I am sure you have a couple of places you love. May be the teashop down the road?

For the lack of time, I end my story here. You are welcome to add your list. Just make it personal, if at all that has to be told to you.

The new design has motivated us (I am trying to get the authors to like the design!) to write better. Over the next few days, you should see evidence of our renewed efforts to blog better.

In the meantime, if you are facing any technical hitches (I haven’t come up with any) like dead links and so on, please let us know via a comment on this post.

Thanks, and do come back. We should be adding more posts in a day or two.

1. The road has been illegally encroached upon and the drainage in right in the centre of the road.
2. There is no tar road for more than half of Sakunthala street.
3. Unauthorised construction activities continue to happen on the road.
4. Debris and garbage lay scattered on the entire stretch.
5. Anti-social elements park their vehicles in the area and use it as a temporary bar.
6. No freedom for people to walk freely.

Several complaints were sent to the Chennai Corporation via e-mail in June, August and December of 2007 and most recently in February 2008.

These were questions that residents asked the Chennai Corporation. Are we not paying road tax, water tax and drainage tax regularly like any other citizens of Chennai? Will the corporation authorities initiate diligent action?

Suggested solutions:

1. Remove the debris from the road.
2. Keep the road clean so that people can walk on it.
3. Keep the road free of garbage.
4. Do not allow further unauthorised constructions on the road
5. Stop all construction activities happening without approval.
6. Take stern action against local anti-social elements

A reply from an assistant commissioner, Chennai Corporation, stated the following:

Regarding the bad condition of residential street received from Sekar Nagar: With reference to your e-mail message, it is informed that the above reference has been sent to Chennai Corporation for necessary action. Hence, you are requested to approach the Commissioner, Chennai Corporation with this regard.

Concrete action taken till date: NIL

Proof: Visible truth in the heart of busy locality.

(This email was received from Mr Suresh Babu, a software engineer. Only his email Id is available with Chennai Metblogs, which is not responsible for the veracity of the content of this post. Only the reader can confirm whether it’s true or not.)

(Rewritten with PTI inputs)

potum: Via Ravages, aka. Chandrachoodan

History: Muthiah

When I moved into Chennai in 99, my classmate took me to Higginbothams to buy books. It wasn’t strange that we didn’t choose Landmark, which was already a much bigger store. After all, my granddad had fond memories of Higginbothams also because they sold the books he had written and the magazine he founded and edited.

I wasn’t disappointed at all. I spend close to two hours in the classics session. I had no money, so I tried to read.

Today, that bookstore is a pale shadow compared to what Landmark, and to a lesser extent, Odyssey have become. But still don’t you love that building?

Let me get to the point in a roundabout fashion. Nayagan, starring Kamal Hassan and directed by Mani Ratnam (as if you don’t know), may have been the first (or one of the first, argument anyone?) mafia film in Tamil, but it really wasn’t the trendsetter.

Around that time, director Ram Gopal Varma (who was ubercool back then) released a film with Nagarajuna and Amla in the lead (featuring the hero using a cycle chain with devastating effect). This film was very good, but it wasn’t a trendsetter. Neither was Thalapathy, which looks better with every viewing. None of those movies were followed by today’s wave of mafia films.

Many of these mafia movies though made in Tamil, were not set in Chennai.

Why? For years, the land mafia, the gunrunners and drug lords weren’t visible in this city, which is yet to face a major terror attack. The Ayodhya Kuppam Manis of the world were relatively unheard of. Not many were killed in encounters. But these days many actually are. You hear about them in the news. Last year, Kokki Kumar (or was it Punk Kumar) was shot dead by the police in an encounter. I can never quite tell fact from fiction, but Dhanush in Pudhupettai was called Kokki Kumar. That’s for sure.

You don’t see much of the violence and the “hacking to death”. So you think Chennai is peaceful. Compared to Mumbai, there is no mafia here. Or so you think.

But really when did the mafia wave of movies begin? What movie set off the trend, which doesn’t go out of fashion.

Pudhupettai, Naalai, and movies like that really contributed to this trend. The former, which takes it name after a city suburb known for its automobile workshops, showed Chennai being ruled by a mysterious underworld. Is it there? You don’t quite know. That’s is why it’s called the underworld, dummy.

I saw Anjathe last week and it’s very good. Brilliant, in fact. The entire movie, much like Pudhupettai, is set in Chennai. Many of the city’s underdeveloped suburbs are featured in the dialogues. The chase sequences happen on roads leading out of the city. It’s so hard to think of the last mentioned two movies without thinking of Chennai.

So Chennai a character only in mafia movies. Not really. The family drama Mozhi was set in Chennai. Chennai-28 was too, obviously. In fact, all Tamil movies are either set in Chennai or down south like Paruthiveeran and Veyyil.

It’s hard to say how much of the Chennai shown in movies like the recent Oram Po, starring Arya and Pooja, is real. But it certainly is based on real-life events. In fact, I heard a story that the director-couple behind Oram Po may of based their movie on newspaper clippings of actual auto races happening in the city’s outskirts.

How well is the city then represented, especially in mafia movies? Do directors exaggerate the violence for cinematic purposes or tell it as it is? I always ask myself that whenever I walk out of a movie featuring a violent Chennai. Are you any wiser?

Tomorrow eight teams will assemble for a player auction in which over 80 international players, including 13 Australian players, will take part.

The eight teams are: Mumbai team (Mukesh Ambani), Bangalore (Vijay Mallya), Kolkata (Shah Rukh Khan), Chandigarh (Preity Zinta), Jaipur (Emerging Media), Hyderabad (Deccan Chronicle), Chennai (India Cements) and Delhi (GMR Group).

I see the name of the other owners and think that Chennai may not have that much of a chance. A question to the cricket experts, which is nearly everybody. Does the Chennai IPL team have a chance?