Chennai Times

2nd December: New Organic Cotton brand launch in Chennai

2011-11-25T23:01:00.002+05:30

Ma Foi Foundation Day - 13th Nov 2011

2011-11-08T10:45:00.002+05:30

watch this movie on 14th if you have the time...

2011-09-13T09:56:00.002+05:30

if you are in Chennai on the 14th wednesday and can spare the time, please do make it for the screening of this amazing documentary that brings together the tradition of Draupadi in the northern tamilnadu villages.

This Saturday in Chennai - Lecture by Dr. Vandana Shiva...

2011-09-07T18:39:00.002+05:30

Paradigm Shift in Science & Technology is needed is something that everyone except those working in the area of Science & Technology understand much better. Eminent Scholar and one of our most powerful orators today, Dr. Vandana Shiva is in Chennai this weekend talking on the subject. Don't miss this lecture, especially so if you haven't listened to her before.

Dr. C V Seshadri was a maverick scientist who worked with people friendly and people oriented technologies in the 80s and early 90s in this very city. Many of the later generations may not know of him and some of his work which have become even more relevant today.

Through this lectures, an institutions that he built brings annually some very interesting speakers and speeches.

Documentary Film Festival in Chennai - Aug 15 - 19

2011-08-13T11:25:00.000+05:30

Prakriti Foundation presents One Billion Eyes IndianDocumentary Film Festival 2011 with the theme Gandhi, August 15 – 19, 6 – 9 pmat The Alliance Francaise, College Road, Chennai. Please see below theschedule and make it for as many screenings and events as possible. Please alsoshare with your circle of friends and family.

Best Wishes,

V.R.Devika

15/8/11

Screening

Gandhi: The 20th Century Prophet” - Part I A.K.Chettiar -40 mins

Performance : ‘soaked-stretched-submerged:a cross media choreo-poem’

Directed by Parnab Mukherjee

Gandhi: The 20th Century Prophet - Part II A.K.Chettiar -40 mins

16/8/11

Screeningof

1.M.G.Road- Pravin Mishra - 32 Mins

2.A season Outside - Amar Kanwar - 30 mins

‘Why is Gandhi COOL even today?’ panel discussion

with A.Annamalai (Gandhi Study Centre), Ram Subramaniam(Samanvaya), Panneerselvam (Panos),

V.R.Devika (The Aseema Trust) Moderated by Ranvir Shah(Prakriti Foundation)

3.I Found a Thread - Tangella Madhavi - 26 mins

17/8/11

Screening

The Salt Stories - Lalit Vachani - 84 mins
Gandhi Through the Eyes of a Cartoonist - Shaila Paralkar - 9 mins
Yeh kaisi Asadi Hai - Pravin Mishra - 5 mins
Gandhiji's Letter to Hitler - Films Division - Bhipen Choubal - 3 mins

18/8/11

Screening

Tales from Napa - Lalit Vachani - 6 mins
Pregnancy Prescriptions and Protocols - Surabhi Sharma - 52 mins
Yehan Gandhi Biktha Nahi Hai - Vikram Bawa - 7 mins

Performance:Bapu Katha - Shadow Puppet Theatre from Orissa

19/8/11

Screening

1. AapHamare Hain Kaun - Madhusree Dutta - 7 mins

2. Dharamveer - Pravin Mishra - 4 mins

3. To Remember - Amar Kanwar - 8 mins

4. Linesof Mahatma - R V Ramani - 20 mins

Celebrated Musician Bombay Jayashri and her students will perform the favourite bhajans ofGandhiji with lots of children and you as chorus. Come and join.

food - farmer - seeds - protest against Monsanto: why should Chennai care?

2011-08-09T08:31:00.002+05:30

The SAGE and Tamilnadu Women's Collective are organizing a protest in front of the Memorial Hall (opp. the Government General Hospital) today (9th Aug 2011) between 4 and 5 p.m. as part of the national campaign against Monsato - Quit India Monsanto campaign.

I have lived in Chennai most of my life. I am 40+ today. I have seen the changes in the habits of eating, food, availability of food, eateries and choices of food in this city in the last three decades of active memory about food.

When we were kids, milk was available from the man who used to bring cows, tie them in front of our house and then milk them in front of us. That gave way to bottles with aluminium foil on top and later to the plastic sheets in which milk is supplied till date. Most of the next generations born and brought up in the city haven't seen the way a cow is prepared before the milking or the milking process itself. Now cows in Chennai are relegated to some distant corner of the city. They were considered a nuisance, repeated pictures of western travelers (and back from west Indians) finding cows in the middle of the roads (Octopussy, Hyderabad blues opening shot) as a driving nuisance made us believe that speed in the roads is more important than fresh milk for people. We could have decided many options including each area and neighbhourhood having its own cattle shed or demarcated area for them. But, we made a choice - we (as in our governments) chose easy to drive roads rather than space for cows and fresh milk in our lives.

I used to see water pandals every summer spring up on the road side, even on the smallest of roads and streets. Drinking water was so free, you went up to one of the pandals and drank from the mud pot full of water. Our own drinking water was the water we pumped from the hand pump in the house and filtered through a white cotton cloth into the large pot at home. The public water was potable direct from the hand pump. Many times after a cricket match on the road side, we have done the ritual of pumping water from the hand pump and drinking direct from it. Water was free everywhere and safe too. Then slowly things changed, the first water bottles that appeared were only with westerners, whose travel guides told them that they will get sick if they drank public water in India. So, they bought water in bottles (it was hard to find them, it was never sold in every shop) and carried it with them. Indian returning from the west (and wanting to go west soon) started to mimic this tamasha too. It was not until we saw the Pepsi's and Coke's coming into the Indian market in a big way that we also noticed alongside, water bottles have become a major sales thing too. Soon, offering bottled water to you became a sing of 'respect' and drinking from it, 'eminence'. We always mistake whatever is western as respectable and eminent, even their illnesses and weaknesses. As a people we made a choice - we decided not to patronize free water any longer, so, the water pandals no longer exist (except in a few pockets) and the most educated and eminent parts of chennai, instead of protesting against the non-potability of their tap water, buy water from ignorant farmers' lands for a pittance, sucking much needed agricultural water in the process.

As kids, we walked around the 'gangana-mandapam' market in triplicane, saw vegetable vendors give fresh vegetables every morning to the customers. There was the usual greetings, haggle, enquiry about health, forecast weather, share stories, jokes...we walked around the entire market, picking something from different vendors, each vegetable had a different vendor from whom we picked things up. some sold an assortment of vegetables that are in tune with the way they are cooked locally, so you always had the man selling manga-inji also selling pacha-kuru-melagu along side, you had the lady selling keerai not selling anything else most times. value added sales at the market was vaazha-thandu being cut in front of you and bound in a vazha-ilai, during festivals you had vazha-ilai along with maavilai available in these markets, the vendor knew what a community bought on a new moon day as much as what others bought during the fasting season...selling the air and the spirit of the market was a familiarity and freshness. With times, such markets and market spaces that enshrined the deeper human fabric of mutual trust and co-existence have shrunk literally. Today, the Reliance Freshs' and More and its local look alikes offer veggies under bright light, big banner and air-condition. No one is familiar and there is no warmth in the air. The poor son of a farmer who is often in a stop over job before moving to better things in life, hates the customer, he hates the lifestyle of the customer and is neither friendly nor cares for what you and I eat. So, we have apples from washington, oranges from malta, peach from china (wrapped in junk styrene, chinese have ingenious ways of exporting their junk along with food), rubbing shoulders with probably genetically modified corn from USA and other vegetables that have spent anything between 2 days to 2 months in a vegetable mortuary (cold storage). We made a choice - a choice to patronize such shops because, air conditioned comfort to our bodies and not having to walk around too much so that we can become obese and swap our diabetes counts as we wait for the clerk to struggle to make bills in the counter. We chose easy way of shopping rather than freshness and familiarity.

Being predominant rice eaters, we had the 'andhra' trader bring rice samples home, and twice or more times a year, large sacks of rice was delivered in the house after the sample has been approved by the collective of women in the house (and many times in the neighbourhood), similarly, several produce that were used in the house extensively, such as tamarind, chilli, etc. and were seasonal, were purchased in bulk. other 'andhra' trader brought home ghee that was made in their homes here in Chennai (their son studied with me in school and i have many times visited their house that smelt of ghee everywhere!) and there were 'enna mandi's where you went to buy oil of different needs, again in bulk with your own vessels. (there was also the Chettiar who bought amazing cotton clothes from karur or somewhere once in every two months, he was the only one who used sniff powder and I still remember one conversation in which he taught me the aathi-choodi of avvayaar) I don't exactly remember when this particular culture changed and how...over a period of time, we have stopped identifying different communities and their specialization of different commodities that we consume. There are no 'specialists' and specialist knowledge of food or other goods. Everything is supplied by the same super market and it is managed by people who don't know what is in the shelf and where it comes from, nor do we care any longer. We made a choice again - we chose to do away with the culture of specialized produce directly from the producer, because, they came at their own odd times, at their own seasons, but, we wanted to have them through the year...we can't stock up anylonger, we have smaller houses for food stocks that become larger with television and other electronic gadgets. We made a choice to not care for the source of food and lesser purchase and maintenance.

We as consumers, city planners, citizens, heads of families, career oriented young professionals...and in some may other identities seem to have made certain choices with regards to our food and its place in our lives. These choices have rendered us to become a society full of illnesses, diabetes medicine as part of the breakfast is a culture today as much as cancer and heart diseases becoming dominant part of a social catching up. Many of these modern day diseases are termed as 'degenerative diseases', that we allow our bodies to degenerate while we are busy doing other things. Other things we are doing in a gusto and how - religious activities in plenty we have time to participate even eating ready-to-consume packaged putrified food in the process, listening to spiritual gurus in air-conditioned halls talk of Bhagavat Gita while we sip water out of packaged drinking water, participating in as many rituals as possible and even donating food as a great act of philanthropy, annadana, and shamelessly and thoughtlessly giving water in plastic sachets along with the food in unhealthy styrene plates (to cut costs you see!), visiting the remotest Gods in small towns in our Innovas and Sumos (guzzling fossil fuel aplenty to keep us air-conditioned inside) to gain some unknown commodity called moksha while we are sure that the stock of ready to eat snack is adequately stocked in the vehicle, we are busy planning large family outings and of course, visit the nearest super-market to buy the much abhorred junk-food, saying, 'this one time', truthfully knowing that this is not the first, nor the last time, we gift the men and women of Gods with ready to dispense sweets (and chocolates) that they in turn dispense to those who visit them as 'neivedhyam', neither them nor us thinking and protesting....choice we make that has all lead to 'degeneration' of the physical. But, degeneration of the mind is not far behind, so, we have new forms of diseases that has made counsellors a necessity in every office, that has made psychiatric service important for schools...of course, Gods and God-men in plenty are required to attend to the degenerated spirit!

