To express the concern towards the affected persons at the hands of the terrorists during the recent attack in Mumbai and as an expression of our solidarity with the security forces that valiantly fought for us, we as citizens of Chennai wish to pledge our support and feelings for our fellow Indians.

This is the objective of the CITIZENS FOR CHANGE – CHENNAI CHAPTER [www.citizensforchange.in]

citizensforchange (Chennai Chapter), therefore, plan to have a gathering of the concerned citizens of Chennai at the Marina Beach behind the Mahatma Gandhi Statue (service lane) on Sunday, 7th December ’08 between 9.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m. They will all assemble there, observe a minute of silence for the all the brave men and women who lost their lives in terror attacks and take a pledge for PEACE and CHANGE.

Please make it if it is possible for you. I know the post is up a bit late, but if you are somewhere nearby and reading this post before the event, do make it to Marina beach and express your solidarity to this good cause

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.

This brilliant system works fine for everyone concerned, MK and PC, but not so for Chennai. MK can claim that he has coerced, armtwisted, bullied PC into allocating money for the plant, while PC can gloat over his magnanimity in allocating money. Since only allocations matter both benefit from electoral gains, but the plant does not progress. And of course the voters in Chennai are utter fools to be swayed by the spin machines of these two jokers and vote based on it. Yes, this clearly shows its an election budget.

The house is located at NSC Bose Road at Sowcarpet very close to the intersection with Wall Tax Road. The house is in a dilapidated condition and presently owned by a Marwari businessman. In the same building there is a shop selling banana leaves

During our conversation with this shopkeeper, we learnt from him that this is the house where MGR lived during his early days when he was aspiring to make a career by acting.

(M G Ramachandran, fondly called by his fans and followers as MGR, went on to become a successful actor in Tamil films. Affiliated to DMK, played an important role in DMK coming to power in 1967. Later on formed AIADMK in 1972 and became the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu in 1977 and remained as Chief Minister till his death in 1987)

Earlier, the government had decided to expand the airport into Pozhichalur, but this move was met with stiff resistance by the local people. In a government order dated July 9, 2007, the government had said it would acquire land in Manappakkam. But now the move to acquire land for this project has been stalled. The residents of Manappakkam village say they have bought plots of land in the area and started constructing flats after obtaining loans from banks. Their dreams of getting a new home would be jettisoned if the airport expansion project is implemented, they have plead before the High Court.

(A blog seems to exclusively protesting the airport expansion move. Though I don’t see any substantial original reportage, it does serve as an reminder on the Internet about the fate of the hundreds of affected residents.)

Before you judge me as a BJP or an RSS supporter i will kindly remind you that im an atheist of first cadre and the BJP or RSS/VHP did no good for than the Congress for the Kashmiri Brahmins during their reign. So forget the losers and lets move on with our discussion….

Note: I could not figure out quite how to put this from a third person perspective so i addressed it as “I” which is a easier thing to write. Read it as from a common man/3rd person perspective.

Its a delicate situation. Credit the solid foundation work laid by politicians like Anna, MGR, Kalaignar and the long list of dravidian leaders the word “Brahmin” today reminds everyone of arrogant, dis-respective, communal and abusive extremists who whip the lower caste dalits or whomever it maybe till they die. Thats a vivid picture that paints your mind when you hear that word.

Its true that the past is not a clean tale for the brahmins. Their hands are as much covered in blood as it can be. And yes, its a closed community who don’t allow easily outsiders inside their homes and don’t maintain any sort of interactive relationships outside the community. But that has changed all over now to such a drastic extent. Everytime someone happens to find out my cultural identity exclamations fire around “but you don’t look like one!”. The shock on their faces reveal a lot more than what the words can say. I apologize and tell them im a bad one and i dont wear my holy symbol on the forehead.

The point is how long do we stereotype people? Why the hatred? An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind, this being cleverly deployed by politicians to keep us blind where in the meantime they rob us off everything.

Some real funny questions come up when some people find out you are a brahmin. I’ve been asked “how come you eat eggs?” and “How come you listen to english music?” “Why are you not wearing the poonal?” “where is your sign on the forehead?”

I mean does that mean that all acharyas today are in the goldsmith trade and all chettiars have oil store and provision stores. I disbelieve that because most of the work with me in a top dog IT company and are good colleagues and friends. I often get asked “Why did you brahmins treat us lower caste people badly? Untouchables huh? You deserve it all!” kind of statements. Its very very funny because i have to travel back in time using a time machine and find out which loser great grand father of mine abused which lower caste person, hand cuff him and probably in a shariya style punishment execute him or something, perhaps that would chill down these questions and statements.

