Every year starting April 16th, there is a ban on fishing in the Tamilnadu Coast from Thiruvallur to Kanyakumari Districts. Since scientists found fish breeding to be active in the eastern coastal belt during April and May, fishing by mechanised boats from Thiruvallur to Kanyakumari districts is prohibited between April 15 and May 29. The ban excludes fishing by country boats and catamarans.
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.
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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
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?
In one of the posts of Vinod Subramanian “Zyng – been there yet ?”, there was a comment by Michelle Binkley
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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.
Did you know that close to 73% of chennai-ites take the bus as their primary mode of transport? The Chennai Metro Transport System has about 540+ routes, a hundred or more extension routes and I believe a fleet of 2000+ buses. There are 200 new buses coming in every month, as the old ones are being slowly taken out of service.
If you have seen the scrolling LEDs and the fancy new volvos, thats the face of the chennai transport system. Pretty slick I must say.
I had personally met the new Cheif Operating Officer sometime back and he is quite a fabulous guy. I have a good sense of feeling that the new volvos that are rolling, the ticketing machines and all, are just the beginning of what Chennai will see.
Dear Jeppiyaar and other Engineering college owner brothers,
Let me introduce myself. I am a manager in an IT company and we recruit from your college. Actually, “recruit” would be an understatement. We put up a “Tresspassers will be recruited” notice and pretty much herd in anybody who pays attention to us. But I am afraid we are having problems of late. Most of the students from your college seem to expect the following in our offices:
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.
Hello folks. Some of you reading this will know that I’ve been organising a photowalk a month in Chennai. The fifth one’s up this Sunday - the 16th of March. Details here. Join us, if you find yourself awake early and not doing much on Sunday morning.
Is Chennai going the Singapore way? Naaah.. I don’t think so. It certainly doesn’t seem so from this penalty chart that the government has released!! While on the topic, I wonder what happened to the ‘other’ cleanup plans we have seen in the past? Remember the City cleanup proposal by Neel Metal Fanalca? or the port cleanup activity? or the river cleanup plan? or the innovative coastal cleanup competition? Anyway.. let’s not do a postmortem, and be as hopeful as before and believe that there is always a miracle waiting to happen that would solve all our country’s problems….