A choice to degenerate can be made in ignorance, but, a choice to correct it has to be made consciously. We can either bemoan about the wrong choices of yester-years or choose to make a difference to our lifestyles today. The choice today is the state of bodies and minds tomorrow. We choose either to degenerate further or become part of a healing force to the much injured planet. We have a choice.

"Quit India Monsanto" is a campaign that has been launched not against a corporate called Monsanto, but, what it has come to represent to us in our lives. Monsanto has grown and become strong because of our wrong choices, we were ignorant, but, not now. We today know what others who have chosen to make such decisions have become, America is a standing example (if it can stand beyond another S&P downgrade) of what degeneration can do to a strong nation, the Jimmy Conners and Marie Louir Retten of my younger days and Madonna of youth that has given way to obese, low credibility, global bully, arrogant, insensitive image of a nation of today unfortunately lead by a smart looking black President for the first time in their history. We know that is not the way to go.

Yet, the government in Delhi seems to be thinking that is the way to go - from Nuclear energy, Genetically Modified Food, Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, UID, direct cash transfer instead of PDS, 'development' at the cost of 'environment'...the long list of policies in the pipeline seems to come from the mindset that made the wrong choices in the past. The kind of choices that has lead us astray. It is as though, Delhi went to sleep twenty years back and continues to sleep and make decisions out of habit in its sleep.

Quit India Monsanto is a call to awaken our food habits, just like Indian Against Corruption is a call to awaken the ethics in our social engagement, it is a call to dis-engage with the Western thought pattern and life style (or way of life as they call it), to re-engage with our people, our health and nutrition, our knowledge systems and priorities, our communities and their welfare...it is a call from a farmer - activist network, but, it is a call not just for farmer or activist alone. It is for everyone of us who consume and who care. Let's not perpetuate our wrong decisions and choices beyond our generation, let the children of today not go through the same 'degenerative' environment and life style that we went through, let's start making some changes in our lifestyles, to show we care...maybe Quit India Monsanto is a beginning, to start to make those life style changes....join the movement, join the rally today if you can, make time to say you care.

Request for Volunteers in Chennai...

2011-06-25T09:28:00.002+05:30

Raghu (natwesthomes@gmail.com / 09840922400) coordinates a network of volunteers who give time supplementary education of students in the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Student's Home, Mylapore.

He is seeking volunteers who could be part of the language skills development for diploma students in the Home. The classes will happen on weekends, 10 - 12 noon. Volunteers could either teach functional english / communicative language teaching or even be part of language laboratory to facilitate the audio-video usage by the students. Volunteers can be accommodated based on their own availability for either one or two days. English language teachers are welcome as volunteers for this purpose.

Please get in touch with Raghu for details.

Once again food to be served in Drive-in Woodlands!!!

2011-03-17T00:39:00.000+05:30

Like me if you too have missed the Drive-in Woodlands for its yummy food, here is another opportunity. SFA is holding its organic food mela in the old drive-in woodlands (new Semmozhi Poonga) on 19th, if you are in the city and want to help yourself with some healthy food, do visit and benefit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

SAFE FOOD ALLIANCE (SFA)

Invites you to

AN ORGANIC MELA

AT SEMMOZHI POONGA, CHENNAI

ON SATURDAY MARCH 19^TH 2011

TIME: 3pm to 8pm

Do you believe that your right to safe food is a basic right and the very food that you eat to sustain yourself should not become toxic and hazardous?

COME, LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS IN THIS ORGANIC MELA

The event is being organized to mark the occasion of World Consumers Day (March 15^th). This year, SFA and many other organizations have joined together to highlight

· Consumer’s Right to Safe Food: Many proposals to introduce genetically modified (GM) foods into the Indian market threaten the consumers’ right to safe food and right to informed choice in the matter, as these foods cannot be distinguished from non-GM foods. GM food has been shown to be toxic and unsafe for human consumption.

· The livelihood security of millions of Indian farmers is severely threatened by the introduction of GM foods. GM seeds are very expensive and often do not perform up to expectations. Dependence on such expensive seeds can drive farmers to extreme debt leading to despair and even suicide. Today it is almost impossible to find non-GM cotton seeds and hence all India’s cotton farmers are subject to the pricing set by corporations and the monopolies building in the seed markets. We do not want this situation to arise in food crops as well.

· Sustainable agriculture without the use of harmful synthetic inputs and with conventional seeds has been shown to be successful in producing more than enough for the food security of our nation. Lakhs of farmers spread across thousands of villages of AP are practicing it and producing pesticide-free food. Karnataka is following, rightly. Commitment from the Government to create support and extension services is necessary for replicating this model throughout the country.

The event will feature:

· Diversity of traditional seed varieties – interaction with farmers who conserve such diversity

· Stalls with information on millets and traditional rices of Tamil Nadu

· Sale of traditional grains

· A focus on harmful pesticides and alternatives to these

· Information on the status of GM crops in India, implications and alternatives

· Hands on Natural Dyeing experience!

· Interactions with prominent personalities from different walks of life – activists, farmers, cine-stars, musicians and others.

· Related publications

· Clothes and textiles made of organic cotton, hand-woven and manually tailored.

City College makes College Council Elections Paper Free!!

2011-02-27T14:57:00.000+05:30

The Stella Maris College in Chennai City has a new first. It has made the College Council election fully automated and paper free.

"We wanted to reduce the wastage of paper and the unnecessary energy associated with the polling and counting of votes", said the Principal, Prof Sr Jesinthan Quadras in a conversation. "So,we requested the computer science department to develop a software through which the entire process can be computerized".

She says that though this could have been thought before, now, it has become more possible as there is adequate infrastructure as computers available within the college. Result: Each department spent 15 minutes to finish the polling with the department heads facilitating the verification, the poll results were known instantly after the last poll was cast and the entire election process became a smooth operation with no paper work, no over worked faculty and no unnecessary litter in the campus.

"To ensure there wasn't wastage of paper, we also restricted the campaign to hand made paper charts and didn't permit any printed material for campaigning by them", adds Sr. Jesintha. She and her team have several firsts in green initiatives to their credit, including, solid waste management, garden waste composting, tree planting, green campaigns, etc.

Here is wishing the College many more successful 'green steps', true to the spirit of the Patron Saint of the order that manages the College, St Francis of Assisi.

Adyar Poonga Inaugurated

2011-01-23T07:51:00.000+05:30

It is rare for anything eco-friendly to happen in Chennai with political patronage and non-interference. After much unnecessary political grandstanding between the Centre and the State, the Adyar Poonga got inaugurated yesterday and in the process acquired a new title too...'Tholkappiya Poonga' now it is.

I don't know what is the need to give the name of Tholkappiyam to a park or relationship of Tholkappiyar to Adyar, there is none as far as I know. But, Tholkappiyam is the base literature from which Tamizh derives itself and is referred to as the main source of the language and way of life. If the Poonga starts another chapter in the way of life of the Tamizhs - to celebrate diversity in the middle of the mono-cemented city, to not give up hope and create a beautiful oxygen lung from a dumping yard, to appreciate aesthetics, art forms and blending them as part of eco-restoration, learning and understanding...yes, the Poonga is a great beginning.

Tholkappiyam, (according to my friend and an authority) places much emphasis on the relationship of man and nature and the relationship defines space and time. To feel the rocks in the Poonga or the wooden brindges, the huts with bamboo and coconut frond roof...each of these are a sure reminder of the resources in the state that have been given up for an alien idea of 'growth' and 'development'.

I don't know what prompted the CM to name this Poonga in the name of Tholkappiyam, but, for once he can justify his action without having to escape into rhetoric or family ramble. It is a honour and celebration of the spirit that has gone into the making of this park, ironically, that doesn't come from a Tamizh, but, a Tasmanian...Joss Brooks. For me it has come out of this one person's deep conviction and his persistence to ensure that this park does come up and come up in the way he has imagined every stone and stick and grass to come up there.

A salute to this amazing individual and his dedicated and hard working team - Arul, Madhu, Eric, Anita, Preston, Rex, Cyril and many more...each one of them have spent many a sleepless nights for making this Poonga what it is today. It has been extremely difficult and perhaps many times not rewarding and exasperating, but, they have persisted in working with the genius of Joss (which in itself can be difficult many times) and his manifestation of nature the way it wants to and in the process facilitate re-creating a land to a form that is beautiful and appreciated by birds, insects, animals and reptiles that don't understand policies, litigation, media or politics.

621 people killed in road accidents in 2010

2011-01-15T23:39:00.000+05:30

great accident year 2010 has been - 2 days per day thru the year almost! and 1/5th of them elderly!! even better. here is the link to the Police Comm interview.

what does the city do about it? the Comm didn't seem to have decided as it didn't become part of the interview.

Free Binayak Sen: Meeting to express solidarity and concern

2010-12-29T22:43:00.001+05:30

In the middle of the music season and the new year holiday spirit reaching a crescendo, it was a surprise to see a gathering of people on a social issue in the city. The meeting at SPACES, 1 Elliots Beach Road attracted several literary, media, theatre, music and film personalities apart from social and political activists numbering more than 100, on 29th evening. The meeting seemed to have been convened by Sadananda Menon and Sashikumar of Asian College of Journalism.

Sadananda Menon, welcomed the gathering expressing concern about the ruling of the Court against the human rights activits, Dr Binayak Sen. He also mentioned that the famous dancer Chandralekha would have been proud that this meeting was held in this venue and she would have gladly signed the petition seeking the release of Dr. Sen.

Suresh, President of PUCL, Tamilnadu and one of the National Secretary of PUCL outlined the case against Dr. Sen and the obvious gaps in the ruling awarded by the judge. He emphasized that this case got much prominence due to the 'high profile' nature of Dr. Sen, however, there are several such cases registered against lesser known activists who fight for human rights and civil rights issues across central India in several states. He said that this case has brought several groups and people together in solidarity, however, the larger issue needs to be addressed using this gathering. He also mentioned that PUCL will be coordinating the meetings.