As long as stereo typing exists progress will be lame. We will never have all communities of a society as a whole coming forward to make a change. This my dear ladies and gentlemen is our problem. We need to address this.

To start with the field caste and community could be erazed with all bloody forms both governmental and non governmental. I mean we have cell phones and PAN cards nowadays, sure we dont need caste and community as a means of identification.

In an advertising world people say sex sells things much better.

I have been always wondering whether people at DC can make nice ads other than showing off skin (SEXY) to sell newspaper. Finally I see a good advertisement hoarding which is meant for common people.

Previous advertisement of DC, where I had written about them at my personal blog

How can anyone be ever so dumb? Banning the use of cell phones because some punk from a rich family who was a spoilt brat put up pictures of him and his girlfriend playing sword fight with their tongues? That’s disgusting.

Technology like all other things exists to enable productivity and safety. Like every damn thing on earth technology can also be used to ruin and be destructive. Did not we bring in the helmet rule to make people aware of the necessity of it? Well yeah cops making merry and people hardly respecting and following the rule is a different issue but it is enforced and it is being followed partially at least now right? Why the heck can’t we do that on cell phones? Why not make use of technology to break things down favourably for the students? We are 1 billion in number and we have truck loads of technology freaks out here in this country and no as an answer is something we can’t take here in India when it comes to technology cuz we are pioneers in every field of technology.

The attitude of AVOIDING problems to eliminate them instead of addressing them the resolve them should stop. Telling someone to wear something is outright pure sexism and perversion. What people wear and do is their level of comfort. Yes, provocative dressing should be discouraged for safety concerns but jeans and t-shirts did not kill anyone. It’s the lustful eyes of people who consider one pretty individual as nothing more than an object of sexual gratification that is killing everyone. Why this? Again the problem is lack of sex education. We need it the most but we ban it because we find it not fitting into our culture. Anna University of all people could introduce free sex education classes to its students and teach them how to respect another person’s private space and make the day better rather than trying to do useless things like banning a technologically revolutionizing device such as a mobile phone.

I mean come on you darn administrative hypocrites, how more pathetic could this get? We don’t ever talk about sex but we are 1 billion in number. Somebody is fucking around, don’t you think???? Who is responsible??? Yes, us the citizen you and me are responsible but we never revolted against any ill decision of the authorities so why does not it take the authorities to make one right decisions amidst the 1 million wrong decisions they make everyday challenging our intelligence and common sense to the core. I’m sure most Chennai dwellers will tolerate one good decision. When we can put up with pathetic choices like building 3 lane roads but placing barricades every 100 meters and speed breakers every another 100 meters because you cannot control people over speeding.
Problems my dear Chennai authorities need to be ADDRESSED to a RESOLUTION. Please stop hiding behind your mama’s saree because you aint got the nerve to make decisions that are going to be hard on people. You brought in the rain water harvesting scheme because we did not care when you were kind to us and requested us to do it. Why can’t you just do the same for everything?

Nobody not even the president of India has the right to physically abuse another Indian citizen. However authorities you are gifted with that power because you are entrusted with that massive responsibility of making sure things work well all the time. You cops have the lathis and your rifles, you govt officers have your red, blue and green forms that can strip us off every right of ours and drag us to the streets. Disappointingly year after year, party after party, election after election, rule after rule you have not proved one ounce worthy of your responsibility that you have been entrusted upon.

I know most of you don’t read this because you hate computers and the few of you who read this will comment on this section as “Anonymous Coward” and M and F me all the way to your gleeful desirous content and be done with it. The point is if I’m going down so are you because you are my brother and we live in the same country/state/city and we use the same roads, drink the same corporation water, eat at the same places outside from kaiyyendhi bhavan to park Sheraton and use the same facilities and share the same needs most of the time. Think about it. It’s worth your time; you can count your bribe/mamool or think about which wine shop to hit after work later.
Peace, a concerned citizen from Chennai.

But those weren’t enough. Soon, I wanted to see the rebel in person – because so often, what you read is very seldom a real reflection of who a person is. I dug into her whereabouts, and – surprise! – discovered that she was in Chennai after all – and met her.

Perhaps those of the glittering literati out there have already read all there is to read of her – but to me, it was an experience and a half. That’s what I’ve tried to record here. Perhaps Nandhu might like to add his perceptions as well. :)

“Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.”

- Paul Engle

She’s a study in contrasts.

