Madras Day, Chennai Week...do we need to celebrate?

'The city of Chennai, erstwhile Madras, is all set to celebrate its 369th birthday on August 22, 2008. For, it was on this day in 1639 that a sliver of land where Fort St George is located, was handed over by the local Nayak rulers to the East India Company.' says a news item. 

I get confused, I thought we have become Chennai now, why do we want to celebrate being Madras then? There is some nostalgia attached with the colonial past that it needs to be 'celebrated' at some point in time. we are not at all deprived for celebration in this city.   The traditional festivals from different parts of tamilnadu have all become part of the chennai culture. 

every tamil daily sheet calender provides three different date, month and year. the hindu calender (even under this we have further divisions of tamil and telugu calender as telugus are a dominant community in tamilnadu), the muslim calender and the tamil tiruvalluvar calender apart from the Gregorian calender.  we have a unique distinction of celebrating  new year itself thrice between jan and april, rather widespread if we need one. tamil new year and a telugu new year within days of each other apart from jan 1st which is celebrated as a new year's day by everyone. this year the government added further confusion by declaring pongal as tamil new year (first of the month of thai) rather than the first of the month of chittirai. so, obviously we celebrate both.

then there is the religious / cultural festival from every part of tamilnadu and neighbourhood that has long since amalgamated into a large calender of events, be it panguni festival from the south, aadi festival from the central districts, the thai festival from farmers, purattasi tirupathi kodai festival of the northern parts and the padayatras - the tirupathi, nagapattinam padayatra, pazhani padayatra, the mel maruvathur padayatra, the ayyappah festivals between oct-jan, etc. the entire dec-jan is purattasi festival with early morning speaker blaring temples asking us to wake up and partake in the worship in most neighbourhoods. We are just finishing aadi month with its free koozh distribution on sundays, pongal made in front of every amman temple on fridays all through the month and fire walking on the last sunday of the month. this custom was unknown to me growing up as a kid in this city, but, this is widespread practice now. the vinayagar chaturthi is round the corner and then duserrah. with the presence of seizable north indian community, holi, raksha bandhan are also part of the chennai festivals now.

then there are the government authorized festivals, gandhi, nehru, ambedhkar, periyar, anna, MGR, etc. not to talk of quarterly bandh festival called by one political party or another. of course, not on the calender are the 'festivals' of ruling kazhagam and movie  people when the city traffic freezes and all of us gulp large amount of carbon monoxide for hours to reach anywhere. there is also the 'sports' festivals of cricket, now cemented by IPL and tennis in january.

the new found commercial festivals are another craze in the city, so, the sober music season has become a music festival making mylapore a global destination in december and early jan, then there is the off-season aadi festival announced by t.nagar shops that make usman road unmotorable during that month, there are 'sirappu thallupadi vizha' for every occassion ranging from deepavali, x-mas, new year, pongal, ramzan, to more recent and obscure akshaya trithiya, mother's day, father's day, etc.

meanwhile, tamil maiyam has started to crowd the over crowded calender with its own events now, their latest acquisition being the marathon with huge corporate investment making it the 3rd largest money prize marathon in the world we are told.  they started with one sangamam, which by the second year became sangaman+ advance music festival, this year they had an half yearly sangamam for children and now the take over of the marathon. the political connection combined with bottomless pockets and huge ambition seems to drive this entity to grow at exponential proportions. and as long as it provides free publicity for enough public figures for a short time commitment, no one is complaining.

now to add to that the last few years we have started the handing over of chennai to East India company being celebrated as an event called madras day! whatever do we need this celebration for beats me completely. are we celebrating the arrival of white man or losing control over ourselves or birth of this unsustainable metropolis, what is the purpose? it looks ridiculously overdo to me.