Geetha Dharmarajan, a prominent city based lawyer remembered a case of sedition being brought against Chandralekha three decades ago and how a few words in the lobby with her was scrutinized by the intelligence authorities. She mentioned that there was a need to look beyond this case and understand that the nation was slipping into a state where there seemed to be a continuous action against activists.

Ramesh from Amnesty International echoed he sentiments expressed by the two speakers and added that Amnesty had endorsed the appeal against the sentence and how they have declared Dr. Sen as a prisoner of conscience.

A poem written in honour read out by a young poet and a impromptu performance of chitra veena by an artiste completed the evening meeting. A press meet in solidarity has been organized at the Press Club on the 30th at 3 p.m. and another meeting has been organized by PUCL on 30th evening at 5.30 p.m. at C.D. Nayagam Thiyagaraya Nagar Hr. Sec. School, Venkatnarayana Road, T. Nagar, Chennai.

If you haven't signed the petition seeking the release of Dr. Sen, you can do so by clicking here, more than 5000 people have signed this petition so far in less than a week from across the globe.
Later: A news report on the same meeting appearing in the HINDU here

Mylapore Fine Arts Club Secretary passes away: K S Venkatraman

2010-12-14T11:16:00.014+05:30

As the music season starts, the one music sabha secretary that I know passed away this evening. K S Venkatraman, was for over 35 years the Secretary for one of the oldest musical sabhas in the city, Mylapore Fine Arts Club (MFAC). He died this evening after a brief illness of over a month in a private clinic.

As connoisseurs of Carnatic music he belonged to the elite breed of Kumbokonam - Tiruvayaru brand. The tradition of ritualistic betel leaf consumption, hot degree coffee (which he gave up in the later part of life), pride of having swam in Cauvery river and growing up in the river bank that has generated musical geniuses in Carnatic for more than a century. He came from that cultural background and had a taste on all of these.

He devoted much of his time in hunting for and promoting talent in Carnatic music through the Kutchery opportunities in the Sabha. He has seen several generations of young talent grow up and some of them today are brand ambassadors of Carnatic Music to the world. With a career in telephones, he spent the best of the non-working hours listening to, organizing and promoting the music that he so much loved.

There could be no time bar for either the betel leaf ritual or listening to good music. He could be listening to AIR late night classical music at 11 till he dozed off at 2 in the night or he would be up and early listening to music during the season before he left home in the morning (during his days in service, this was a compulsory month long leave from office) for the day long Kutcherys (musical concerts) that could start as early as 8 in the morning and the last of which would end in the night at 10. The un-recognized and un-noticed job of the the Sabha Secretary was to be available to be blamed for everything during the season. From the malfunctioning microphone that would be noticed by the toughest and most uncharitable critic and promptly reported in the next morning kutchery note to the unsatisfied customer in the musical seasons canteens, everyone blames the Sabha secretary for just about everything.

I have seen KSV smile at all of them, pat someone on the shoulder here, share a joke there, give people their due, but, never over state things and carry on. This in one evening, he does this for almost a month in a year and then several smaller seasons including the dance and drama season. He had an eye for talent and always picked and promoted youngsters and gave a lot of attention to their performance.

In recent years the pressure on the Secretaries have increased multi-fold with the Secretary receiving 'promotional' calls and sample music disks from March onwards for a chance to sing in December. Though he chose the talent with much care, he was equally critical with the senior performers who at times would come up with shoddy performance. "If she sang only such songs, next year she may not even get this much crowd", he mentioned about a very popular artiste once. "He was fine, but, the trouble with him is that he has become very talkative during the concert", he said about another. Last year when a very senior artiste restricted her dates and said she would not sing for MFAC, he utilized the opportunity to promote another youngster in her place.

His brand of kumbakonam betel leaf with the scented tobacco came to be associated with the aroma of the sabha, several artists came to his room for a small paan before and after the performance, that was an incentive.

A gentle and simple person, in his post-retirement life, he almost only lived for the Sabha and promoting good music through it. I often asked him about the vast collection of music he had, whether he would like to share them with anyone at some point in time, if he would want to set up a centre where people could access these rare music. He always shrugged aside such suggestions. He looked down upon commercialization of music and the music season (MFAC is perhaps the only Sabha where still you sit in a non air-conditioned ambience).

Mylapore has just lost a prominent face and Carnatic Music, a true connoisseur and patron. I personally will miss his jokes, gossip and certainly the paan, which I had started appreciating only recently despite being related to him for over a decade. (Read earlier online interviews with him here and here).

Varanasi Weavers in Chennai

2010-11-04T14:37:00.000+05:30

Upasana (www.upasana.in) is a designer initiative based in Auroville with more than a decade of work in textile design.

Over the last several years Upasana has initiated and managed several social enterprises that have not merely brought in commercial returns as a venture, but, also have resulted in satisfying the development and social goals of the producers/craftspersonnel.

Some of Upasana's ventures include the Tsunamika, Small Steps (www.smallsteps.in) and Varanasi Weavers (www.varanasiweavers.in).

Varanasi Weavers is a brand under which Upasana markets the wonderful silk crafts (and accessories) of weavers community in Benaras that has all but disappeared from the market (most of us can't figure out the difference between a pure Benaras silk and a synthetic, Chinese, cheap alternative that crowds the market today).

If you are in Chennai and dare to step out this week for shopping, do visit Amethyst for some genuine Benaras silk that is crafted with an eye for quality and also benefits some of the most deserving communities in India.

I would recomment the interesting Benaras Buttons that are made in several colours and variations by the women (wives and daughters of the weavers) in the weaving villages. Benaras apparently used to make such buttons that adorned erstwhile royalty. Now these designs are fashion accessories, with as many applications as the mind can conjure up!

...crazy Tassie doing dream park in Chennai!

2010-09-21T09:08:00.000+05:30

"Tasmania's splendour flows from its subtle mixture of colours and textures and from the play of light between earth and sky. There are grander landscapes and broader heavens, but no where have I seen such breathtaking contrasts arise so naturally from the dialogue between mountain and forest, clarity and cloud, sun and moon. A person can disappear in beauty like this." - Arthur Rosenfeld Tasmania: Light at the End of the World Exhibition, 1991

Today is Joss Brooks' birthday. This crazy Tasmanian is 65 years old today, an age in which most Chennai men would retire to take life easy, read their morning newspaper, drink a slow beverage, give up their coffee, count their BP, develop fear of death and start to spiritual classes that they can't hear or comprehend any longer. However, Joss has been busy last few years developing a heaven for Chennai-vasis. He has been dreaming, creating and convincing us of the Adayar Poonga.

Chennai's normal idea of park is a middle class convenient dream, consisting of korean grass lawns, few date palms, funny bushes of colourful croutons and a few flowering plants to complete the scene. The Chennai Corporation Parks have the advantage of the aesthetic sense of the hoary institution, with a mixture of unimaginative combination of tiles, pathways in strange shapes and water fountains and falls that defy all reason and logic.

To people with such mindset, Joss has been addressing his idea of a park, local flora, rock formations, wooden bridges, rock benches, signages to educate people on the local flora and fauna, re-creating a forest on the banks of the adayar river that had piled up 40 years of garbage mound till he came along. Every day for the last couple of years, he has walked the banks of this river, from the ugly estuary where sewage of Chennai clearly indicates the human indifference to their living conditions up till the junction in the Adyar river till which the Government has granted him permission to develop a park, picking garbage (a few thousand lorry loads of it), shaping the landscape as it would have been in a natural forest space, planting trees and bushes, placing a rock here and a stick there, 'to allow the birds to perch themselves and shit', as he puts it, because, 'the most natural way of a forest formation is through the seeds that the birds shit'!

All this is not new for him, in 30-odd years, he created a beautiful forest in one of the most barren lands in Tamilnadu, at Auroville. Anyone who has been to Pitchandikulam and seen the early photos and what has become of it now, will know what miracles this, 'gardener' (as he prefers to call himself) can do. What's new to him, is the indifference and insensitivity of the city of Chennai towards someone like him. Every step in the creation of this Poonga (despite the contract from a government not known for any environmental sensitivity) has been surrounded by controversy. The environmentalists were up in arms early on saying that the best way for a forest was to allow it to appear on its own (strangely they assumed it will happen on its own on 40 years of garbage mound!), they even managed a court order that placed severe constrictions on Joss' work. Then there was the rumour in civil society, by jealous 'friends' about how he has succumbed to a political design and he was being 'used' to evict slum dwellers by political powers and how his contract too was corrupt (Joss once dryly remarked that he may regain some respect in civil society if the next government puts him behind bars for awhile!). And as the work progressed, the bureaucratic strangle at every step of his way, rendering each day and week as a negotiating between the crazy Tassie to bring in the value of environmental awareness and the large government machinery wanting to reduce him to a civil contractor that he cannot be.

The city almost succeeded in beating him up, it gave him a heart attack last month. But, his conviction and strength is rather deep and that has kept him going. He was back at work a week after undergoing a heart surgery to ensure that the Poonga was ready on schedule.

Come Jan 2011, we will have a beautiful park in the heart of Chennai. While Chennai celebrates several Colonizers (the eyesore of Munro statue with its manicured lawns a telling sign close to the zero point of the city), the city may forget this gifted gardener who left the beautiful forest he created to come up and create this piece of oasis for all of us. But, generations will walk in this park (or whatever the Corporation will make of it eventually), sit silently in one of the stone benches and listen to the birds sing, watch the sunset amidst the skyscrapers that hang as its backdrop or just walk in the simple pathway around the Poonga...and if someone wondered 'wow! why can't other places be like this?', that would make Joss quite happy! he may consider his job done.

Here is wishing this Tassie much strength and Peace and many more years of making dreams and dreamlike spaces!

photo: Joss Brooks delivering the 7th Samanvaya Freedom Lecture, Aug 2009

Chennai wedding receptions or International food malls!

2010-08-26T23:38:00.000+05:30

Wedding Reception Menu have become a show of mindlessness. As a matter of show off rather than any sense of quality. The choice of food resembles more of a food mall rather than a feast or a wholesome meal. The old fashioned 'bandhi' has long since given way to the buffet where the more choice has come to indicate better food. I have long since decided not to attend these parade of food where each person could waste eventually 50 gms of plastic, including water bottles, cups, spoons, forks and several other paper cups for different food items.