The name Salma has echoed around hallowed corridors of modern Thamizh literature for years now; resounded around bastions of Muslim culture, creeping gently into the hearts of keepers of so-called tradition and those who raised their voices against women and their much-vaunted liberation. Her works, with their sharp, evocative descriptions and stunning imagery about the fate of the everyday, suppressed woman have ruffled entire flocks – leave alone feathers – in some very high places. And for good reason: she has never been afraid to express herself truthfully, when it comes to being the voice of a section of society that has had little chance to speak out. Her poems carry a strong flavour of the physical body, inciting her critics to lash out at her poems in the basest way possible; mild-mannered peers have suddenly been roused to shocking statements, while radical thinkers and feminists welcomed her with open arms – and the world soon followed suit, laying her open a wide path of acceptance. Albeit dotted with boulders with jagged edges.

Salma, the poet – has always been synonymous with powerful words and emotions.

Still, the woman who greets me with a cautious smile when I first step into Poet Salma’s home is not quite whom I expect to see. I quickly revise first impressions of finding, perhaps, a poet who is immured to life, too world-weary or artificially enthusiastic about everyday happenings. And when I look closely, I see a woman armed in battle costume: prepared to defend against invasion if necessary, yet willing to relax her guard when she is approached by friends. Happily, as we settle down to talk, I begin to discover a spirit the likes of which very few actually have the felicity to know.

“What would you like to know?” she asks in a quiet voice, as though worried of committing some faux pas in rushing headlong into her life story – but since that, essentially is what I wish to know, she continues with a slight smile. Her eyes remain clear; no theatrics here. “Not much there – my life was very much like many others in the same situation.” Her words, though, belie the truth.

Born in Thuvarankurichi, a small town near Thiruchirappalli, Salma – who, incidentally, was named Rokkiah – grew up in an ultra-conservative Muslim household and society, governed by every rule and dictum that it is possible for a family to ever impose on young girls.

“Women had little chance of an education there,” remembers Salma, of her childhood. “We couldn’t go out much before marriage – and we were married at 13 or 14, at the most. I myself was engaged when I was 13,” she grins suddenly, at my rather shocked face, and a good-humoured woman makes her presence felt. “That’s not really surprising, you know. But I wouldn’t agree to getting married so young. I already had ambitions of doing something with my life, so I kept protesting against it. Not that it had much effect. Marriage was the only option, and everyone knew it. Still, I managed to keep myself surrounded by my first love – books and literature. I had to keep in touch with that side of me.”

A Master’s Degree Thuvarankurichi might not have offered – but what about the basics? Surely she went to school in her teens. “Ah, yes,” she smiles. “I did go to school – but that came to an abrupt end because of a certain incident. You see, I liked going to the movies, probably because simple pleasures were denied to us girls so much. In those days, Thuvarankurichi’s theatre had only night shows that started at 7 PM; once in three months they had a matinee. Naturally, we wanted to have a taste of the movie-going experience – but the whole outing was fraught with restrictions. I had a few friends my age; every one of them would get permission; but I would have to stand by the pillar at home” – she mimes herself leaning on an imaginary pillar – “my arms twined around it, waiting endlessly. And even then, I would receive permission only if I read 2 pages of the Quran.” She pauses. “I must have been 11 or 12, then. I often spent my time – what I had of it – in the local library, reading and re-reading the ancient classics and whatever else was there. And that was when we, my three friends and I, suddenly decided that we might go to the matinee show. To think was to do – and we were inside the theatre, at once. We didn’t even know what movie was playing. We found our seats and prepared to enjoy the show – only to find that we were the only girls in the whole theatre. And there was a reason for that – the film in question was some kind of an X-rated movie!” She chuckles. “You can’t imagine our intense mortification. We’d covered our heads, and all the men in the theatre kept looking at us, trying to find out who we were, but they couldn’t see enough in the dark theatre. Worst of all, my younger brother was there too – on the men’s side!” She shakes her head. “Somehow, we sat through the whole show, and waited for almost an hour in the theater afterwards, until everyone had gone out. We were hoping to make a quiet exit. And when we came out – good God, the whole crowd was waiting outside, hoping to see who these daring girls were, who came to see such a movie!” She shrugs. “And that was the end of it. We got a terrible lashing when we reached home, and it was decided that I wouldn’t go to school any more. As it was, I would have had to stay home once I reached puberty, so it was only a matter of time.”

What did prick her intensely in the incident, though, was the fact that her younger brother, who had watched the movie as well and been the one to inform the household of this ‘terrible’ act, was not even brought to book and continued as before, while she herself had been reprimanded to within an inch of her life. “I couldn’t digest this obvious discrimination,” she admits. “It was too much to bear that he could get away with anything, even though he was younger – just because he was a male.”