Just now R came back from yet another of those mindless wedding receptions and listed out the menu, decided to record it as she narrated the same. North Indian, Chinese, Chaat, Salad Meal, South Indian traditional and a Sandwich (this I haven't heard before, looks even more out of place)...and this is a completely vegetarian family fare. invariably no cook can excel all of these types of items and much of it only serves enumeration value than placate any palate. people invariably pile up their plates and finding that the food is not as good as it looks, end up wasting much of it, resulting in high wastage despite the very logic of buffet meals being that the food may not be much waster.

look at a typical list below (courtesy R):

outside the wedding hall:
cotton candy
pop-corn
chaat items: pani puri, bhel puri, masala puri, dahi puri

outside the dining hall:
ice cream
paan corner

inside the dining hall:
vegetable sandwich
pav bhaji
soup
bengali sweet
spring roll
cauliflower manchurian
rumali roti
channa masala
mini oothappam with thengai chutney
vegetable fried rice with raitha
sambar saadam with vadaam and potato fry
curd rice with vathal kuzhambu and mango pickle

fruit corner with apples, water melon, ash melon and other seasonal and unseasonal fruits!

salad corner with 12 different varieties of salads and lentils

juice - grape and musabmi
coffee

I was talking to a friend from UK some time back who was in the process of planning her wedding. She expected 40 people (no less, no more) to attend her wedding and she was planning a simple meal for these 40 people. she said that 10 had told her that they were vegetarians and 2 were vegans and she had to plan where each of these will be seated and ensure that they were all served food according to their liking. she wondered how in India we manage food for a typical wedding meal of a couple of hundred people! I enquired about the wedding reception, she said that would be attended by about 100 people and her reception menu will be tea and cup cake!! ...phew! that's penury in comparison!! but, isin't a low quality imitation international food court for a wedding reception criminal indulgence!?

Kailash Parbat, Velachery shuts down!

2010-05-14T05:42:00.000+05:30

have had a good pani poori there earlier...just went yesterday evening to pick up stuff and found that the place is all wound up!!! sad. one of the better Indian junk food joints gone :-( hopefully not forever...

In Chennai 1st May 2010 - 'Ninaivin Nagaram' documentary screening

2010-04-30T08:41:00.000+05:30

This is an interesting programme, I have had a sneak preview of few shots of this movie thanks to Sashikanth and can say that this movie will not just be historical information, but, also some great visuals. Don't miss the koothu being rendered in the deserted fort of Senji. Go for this if you are in Chennai on Saturday, make time, appreciate good work. - R

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Tamil Paaramabariyam

(Tamil Heritage)

invites you and your friends to the screening of a Documentary

Ninaivin Nagaram

(City of the Mind)

produced by

A. Sashikanth

at 5.30pm on the 1st of May, 2010

at Vinobha Hall, Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya, T Nagar.

The producer says:

I have made two documentaries, Ninaivin Nagaram and Kelai Draupadai, both are connected with the Mahabharata koothu. The first deals with the history of the region around Senji which gave rise to a unique Mahabharata festival celebrated in over 200 villages in Tamilnadu. The documentary is of 75 minute duration. This will be shown during this programme. The later is a visual celebration of the festival and runs for a little more than two hours and can be screened at a later time.

Ninaivin Nagaram

This documentary, that would be screened, deals with the history of the region around Senji which gave rise to a unique Mahabharata festival celebrated in over 200 villages in Tamilnadu. The film is a meditation on memory, mythology and history.

A war which happened in the 6^th century AD, between the Chalukyas and the Pallavas seems to have left quite a mark on the minds of the people, and is the earliest memory celebrated in this festival. The asuran called Vatapi, a metaphor for Badami and hence of the Chalukyas figures in a lot of narratives around this festival. The festival seems to have started as a record of the Pallavas initial defeat at the hands of the Chalukyas and their subsequent regrouping and victory over the Chalukyas.

Pothu Raja, the popular way in which the Pallava kings were known becomes the first ‘ellai sami’ or guardian deity of Draupadi and hence the people, as Draupadi is seen as the symbol of all people affected by war.

As this region went through a series of wars and was conquered numerous times by many armies, all the memories of those troubled times found its way into the mythology of this festival. Mutthal Ravuttan, a Muslim general becomes the second guardian deity of Draupadi, referring to the Bijapur invasion; and Pormannan, a reference to the Vijayanagar kingdom which ruled this place from the 13^th to 15^th century AD, becomes the 3^rd guardian deity of Draupadi.

The last straw on the camel’s back was the permanent settlement act brought out by the British in 1803, where they created ‘Zamindars’ who were basically tax collection agents for the British and the exorbitant tax which they expected from the people, and the barbarity with which they went out to collect the tax from the people. The people unable to pay the taxes and unable to resist the British, migrated enmasse from this region, and what was once a huge metropolis in the 16^th century, was according to the British census of 1871 a ruined city with only 571 people. The memory of this can be seen in the Ballad of Desingu Rajan which has been composed 100 years after his death, where Desingu is venerated as the King who resisted paying taxes to the Nawab of Arcot.

The resonance of this exile of the people from their own land can be seen in this festival -which I would like to call a festival of exile with hope of a return.

I am giving below the twin documentary I have produced, for your information

Synopsis of Kelai Draupada

In over 200 Villages in Tamilnadu, the Mahabharata is performed as a festival. In this, for 20 days and 20 hours per day, the Mahabharata is narrated as a story, performed as a villager ritual and enacted as ritual theatre. The Mahabharata is seen as an anti-war text, and listening to the Mahabharata one is meant to introspect as to what causes conflict and strive for ‘samarasam’ or peace and harmony. The central position of this festival is that ‘rigid’ identities like caste, gender, power lead necessarily to conflict and the question the festival poses is whether one would like to have rigid identities and war or fluid identities and peace. The festival becomes a space where you affirm your individual identities and ‘transcend’ them. All castes in the village have a role to play in the festival and in some villages the Muslim community also participates as one of the deities of this festival is Mutthala Ravuttan, a Tamil Rowther Muslim. The festival has been performed for over 1300 years and is an important document of the social structure of pre colonial, what is currently called, Tamilnadu.

The Mahabharata which is performed is also a doubled text; it is both the Sanskrit text and also the Mahabharata, or the record of wars, which have been endured by these villages. The Mahabharata which is remembered here is a record of the resilience of the people and an affirmation of their will to live through troubled times.

This festival is of a long duration – from 10 days to 40 days and contains a number of elements – narration of the literary Mahabahara epic by Villipuththur Azhwar, rituals involving the icon of Draupati and theru-k-kooththu of the relevant episode at night. In this kooththu there is the mingling of the serious and the profane.

----

About myself

An alumnus of Film and Television of India, Pune, I worked for 15 years in Calcutta as a cinematographer shooting 10 features and over 200 documentaries. Chief credits would be ‘Kaal Abhirati’ [Bengali feature, Dir. Amitabh Chakraborty, National Award for best experimental feature, 1991], ‘Yugant’ [Bengali feature film, Dir. Aparna Sen, Best Bengali Film, 1995]. I have been directing and shooting independently for the past few years and the last 3 years have been devoted to research and shooting of these 2 films. They were made possible by a grant from The India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore.

S. Sashikanth (kanth.sashi@gmail.com)

RSVP:

A. Annamalai: Gandhi Study Centre - gandhicentre@gmail.com; 94441-83198

Badri Seshadri: Kizhakku-p-padippakam - badri@nhm.in; 98840-66566

TK Ramachandran, IAS : TN Slum Clearance Board - tkramachandranias@hotmail.com; 99406-41144

S. Kannan: Bank of Baroda - 2498 5836)

S. Swaminathan: Marg Constructions - sswami99@gmail.com; 2467 1501

Interesting Event this Sunday: 3rd April 2010

2010-03-30T16:16:00.002+05:30

Interesting Lecture this Sunday, I would go if I were in town. Message from Prof. Swaminathan below...

ram
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Tamil Paaramabariyam

(Tamil Heritage Group)

invites you and your friends to a talk on

the Great Penance Panel

of Mamllapuram

Dr S Balusamy

at 5.30pm on the 3rd of April, 2010

at Vinobha Hall, Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya, T Nagar.

About the Talk

Open-air bas-relief is a novel innovation by the Pallavas, unique only to Mamallapuram. It has not been reproduced anywhere else in India since then. Amongst the bas-reliefs in Mamallapuram, the greatest is 'The Great Penance'.

Some scholars have interpreted this as Arjuna's Penance. The ascetic in penance is seen as Arjuna, who wants as book from Lord Shiva, the Pasupathastra. Few other scholars interpret this scene as Bagiratha's Penance. After failed attempts Bagiratha's father and grandfather, Bagiratha succeeds in his penance and convinces Ganga to come down. The only person who can hold the force of Ganga is Lord Shiva, and Bagiratha continues his penance and gets Shiva to gently receive Ganga and then pass her on to the earth.

Which of the two stories above is depicted in Mamallapuram? Some scholars even think the whole panel is a slesha - it is a single panel representing both the stories.

Dr Balusamy has a fresh perspective. For him, The Great Penance Panel holds much more. He concurs that it is Arjuna doing the penance and it is Shiva offering the Pasupathastra. But according to Balusamy, the sculptors of Mamallapuram have attempted something much bigger.

In the process, Balusamy has meticulously catalogued every character in the large panel: every animal and bird, every celestial being and every human. Balusamy shows that the animals there are not depicted randomly. They all belong to a specific place and they have been carefully selected and depicted there.

Why is the 'hypocritical cat' carved there? What is the idea? Is it simple humour? Balusamy has a clear answer to this.

Balusamy's work is truly a work of a great scholar and yet easily accessible to the lay men. His work on The Great Penance panel has been published as a book in Tamil by Kalachuvadu.

Dr Balusamy is well known to the Tamil literary world through his pseudonym, Barathiputhran and presently teaches Tamil in the Madras Christian College.

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பெருந்தவச் சிற்பத் தொகுதி - முனைவர் ஆர். பாலுசாமி

வெளிப்புறப் புடைப்புச் சிற்பம் என்பது பல்லவர் காலத்துக்கு முன்னும் இருந்ததில்லை, பின்னும் இருக்கவில்லை. மாமல்லையில் காணப்படும் புடைப்புச் சிற்பங்களிலேயே மிக முக்கியமானது ‘பெருந்தவச் சிற்பத் தொகுதி’ என்பது.