She hadn’t any choice, though. Time at home now stretched away before her interminably, with hours and days of nothing to do. At least, that would have been the case for any other young woman. Not Salma. “I started reading a lot when I was 14, right until 20. My interest in literature grew – and I was, by nature, a girl who wished to know a lot; a girl with dreams. But I had no one to share my thoughts with; no friends. In the place of animate human beings, I turned to even more animate companions, my books. I turned into a bookworm.”

Her parents, ordinarily not inclined to leniency when it came to her education, gave way to her thirst for reading. “They didn’t object to my spending my time this way, within the four walls of my house,” says Salma. “And so I came to read everything I could lay my hands on. Russian literature proved to be a treasure house of knowledge; thought-provoking, the tools that helped me continue to dream, to envision a future that might lie outside this enforced prison. If I hadn’t been able to have my fill of Tolstoy and Mayakovsky in those days, I might have withered away into nothing. I might even say that this proved to be something of a plus point.” Later, with increased reading and absorption came an awareness of language and translation, and the eagerness to devour more. She read a good many works of Periyar as well, and spent time on Marxist theories, the words seeping into her as water in a sponge. Quick on the heels of such extensive reading came the next step – writing.

“When I first started writing poems, I took the name Rajathi for two reasons,” she explains. “Firstly, I wanted an identity of my own, not the one I had right now, bound within the confines of my social restrictions. Secondly, I didn’t want anyone who might read the work to connect them with me, for obvious reasons,” she smiles. “My parents knew that I wrote – but as it hadn’t caused much of a problem thus far, they didn’t object.”

Thus began the early years of the most productive period of her life: she wrote so many poems, mostly based on her own life and emotions that they must have come to around “17 or 18 volumes, if they were put together now.” Most were, she says, feminist, of course. “A woman couldn’t show herself, couldn’t afford to express her own opinions – I was subject to a lot of unkind teasing when rumours of my writings got out. Some even scolded me terribly. How dare I, a chaste Muslim woman, write?”

Word of her writings, the maturity and freshness in her work began to make waves in the literary world, though. She was contacted by various writers; readers began to recognize and look for her work in the Tamil dailies and weeklies – one example was Chuttum Vizhicchudar, a magazine that offered writing space for women; writers S V Rajadurai and V Geetha, themselves keen on Russian literature and Periyar, wrote to her about her work, urging her to continue. Such appreciation, says Salma, prompted her to concentrate, driving her on towards better work.

Needless to say, it could not last long. Plans for her marriage were dusted and brought up again, and this time, despite all of Salma’s protests, there was little leeway in the matter. Too much time had been lost, her family said, as Rokkiah had been promised to a man; no more could be wasted.

Salma was depressed. “I didn’t like the life I was living now; not my home, my surroundings, anything. I knew what kind of life awaited me once I was married – I would just move to the next street, and be swallowed up in the drudgery of chores and household work. I would be carefully kept away from so-called ‘corrupting influences’ – I wouldn’t be allowed to explore my urge to delve into myself, to live life in a city, perhaps, to know people, books, places,” she says. “It would be the end.”

She did try arguing that she must be allowed to write at least – but the request was flatly denied. “There was such a huge gap in our very thinking,” says Salma. “I knew that my future in-laws thought I’d been given too much freedom, doing things no woman should ever be allowed to do; they insisted that I give up writing for good. I refused.”

Not that her refusal changed circumstances; no member of the family gave it serious thought. She would protest until marriage, and then would give it up just as any other girl would. “For many Indian women who have lived like me, after all, there is no ambition, no drive,” Salma muses. “Everything comes to a full-stop after marriage – it’s just the husband, the in-laws, the children.”

And so, Salma entered holy matrimony – “I couldn’t run away, could I?” she grins – and began a not-so-new life, according to tradition and expectations. Nothing would persuade her to give up dreams of writing, though; her new family was equally convinced that she would. This was the first step to what would morph into a protracted battle of wills – but that would come later. First, how was a young bride like herself to even attempt to write, under the watchful eyes of the whole family?

“I wasn’t more than 22, then,” Salma reminisces. “And I was eager to get back to work – but couldn’t. My inability to do so made me discover newer and newer methods to circumvent it,” she laughs.