சில அறிஞர்கள் இது அர்ஜுனன் தவம் செய்யும் காட்சி என்கிறார்கள். தவம் செய்பவர் அர்ஜுனன் என்பதும், அவர் சிவனை நோக்கி தவம் செய்து பாசுபத அஸ்திரத்தைப் பெறும் விருப்பத்தில் உள்ளார் என்பதும் இவர்கள் கருத்து. வேறு சிலர் இது பகீரதன் தவத்தைக் குறிக்கிறது என்கிறார்கள். தன் தந்தையும் பாட்டனும் சாதிக்கமுடியாததை பகீரதன் சாதிக்கிறான். கங்கையிடம் தவம் இருந்து அவளை பூமிக்கு வரச் சம்மதிக்க வைக்கிறான். அவளது வேகத்தைத் தாங்கக்கூடிய திறன் சிவனுக்கு மட்டுமே உண்டு. எனவே சிவனிடம் தவம் இருந்து அவரையும் சம்மதிக்கவைக்கிறான்.

இந்த இரு கதைகளில் எந்தக் கதையை மாமல்லை காண்பிக்கிறது? சில அறிஞர்கள் இது சிலேடை என்றும் ஒரே சிற்பத் தொகுதியில் இரண்டு கதைகளையும் குறிப்பிடுகிறது என்றும் சொல்கிறார்கள்.

முனைவர் பாலுசாமி முற்றிலும் புதிய கருத்தை முன்வைக்கிறார். பெருந்தவச் சிற்பத் தொகுதியில் தவத்துக்கு மேலும் பல விஷயங்கள் உள்ளன என்பது அவர் கருத்து. இங்கு தவம் செய்பவர் பாசுபதம் வேண்டி நிற்கும் அர்ஜுனன்தான் என்பதை ஏற்கும் பாலுசாமி, மாமல்லையின் சிற்பிகள் அதையும் தாண்டி சிந்தித்துள்ளனர் என்கிறார்.

இதனை விளக்கும் செயல்பாட்டில் பாலுசாமி அந்தச் சிற்பத் தொகுதியில் உள்ள ஒவ்வொரு தனிச் சிற்பத்தையும் கவனமாகப் பட்டியல் இடுகிறார். ஒவ்வொரு விலங்கு, ஒவ்வொரு பறவை, ஒவ்வொரு கடவுளர், ஒவ்வொரு மனிதர் என்று யாரையும் விடவில்லை. இங்கே காண்பிக்கப்படும் விலங்குகள் எல்லாம் இஷ்டத்துக்கு செதுக்கப்பட்டவை அல்ல, மிகக் குறிப்பாக, கவனமாகசத் தேர்ந்தெடுத்துச் செதுக்கப்பட்டவை என்பது அவரது வாதம்.

ஏன் இந்தத் தொகுதியில் ‘பொய்த்தவப் பூனை’ செதுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது? வெறும் நகைச்சுவைக்காக மட்டும்தானா? இதற்கும் பாலுசாமியிடம் பதில் உள்ளது.

பாலுசாமியின் ஆழ்ந்த ஆராய்ச்சியின் பயனாக விளைந்துள்ள இந்த விளக்கம் சாதாரண மனிதர்களும் புரிந்துகொள்ளும் வகையில் உள்ளது. இது சமீபத்தில் காலச்சுவடு வாயிலாக தமிழில் புத்தகமாக வெளிவந்துள்ளது.

RSVP:

A. Annamalai: Gandhi Study Centre - gandhicentre@gmail.com; 94441-83198

Badri Seshadri: Kizhakku-p-padippakam - badri@nhm.in; 98840-66566

TK Ramachandran, IAS : TN Slum Clearance Board - tkramachandranias@hotmail.com; 99406-41144

S. Kannan: Bank of Baroda - 2498 5836)

S. Swaminathan: Marg Constructions - sswami99@gmail.com; 2467 1501

Garbage - Disposal and Clearing!

2009-11-06T22:14:00.000+05:30

The only contribution many of us have made to this city we live in is the garbage we dispose. Like most cities, the majority of us want to live clean looking, well maintained lives and want all the muck we create to be cleared by someone else and self-righteously maintain our payment of taxes as our contribution. But, the issue is beyond that.

1. Can we minimize the garbage we create in our homes, offices, social gatherings, etc.?

2. Can we spend time to do some responsible segregation /disposal / recycling / reuse?

The following mail from Mr. Narayanan (editor, paadam mangazine) highlights one important related issue for all of us to be aware of. To me the issue of the bad treatment of the sewage cleaning personnel by the Corporation is not independent of our own understanding of garbage and practices around its disposal.

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5^th November 2009.

Chairman & Managing Director
Chennai Metro water Supply and Sewerage Board
Chindadripet, Chennai – 600 002.

Kind Attn: Mr.Siv Das Meena.

Ref: Madras High Court order dt 5^th August 2009 against Contempt petition No.352 of 2009

Dear Sir,

Greetings.

There is a strong possibility that you may consider the content of this letter and its attachment as 'a cheap Publicity stunt'and you have every right and liberty to think so.

However, I consider it as a method or effort to draw the attention of yourselves, the Government, the politicians and indifferent public. I don’t have the wherewithal to organize rallies or marches or go to the beach to start fasting and am only an ordinary activist, if I can call so. Hence this method.

Yes. Attached please find photographs of me holding in both my hands, half a dozen each, of ‘faeces lubricated sanitary napkins, condoms’ that I could manage to dish out of ‘scores of the same’ which were in the slush of blocked manhole opposite to Loyola College, Nungambakkam today (5-11-2009).

Just this afternoon, as I was passing by, I could see that your department had, as usual sent a truck with a Jetroding machine and a couple of 'temporary staff' plus a crowbar 'minus' ofcourse soap, gloves, etc to clean up an overflowing sewer line.

The job of removing sanitary napkins, condoms, throw away plastics, clothe,debris, broken liquor bottles, mutton wastes, food wastes, vegetable wastes etc, etc., from sewer manholes has become such a permanent job for Sewerage workers on a daily basis in so many parts of our city and other towns. When this is so, why is the department keeping such temporary workers for daily wages of Rs.110 per day minus all benefits, for such permanent jobs, which is one of the most basic violation of the labour laws of the country.

I could see that except for the Jetroding machine, the crowbar and a pair of slippers, the temporary worker was not given any protective gear. After a half-hearted job at removing the blockage using the machine, he closed the lid of the manhole and heaped all the slush & debris mainly consisting of more than two dozens of sanitary napkins and condoms (the culprits for the sewer overflow) removed from the blockage, back on the manhole itself, with his bare hands.

If we employ only a temporary worker with no training for just Rs.110 per day as daily wages with neither social security nor protective gear, we will only get such a sloppy and substandard work.

When I enquired with him about why he is not using a soap (he is entitled to) to wash his hands and body parts of the stink and deadly virus that he was in touch with via the sludge, he replied that he doesn’t even know that he is eligible for a ration of soap from the department.

I still managed to scoop out atleast 6 no.s each of used condoms and sanitary napkins with my bare hands to get myself photographed. When I returned home, the stench refused to go off my hands and finger nails, despite using half of an expensive soap and scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing.

As I ate my lunch with my hands (despite the availability of spoon), I could ‘only’ empathize with the municipal workers of our country, how they continue to eat their lunch every day after ‘such calls of duty from our nation’.

As I type out this letter, 'the stink of faeces, condoms and napkins of men and women unknown to me' refuses to go out of my hands. I keep sniffing my finger nails to see if the stink is vanishing and may be, it will go in a day or two. But the stink of official apathy and public indifference will permanently stay in our citizenry unless some of us put our act together.

Only when we go, physically verify and photograph what causes frequent sewerage overflows and makes urban sanitation a nightmare in our country, we realize the seriousness of it all.

Hence, I once again urge you, in your capacity as the Chairman, to immediately convene the special committee setup by the honourable High court so that we can attempt to make our cities and towns a better place to live in, attempt to sensitise the citizens of the crime that they are indulging, the crime of indifference, the crime of flush and forget, the crime of letting our Dalit brothers and migrant labourers eke out a living of manual scavenging or similar such 'reserved'occupations which keeps their lives and that of their families miserable and stinking throughout their lifetime.

Only the other day, I was witness to a migrant mother (employed by the contractor) inside what you would call (of course) the manhole of the Storm water drain. Her 2 year old child was playing dangerously outside the manhole on the platform. For all practical purposes, the drain in which the mother was inside scooping out debris was an unofficial / unauthorised sewer line, a dust bin of plastic debris, broken beer bottles, with chicken waste thrown in as an add on. We conveniently call this a storm water drain. The Municipal Corporation and Metrowater Board, each think it is the other department's issue.

If we do not reverse the way, we the civil society and the Government manage urban sanitation in our state in the immediate future possible, we can only be fit to rename our department, the Department of Municipal Mis-administration and Sewerage Supply.

May I atleast now look forward to your initiative please.

Thank You and with Warm Regards,

Narayanan.A
Trustee- INFORSE IDL
Editor-PAADAM

One of the best Teachers from Chennai goes Global!!

2009-10-13T09:27:00.000+05:30

Prof. Sultan Ismail is perhaps one of the best teachers in the country today, and perhaps the world. His conviction on what he teaches, the passion with which he communicates it, the effective use of every tool at his disposal to communicate and ability to do so with all sections and age groups in society has made him a much respected and looked up to teacher in the city.

That his short lectures appear on You Tube to be available to the rest of the world is only a matter of time. It is great to see him air his views on-line. please watch his videos, there is something to learn from every sentence of what he says.

two new insensitive initiatives...

2009-10-04T12:48:00.000+05:30

Thank god, there is no Gandhi statue in the chennai corporation building, Mayor Subramanian and Commissioner Lakhani would have otherwise been embarrassed (if they could).

This morning news
1) Mayor inaugurates parking meters in North Mada Street, Mylapore
2) Corp. Commissioner distributes new plastic broom sticks to conservancy workers

The Mayor comes with a jewel of a reason for the parking meters, 'people at times are unhappy that the attendant in the parking areas don't issue receipt and now (what he didn't say: they will walk the required 200 mts to the machine, fish out the Rs. 5 coin from their wallets and promise not to park beyond an hour) they will get their receipts printed by the meter machine!'. Of course, we assume that those people want to actually pay the amount and if they over stay the duration, will renew it again!

The Mayor has to just peek around the corner to find the number of large cars that park on the narrow stretch on the main road near Luz signal out side the Mylapore railway station. These Honda Civics' and Toyoto Qualis' park there to pick up executives from the railway station to their homes or offices, but, don't want to take the trouble of paying the required amount at the station parking lot and prefer to hit the road as soon as possible. They are a menace to the vehicles just coming out of the Luz signal onto the narrow stretch. They want to replace the poor man with a machine.

Lokhani went a step further, he is replacing the traditional long handle broom (made of natural bamboo and coconut stalk material that is made in all probability by women in suburban villages) used by the conservancy staff, that costs Rs. 40/- with a plastic one that costs Rs.150/- (or equivalent of almost 4 traditional brooms) as he believes that it lasts longer. Ofcourse, the plastic one is manufactured by a industry. Lokhani says that the traditional 'mallaram' (long handle broom) lasts for just 15-20 days whereas the new one lasts longer (carefully omitting the detail of how much longer it lasts). That makes the traditional Mallaram charge Rs.2 per day of cleaning and assuming a conservancy staff cleans just 2 streets, that is Rs. 1 per day per street cleaning towards the material alone (a natural decomposable material that does not become a garbage problem eventually). A regular replacement will obviously provide more employment for those who make them (and invariably it is those who cannot leave their homes for various reasons who end up making these in the suburban villages), instead just one industry stands to gain.

Meanwhile, the other unconnected news in the city included a Gandhian talking about 'Mahatma Gandhi ideals for students' and an actor talking about the upholding tradition.

SUVs for School Drops!

2009-06-30T03:37:00.001+05:30

Yesterday morning news papers carried two interesting stories.

1) TATA launching the Land Rover in India (front page HINDU) and

2) If American's stopped using their SUVs, the poorest of the world can all have free electricity (TOI front page last item)

Interesting that the day the TATAs are launching this huge mean automobile, we also have this other story.

My worry is the number of people I see going to drop their children to school in the morning in SUVs and large vehicles that occpupy the road completely.

I walk my daughter to her school most mornings and am surprised at the speed with which parent's want to dump their children in the school, the large cars of all shapes and sizes with just the kid and one parent zooms past at crazy speed, just to drop the child in the school gate and zoom past faster from there. Why do people use such large vehicles and waste of fuel to just drop a small child in the school? And what does the child get prepared for if it is hurried each morning even at this early age? This school has its own vehicles picking up children from all around, but, with the growth of the car usage, most parents seem to prefer dropping their child themselves.

Every morning and afternoon, outside our office in Mylapore we see the near ritual spectacle of Vidya Mandir parents honking unendingly and occupying two thirds of the narrow Royapettah High Road to drop and pick up their children. The school authorities seem to not be in control of the situation, the lone police constable in the morning tries his best, but, in the afternoon he goes missing too and the traffic in the entire stretch is completely disrupted. The road rage caused by this ritual alone must cause several road skirmishes each day. I am sure this ritual is enacted in a few thousand places across the city twice a day.

I don't know whether any NGO or network has even thought about this as an issue, but, the problem of how to handle the school commuters traffic twice a day needs to be addressed urgently if this city (and many others I am sure) will have to retain any sanity with TATAs crowding us with more cars in all sizes for all people later this year.

P.S.: Few days back our transport minister had proclaimed rather proudly in the Assembly that Chennai has the maximum number of two wheelers in the country, about 90 lakh registered two wheelers.

A Movie Worth Watching - Tomorrow in Chennai

2009-06-16T13:52:00.000+05:30

I have constantly blogged on the ills of GM Food, some time back maverick film maker Mahesh Bhatt had made a movie on the GM issue in India called, 'Poison in the Platter'. This film is being screened by reStore tomorrow in Chennai. Do go watch this movie and to get to know more about the world (of our food) according to many corporates who want to change our food habits.

Following is the invitation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
reStore&
The Madras Terrace House

invite you to a screening of

"Poison on the Platter"
a documentary by renowned filmmaker & social activist Mahesh Bhatt.
The film talks about the adverse impact of Genetically Modified foods on health and environment

followed by a talk & discussion with
Mr. Jaishankar, Organic Farmer

on Wednesday, 17th June
at 7 pm at The Madras Terrace HouseJaishankar is an IT maverick (worked with CTS for many years) turned organic farmer.
His influences include Fukuoka, Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, Nammalvar, Gomathinayagam and others. He is a popular back-to-the-lander with amazing hands on experience and understanding of (organic) farming.
For more information on his farm, please go to: http://www.swayambhufarm.com/index.htm

reStore is a not-for-profit organization in Chennai that works to restore wellness, livelihoods for the poor and ecological balance. http://restore.org.in

MADRAS TERRACE HOUSE15, SRI PURAM, 2ND STREET, NEAR DECCAN PLAZA HOTEL, OFF R. K. SALAI,
ROYAPETTAH, CHENNAI 14
PH: +91 44 4503 8391
Email: themadrasterracehouse@gmail.com

Poovulagu is back!!!

2009-06-03T17:58:00.000+05:30

The 90s Chennai had a lot of environmental activists. 'Poovulagin Nanbargal' had a special place among them. The small group managed a publication house, an environmental news magazine and managed to steer quite a few movements. Among their unique achievements and one I consider significant is translating and publishing, 'One Straw Revolution' of Fukuoka in Tamil with permission from him. I have seen and heard from farmers in remote villages in Tamilnadu as to how had read this book and had been inspired to take organic farming.

Just now got an e-invite that Poovulagu is being revived and re-published by a different generation of activists. Please subscribe to this magazine, activists never can promise to bring out a regular news magazine, and very rarely will, but, are always worth investing on. Please attend the programme and subscribe to this magazine if you are in Chennai; to encourage activism, sincere eco-activists are the most endangered species in India today.

Scenes around aruvathumoovar, mylapore

2009-04-07T16:32:00.000+05:30

I work out of Mylapore and love this local festival, gypsies, small traders of many odd trinklets that change the buzzing city into a simple village mall that it once could have been. The life and energy of the people and their participation and percievable joy benumbing the high rise that have come up all around of large prohibitive commercial establishments. This is the ordinary people's festival, most things you can buy cost less than Rs. 10/-, whole lot of free food distribution and amidst all these buzzing activities the 63 nayanmars find their safety and security for their annual serenade.

This is Jai Ho Chennai!

More scenes from Aruvathumoovar

2009-04-07T16:30:00.000+05:30

Writing on Water - A film by B. Kailasam, 9th April 2009

2009-04-03T16:20:00.003+05:30

Chennai: City of weird accidental deaths

2009-03-31T00:47:00.000+05:30

The news of a small boy falling from terrace because a pet dog chased him is terrible. There are many questions arising out of these. In 6 months, we have had two cases of fully loaded lorries backing up narrow streets squeezing the life out of two people in the process. Last week there was the case of another weird accident on the road side...is Chennai's careless civic life proving to costly? We are all lacklustre to mutual safety norms till we are knocked down, literally. Can something be done?

Scene in North Chennai

2009-03-29T23:09:00.000+05:30

Ambedhkar & Mayawati almost resemble Armstrong, the BSP leader in Chennai. All along the north chennai walls you will find this grafitti. Wall paintings are more fun than the flex which just reproduces the original, the small distortions, the wanton changes to facial structure and dramatic colours all render the street walls into art galleries during a heavy political season.

One more organic initiative in chennai

2009-02-21T09:55:00.000+05:30

The following is a message from eFarm, an initiative by Venkat, a young person from Mylapore. One more Organic initiative that needs to be patronized by the citizens of this city starting in the same area where many others are already there. Here is wishing O4 success.

ram
---------------------------------
the image is Venkat displaying some organic products during the launch of Community Access, Oct 2009
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi All,

We are happy to announce the launch of 'O4' . Pronounced (Oh-Fore) it is eFarm's 'Organic Farm Produce' division and would be focusing on 100% organically grown items . Besides acting as a sourcing and supply agent for other organic stores and buyers in the city, O4 would also be running a weekend bazaar at Valmiki Nagar/Thiruvanmiyur beach. You can spot the eFarm van on the walker's path adjoining the Valmikinagar beach. The store would be open on Saturdays and Sundays , morning 7 AM to 9 AM and evening 5PM to 8PM.

Go Organic !

~The eFarm team

[Chennai Event Today] Talk on HINDU ART AND RELIGION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

2009-02-07T13:28:00.002+05:30

The Tamil Heritage group cordially invites you and your friends

to the programme of this month

featuring a talk titled

"HINDU ART AND RELIGION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA "

by Dr R Nagaswamy

on 7th February (Saturday) 2009 at 05.00 pm

at Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya Campus,

58 Venkatanarayana Road,

T.Nagar, Chennai 600 017

------

About the Talk

Hinduism and the Hindu art are not confined to India alone. Their influence can be felt in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia etc, that is, almost the whole of Southeast Asia and to a great extent even in China and Japan. They can be found to survive in modified form even in the Balkan states in the West bordering Caspian Sea.

Hindu culture did not go to all these places as a conqueror destroying the local culture and life, imposing its own will on all people, but formed a natural part of their life.

This talk assisted by pictures will show how this culture prevailed in all aspects of Southeast Asian countries especially Cambodia and Thailand. It would show how Veda formed the backbone all these regions and temple to Siva, Vishnu, Devi and other gods and also the Buddha was part of their life as they formed part of our life. The Great temple of Angkor Vat and Angkor Thom of Cambodia would be presented as examples.

About the speaker:

Dr. R. Nagaswamy (Born 1930), Director of Archaeology (Retired) and former Vice chancellor, Kanchipuram University, is one among the most distinguished scholars covering a vast field of specialization, art, archaeology, architecture, literature, epigraphy, paleography, numismatics, temple rituals and philosophy, ancient law and society, music, dance and South Asian art. Tamilnadu must be grateful to him for he made archaeology a very popular subject in the state. He did this through publication of popular guides to our monuments, conducting courses, setting up museums and sensitizing the public towards preserving our monuments.

Many important excavations at places like Karur, Alagankulam, Korkai and Gangaikonda-cholapuram, were conducted by him. He is an acknowledged International Expert on South Indian Bronzes. He has authored a number of books and presented path-breaking papers in international conference. It was Dr.Nagaswamy who started and founded the now world famous Chidambaram Natyanjali Festival, 24 years ago.