Anna Akhmatova, acclaimed as the leader, the heart and soul of the St Petersburg tradition of Russian poetry for half a century, wrote her poems, it was said, in pieces of tissue paper, in jail. So did Salma emulate Anna, in her own way. She could not write at night; the night-lamp would give her away. Day was her only recourse, and she snatched minutes out of every chore possible to scribble poetry on scraps of paper, and hide them away. This was essential, as her family – in particular, her husband – were incredibly suspicious that she had gone back to her ‘old ways’ and continued to write, and carried out spot-checks at inopportune moments. “I would write even when I was in the bathroom,” confesses Salma. “And then I would stuff the papers somewhere inside the bathroom, and then find a way to send it out. Occasionally, I changed places too, to avoid discovery,” she laughs.

It was around this time that she adopted the pseudonym Salma. “Kalil Gibran’s work has a heroine in it by this name,” she says. “I read the work; it appealed to me, and I began to use it.”

By now, correspondence from fellow writers and readers had grown to such proportions that an elaborate set-up had to be created for Salma to access her mail. “Amma received all the letters meant for me, and forwarded them; I would read, write replies and send them back to her, and she would post them for me.” All these elaborate precautions did not guard her from being found out, though; when someone stumbled on her pieces of writing, there was hell to pay. “There would be furious quarrels,” comments Salma. “They would grill me about the subjects I’d written, like feminism – and since quite a few of my poems expressed my own sorrow, they would keep asking me if I wrote such things because I was sad in my in-laws’ home,” she says. Such relentless inquisitions shaped her into a rather reclusive being; one who is wary of opening her heart easily to anyone.

Setbacks such as these only served to fire her ambitions to succeed; Salma continued to write, pushing opposition to the background. During these trying times, it was legendary Tamil writer Sundara Ramaswamy – affectionately known as Su Ra – who helped her keep her confidence, and continue writing. Kalachuvadu, his publication house and a premier literary magazine, promoted her writings heavily, publishing her first collection of poetry, Oru Maalaiyum Innoru Maalaiyum (An Evening and Another.) August 2001 saw the book’s release function, in Chennai – and presented a fresh set of problems. How was Salma ever to leave home, let alone attend the function of her own book’s launch? As it was, even her photo couldn’t be acquired without a great deal of difficulty.

In the end, Salma found a rather circuitous way out. “I pleaded sickness and got permission from my in-laws to travel to Chennai for around 10 or 12 days,” she explains. “I had no copies of the book,” – which, incidentally, took the Tamil literary world by storm – “and got medical certificates in the city before I came back home, as they would demand proof of my treatment. No one knew anything of what had happened.” The success was rather bittersweet.

In September, 2001, a vast band of silver appeared on her horizon – except that Salma didn’t recognize it as such, at that time. The Panchayat Board elections were around the corner, and Salma’s husband wished to compete. Part of a well-known family and with a creditable number of supporters, he was sure of success – except for one small hurdle. Thuvarankurichi came under the Women’s Reservation sector, which meant that no man could compete in the Panchayat Elections. “He asked his mother and sisters, all of whom refused; then he came to me. All I had to do was compete in the election; he would take care of everything else.” Confused about this seemingly golden opportunity offered by people who had hitherto refused to let her have even her own identity, Salma turned to Su Ra, her mentor, who urged her to accept – and she did.

[To be Concluded]

They are calling this plan – SECOND MASTER PLAN. The pessimist in me wonders what happened to the First Master Plan. Wonder if it was fully executed.

Vision 2026 is to make Chennai a prime metropolis which will be more livable, economically vibrant and environmentally sustainable and with better assets for the future generations.

Excerpt from the Introduction document

TOC of Second Master Plan

I found more interesting stuff on the site. Some of these stuff actually gives us hope to continue living in Chennai. Checkout the following links for what you can probably expect in the coming years.

1. KOYAMBEDU WHOLESALE MARKET
2. DEVELOPMENT OF WHOLESALE FOODGRAINS MARKET
3. TEXTILE MARKET
4. BIO-METHANATION POWER PLANT PROJECT
5. SATHANGADU IRON & STEEL MARKET
6. DEVELOPMENT OF SATELLITE TOWN AT MARAIMALAINAGAR
7. MADHAVARAM BUS AND TRUCK TERMINAL
8. CHENNAI MUFUSSIL BUS TERMINAL (CMBT) AT KOYAMBEDU
9. CHENNAI CONTRACT CARRIAGE BUS TERMINUS
10. MULTI-LEVEL CAR PARKING COMPLEXES
11. MRTS
12. AIR SPACE EXPLOITATION OVER MRTS  STATIONS  IN PHASE-II
13. OUTER RING ROAD
14. TAMILNADU URBAN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT –III
15. LOCAL BODIES ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME
16. COMMUNITY BASED ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME

I am really glad that atleast the plans exist. It’s of course an entirely different issue whether anybody is looking at those plans and acting by it.