=================================================

RSVP:
A. Annamalai

Gandhi Study Centre - gandhicentre@gmail.com; 94441-83198

Badri Seshadri

Kizhakku-p-padippakam - badri@nhm.in; 98840-66566

TK Tamachandran, IAS

TN Slum Clearance Board - tkramachandranias@hotmail.com; 99406-41144

S. Kannan

Bank of Baroda - 2498 5836)

S. Swaminathan

Marg Constructions - sswami99@gmail.com; 2461 1265)

Automation Pains: Chennai Telephones

2009-01-30T14:24:00.055+05:30

I am amazed all the time at the labor pains being borne by the ordinary citizens in delivering supposedly 'efficient' technology systems in public institutions. Chennai Telephones is one case and self the victim. read on...

Chennai Telephones shifted my telephone from one end of the city to other after collecting all the dues (or so I thought). This was in November. I had paid the November bill on time and constant travel meant December bill was not paid by due date. So, the telephone went 'off' after the grace period granted by the Department. When I went and paid the bill within a day, I assumed that the connection will be through immediately. Not so. The handset whenever we tried to call another number, kept telling us that, 'your line has been dis-connected, please contact the area accounts officer for details'.

I visited one of the customer care centres of BSNL, the very friendly lady asked me for all the details and whether it was a recently shifted number, etc. Then she informed me that I have another bill pending against my name for the month of November in the old address, BSNL charges you even during the transition time if you have a broadband along with your telephone connection. I found it surprising, but, went ahead and paid the nominal amount and assumed that now the connection will be restored. During the time of shifting, it is a procedure to check for all pending bills on a location for a phone before it is permitted to be shifted.

But, another week went without the connection being restored, so, I looked up the BSNL area DE and called a number yesterday. A very friendly lady took down all the details and my mobile phone number and assured me that she will attend to the issue. She called back to inform me that according to their records I seem to have no dues against my name (thank God), and, she doesn't know why my connection is not working. She also assured me that the concerned people have been informed. This was yesterday.

This morning, I get a call from the same lady followed by another gentleman, it transpires that the new number given to me had earlier been under another person's name and he had 2 pending bills at the time of surrendering his telephone line. As that number has been issued to me now, the billing software conveniently decided that the new owner should pay the bill!

Quite a few questions remain:
1. When BSNL gets a phone line for surrender or transfer, do they really check all the pending bills, if so, how?
2. How can someone surrender a phone line without paying all the dues and walk away?
3. What is the process in the system when an account is closed, does it close the accounts at all? How could a system re-assign bill based on number and not on the name?

I am blogging this because I realize that the questions are related to the software the BSNL uses rather than the people there. Software have bugs and bugs unless reported, fixed and reviewed are left unattended till a major disaster takes place. I am still not convinced that all the software that are used in our government services have been tested for fool proof delivery or they have a mechanism by which every instance of wrong performance is reported as a possible bug in the software to the developers.

Another Chennai Visual: mis-spelt 'Padma Bushan'

2009-01-17T10:43:00.001+05:30

Recent visuals in Chennai

2009-01-16T10:18:00.000+05:30

Chennai buses have been trying to improve their commerce through innovative methods in recent times, yesterday I saw this new innovative hand grip for the standing travellers, this is rather unique and innovative and if the grip is good, perhaps good for the passengers though it does look like taking things to some absurd levels.

Hard Rain in Chennai Today

2009-01-05T16:47:00.001+05:30

Beware of buying imported fresh food in Chennai

2008-12-23T16:41:00.000+05:30

A press report on Sunday Times of India states that the health in-charge who is supposed to check the imported food at the Chennai Port has been accepting a bribe of Rs. 6000/- per container and has given clean certificate for the food being imported.

"The CFTRI test report takes a minimum of two weeks and holding the consignment for such a long period affects our business. We have to shell out a minimum of Rs 4,500 per day as holding charges in the port. So we prefer to pay up and get consignments released on the day of its arrival," a city-based importer told The Times of India.

Babu, the port health officer, is supposed to collect samples from all imported food consignment and test them before giving clearance. While packaged food items can be checked at King's Institute, Guindy, fruits have to be sent to CFTRI, Mysore for tests including that of residual pesticides.

Importers, to whom TOI spoke, said corrupt officials collect the samples, but don't sent them to CFTRI. The consignment is released the same day. Importers say this does not mean imported fruits are unsafe for consumption. "We are sure that the fruits are safe for consumption, as the country of export adheres to safety demands of the importing country," an importer said.

CBI netted Babu following a complaint from an importer, N C Alexander, who has an office in Koyambedu market. The CBI team arrested Babu at the port while accepting Rs 6,000 from Alexander. He collected the amount through customs house agents V A Manisekaran and A C Bhoopathy.

Subsequent search at his residence in Saligramam and bank lockers revealed cash and details of investments worth Rs 1.36 crore. CBI officials seized Rs 4.8 lakh in cash from his house, another Rs 28 lakh from a bank locker and Rs 8.5 lakh from another bank locker. "He also had Rs 38 lakh worth investment documents in two lockers and had Rs 80 lakh as fixed deposits. We also seized kisan vikas patras worth Rs 4 lakhs. We have learnt that he has property in Bangalore and a 20-acre property in Vijayawada. Our concern is that such corrupt official are putting public health at risk by not testing the samples," a CBI official said.

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chennai/CBI_arrests_port_health_officer_for_taking_bribe/articleshow/3867783.cms

If the man has made all his money through bribes alone, about 2000 containers have passed by without them being checked for food safety. Thats a LOT of food being brought in unchecked. Looks like eating local food makes better sense.

Two decades of work in rehabilitating Leprosy Afflicted Persons (LAPs): Shiva

2008-12-03T00:43:00.000+05:30

Shiva works for the government health department attending to the issues related to leprosy. He has been working with this department for over two decades.

With the fall in new leprosy cases, this department became a easy posting for quite a few people and many ventured to do other business in the side.

Shiva realized some of the issues that could not be addressed within the then government schemes, particularly with respect to rehabilitating LAPs with severe physical damages. Being a staunch Hindu, he approached a major Hindu organization to work in this area, only to find them not willing to work in this area. When he spoke of the need to work on this area to the then President of the Chennai Ramakrishna Math, he readily agreed but cautioned that there may not be too many volunteers and the onus will rest with Shiva to ensure that any such work is continued. The Swami gave a small sum from his personal kitty to start off Shiva's work.

That was 20 years back.

Today thanks to his persistence and the silent support by this institution, over 170 LAPs with severe physical problems have been saved from going into the streets as beggers. All but three of these have been reunited with their own families after treatment. Many more have been given simple implements with which they could easily do their daily chores themselves without depending on someone else to help them. Many of these have been provided with livelihood opportunities both as skill development and independent business that they can manage themselves.

Leprosy is today more of a social taboo. It is no longer the highly infectious and incurable disease that it was considered in the 1970s or before. (Though our law has still not been updated on this, recently the Supreme Court upheld the disqualification of a Panchayat leader because he was a leprosy affected patients, we have a law that if you are affected by leprosy you can hold a public office! and leprosy affection is enough reason for divorce in Hindu, Muslim and Christian divorce laws; most states have laws banning leprosy affected, regardless of their level of cure from being employed). Early detection makes the job of curing easier and there are not many who reach the stage of disfigurement and disability that one many sometimes encounter in the streets.

Shiva feels that if only more concrete efforts were made to ensure that those that are already affected are given a good medical care and occupation help, it would help those who have lost their limbs to this disease, live the remaining part of their lives with dignity and honour.His own effort is unique, whereby he combines his official duty with the flexibility offered through voluntary efforts with the support of the Math to bring about changes in the life of such disabled people. 'There should hopefully be no separate leprosy homes 20 years from now and all patients should be treated from home', he envisions.

Shiva has organized a series of programmes on Dec 3rd, 8th and 9th at the Vivekananda Auditorium of the Ramakrishna Math to showcase the achievements of the patients rehabilitated by him (a couple Mary and John both rehabilitated by Shiva had been recognized by the state government and given a special award for their enterprise in 2005).

Pic: Shiva in the centre with a rehabilitated women who is self-employed, being presented to government officials

Inequalities in Indian cities could lead to social unrest and insecurity feeling...says world Cities report

2008-10-24T03:05:00.000+05:30

UN-Habitat Report: State of World's Cities Report, 2008 has been released...it finds Indian cities '... becoming more unequal as a direct result of economic liberalisation and globalisation' and '...when inequalities are perceived as the result of unfair processes or the unequal distribution of opportunities, people are less likely to accept them. Indeed such perceptions can nurture high crime rates, social unrest or even conflict.

There is no doubt that social unrest and insecurity reduce incentives for investment and force governments to increase the amount of public resources devoted to internal security – resources that might have otherwise been spent on more productive sectors of the economy or on social services and infrastructure.

Inequalities take various forms, ranging from different levels of human capabilities and opportunities, participation in political life, consumption, and income, to disparities in living standards and access to resources, basic services and utilities. Although the traditional causes of inequality – such as spatial segregation, unequal access to education and control of resources and labour markets – have persisted, new causes of inequality have emerged. These include inequalities in access to communication technologies and skills, among others.'

Walkathon - Walking Classes Unite, Sept 21

2008-09-21T14:43:00.001+05:30

As someone who walks the Chennai main roads and by lanes often and as part of day to day life, I am normally skeptical about any media event for a walk (or the much hyped marathon). But, today's event sounds different as it seems to bring some people who actually want to regain walking spaces for themselves. See the Link

Last week, while at the Adayar Poonga I also came across another similar initiative by a high profile political entity for cyclers. When I suggested that there should be some move to bring those who cycle to work as a group that can voice its concerns, this gent said that it was way off for now. Currently he seems to want to promote cycling as a cheaper energy transport. So, while he cycled back from the meeting to his house, his car was driven back home by his driver!! Like the idea ad. says, 'What an idea sirji!?'

Afterwards: Looks like there were about 300 people. I couldn't make it thought very much wanted to. The partner did and she reports that the turn out was below expectation and the organizers were rather caught unprepared when the walk ended much ahead of its schedule at 6 itself. And, as I feared, she also reported that many of those who walked looked like they normally don't really commute anywhere by walking actually! Alas! another 'What an idea Sirji'!!

Madras University: A Colonial Institution celebrates it 150 years!

2008-09-05T12:38:00.001+05:30

Madras University was started like a few other universities in the country by the Britishers to impart education that would shape and reduce Indians to be good slave citizens. Faithful to the rulers of the State is a dictat of all slave institutions and the university is no exception. To celebrate its 150 years, it has decided to give Doctorates to the rulers. So, we have not one but three doctorates being honorarily conferred on the CM, PM and the power behind the PM.

God and everyone else except the University authorities know that none of these three need it.

The PM has been conferred a Doctorate by the British Universities themselves, he even told them that if they were 'to come in again (as colonial rulers) they would get a better reception' when he spoke accepting the Doctorate. After exhibiting such loyalty to the British and being conferred something by them, nothing can add value to him further.

Karunanidhi must have been given doctorates by every University in Tamilnadu at some point in time, it could even have been made into an education policy if he so desired. He monopolises the term 'kalaignar' (artist) for too long making it impossible to prefix it to anyone else without loading all the political connotation along with it in TN. Maybe posters in TN will get longer with a list of all the Universities alongside the Dr before his name by his devotee followers. So, it may read, 'Dr (MU), Dr (MKU), Dr (MSU), Dr. (TPU).......Kalaignaar Karunanidhi' henceforth. Poor Ramdoss has long since conceded this too by asking his followers to call him 'Maruthuvar' instead. His political posters are the only places in TN where a Dr is called as 'maruthuvar'. Everywhere else, 'Doctor' is always called 'Dr', it is even Tamizh.

I have no clue why Sonia Gandhi has to be conferred Doctorate! though I tried to think of reasons, I couldn't come up with any. Is it because she is the Nehru family head now? the Raj-Mata of sorts? that she listened to her 'inner voice' once in her life and gave up the throne? why?

Whatever may be the reasons, it is a shame that the University can only think of display loyalty to the powers as the mainstay of its 150 year celebration. It just shows that it has continued the job of subsurvience to the powers of the day long since the British have gone. One can only wish it cease its slavish existence at this occassion.

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

2008-08-21T01:33:00.000+05:30

'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.

23rd Aug 2008: Memorial for Mosanabu Fukuoka

2008-08-20T22:46:00.000+05:30

Samanvaya News Room: 23rd Aug 2008: Memorial for Mosanabu Fukuoka:

Organic Farmer Mosanabu Fukuoka of Japan is a major inspiration for organic farmers from all over the world. His 'One Straw Revolution' was one of the books on natural farming that has been read and re-read by many who have since then embarked on natural farming themselves.

Fukuoka died at the age of 95 on 16th August 2008. A short memorial will be held in his honour at the Samanvaya office on saturday the 23rd evening between 4:30 and 6:00 p.m. Farmers, Friends and Fans of Fukuoka are invited for this gathering.

Documentary Films on Kabir this week...

2008-08-16T12:01:00.001+05:30

Documentary Film Festival at the Alliance Francaise this week.

1) film festival is open to all.
2) alliance auditorium is on 2nd floor (no lift).
3) abillioneyes.in/schedule08.html is the webpage.
4) a blurb on the films:

JOURNEYS WITH KABIR: 4 films by Shabnam Virmani

These films journey into contemporary spaces touched by the music and poetry of the 15th century mystic weaver-poet of north India, Kabir. We meet a diverse array of people - an urban folklorist, a street fruit seller, a social activist, a Dalit folk singer, a Zen Buddhist scholar, a neo-fascist cleric of a Kabir sect, a Muslim qawwal - each encounter offering a moment of insight into the poetry and its contemporary meanings. We glimpse not one but many Kabirs. Sometimes he beckons, sometimes he baffles, but always he pushes you to self-interrogate, to question the boundaries of your identity, nation, ideology, caste and
religion- making these journeys unrelentingly inward even as they venture outward.

The 4 films are interwoven in significant ways, but each can be viewed independently.

KOI SUNTA HAI: Journeys with Kumar & Kabir, 96 min 16 AUGUST 4:00 pm

This film interweaves the oral folk traditions of Kabir in central India with the intensely personal narrative of the late classical singer Pandit Kumar Gandharva, keeping the spiritual ideas of Kabir as the central binding thread. Journeying between folk and classical, between rural and urban expressions of Kabir, the film finds moments of both continuity and rupture between these disparate worlds.

CHALO HAMARA DES: Journeys with Kabir & Friends, 97 min 17 AUG 5:30 pm

A journey in search of Kabir's des (country) this film unfolds through the interwoven narratives of two people from two very different countries - Dalit folk singer Prahlad Tipanya and North American scholar Linda Hess.
We enter the world of Kabir, through the personal and public lives of these two individuals, brought together in an unlikely friendship by the amazing universality and cross-cultural resonance of Kabir.

HAD-ANHAD: Journeys with Ram & Kabir, 105 min 18 AUGUST 7:00 pm

Kabir defied the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim, refusing to be labeled himself and sharply criticizing sectarianism. His name and upbringing were Muslim but his poetry often uses Hindu concepts and Hindu names for God, especially Ram. This film journeys in search of the "Ram"
invoked in Kabir's poetry, delving into the heart of divisive Hindu-Muslim politics of religion and nationalism, encountering singers and lay people in India and Pakistan, probing the forces of history and politics that have created disputatiously diverse Rams, while also spawning many Kabirs.

KABIRA KHADA BAZAAR MEIN: Journeys with Sacred & Secular Kabir, 94 min 19 AUGUST 4:00 pm

This film investigates the ironies and tensions between sacred and secular Kabir, interweaving the sacralization of Kabir by the Kabir Panth (an organized sect of the followers of Kabir) with the secular appropriation of the same poet by the social activist group Eklavya. The story unfolds through the life of Prahlad Tipanya, a Dalit singer whose participation in the Panth and Eklavya begins to raise difficult questions for him about ritual and organized religion.

the share-auto make chennai cops rich men!

2008-07-21T01:34:00.003+05:30

The share auto in chennai, is like no other vehicle on earth, two of them don't resemble each other either. it is a strange contraption put together in a tinkering shop with steel rods and tin sheets and a diesel motor that can power this entire structure and drag a weight of approximately 8 people including the driver. so, obviously we load about 15 people into it. it travels at about 50 kms amidst the chennai traffic, which is against all known laws and sense.

this strange machine operates mostly in the chennai sub-urbs and is a convenient transport at affordable cost for those who cannot afford an auto for themselves, particularly into the small million colonies into which the metro-buses don't venture yet. strangers share seats with each other at very close proximity sharing their breath, sweat and other body odour with strangers without a choice and hang on to their dear life mouthing prayers sure, twice every day as they commute from bus stands and railway stations to their respective habitats. the vibration of the share auto can rattle up the entire skeletal structure rather well and these days most passengers protect themselves from the terrible noise by tucking their mobile phone plugs deep inside their ears.

but, its most important function seems to be to keep the chennai cops rich. apart from paying the owner around 180 a day and fuel expenses each share auto driver according to the one of them who explained this to me, pay the local cops almost 100 rs. per auto per day. it is as though they own some shares in these autos and need their returns every day just like the owner of these machines. if one assumes about 50 vehicle plying under a particular police station (very conservative) that would mean a whopping 5000 per day for a band of 4-5 cops. cool 1k packet per day from the share auto drivers alone, extend it to a month and you know why cops are happy to never regulate these strange machines.

i would not have known the details of these if not for a sympathetic share auto driver who accosted everyone in my regular bus stand and started explaining the reason why he was not on service that day (a procession of these vehicles were parked on the roadside for a few hours as a token 'strike'!), claiming that the cops had demaned rs. 500 on that day or a case be written against them. according to him rs.100 was o.k., but, 500 was too much!!!

these autos are a menace in large public bus stands and railway stations in all the sub-urbs I am sure. Outside the Perambur bus stand (which I pass by regularly) these vehicles rule with the cops only making threatening noises in their direction and tapping the tin sheet with their lathis to give an impression that they are regulating this vehicle menace. It would make sense if only they would ear mark a place for these strange machines to pick up their passengers, that would be facilitating the citizen comfort. i wonder whether anyone in the traffic cop system has time to think about these issues, they must be rather busy counting the cash they 'earn' for maintaining the irregularity.

median in monteith road

2008-06-21T16:50:00.002+05:30

the menace of the mountainous medians continue...last month these came up in the small stretch between luz junction and the mylapore tank junction. this short stretch which is a heavy business zone of small business kind and in the heart of the busy residential area has no foot paths on both sides except in the small stretch in front of the railway station and bridge. this stretch has this huge median now which prevent anyone from crossing the road. irony is that there is no zebra crossing in either sides of the median.

just yesterday saw that the same is now being perpetuated in monteith road. this road has always been a youth hangout place. the traffic that comes here and all the commerce is dependent on the young people hanging around the place. college students escaping from their tyrant classes turn up in the afternoon with friends to hang out, serious students who frequent the connemara library drop by for a cheap sandwich at mid day and the entire place as far as i can remember has been milling with youth population.

View Larger Map
the traffic consists of very few buses, but, mostly autorickshaws and private vehicles that take visit this road. there are quite a few commercial establishments such as hotels and residential houses, so perhaps there are a few people coming in to work and from work too. it is not frequented by others except those who want to take a short cut to avoid the signal at the pantheon road junction. these are the only speeding vehicles in this road. yet, the menace of median comes up in this road to facilitate what traffic one knows not.

traffic management in India has to be people centered. we have so many people to use a road and we cannot only look at vehicles. we ought to look at a road as a real estate and a good management is to optimize to fit in as many people as possible comfortably. the pedestrians, the street hawkers, the small traders, the auto rickshaw drivers...everyone has to have some place and if a road is very specifically known for a particular purpose it is better to facilitate that purpose. yet, all roads get the same treatment, the large vehicle movement has to be made the most comfortable and we climb down the hirerachy of vehicle ownership with the pedestrian not even existing in the minds of the city traffic managers. the current method seems to be the same top-down approach to development in all our other development programmes.

ALERT: New Sub-Urban Racket - Don't get cheated

2008-05-28T09:32:00.004+05:30

I have come across a new racket that seems to be going on in Chennai. Have heard of two instances in two days, enough to assume that there are more of the same happening.

The modus operandi goes thus:

1. A young sales person approaches a sub-urban household and introduces himself as representing a retail shop selling electrical and electronic goods in the other end of the city. He/ She says that they are setting up a new show room in the neighbourhood and as an introductory offer would like to give the housewife an unbelievable offer of domestic appliances at throw away prices. This is done by issuing a token to the housewife with a specific number in it. They take the name of the housewife and provide her with a printed sheet with a phone number hand written in it. The address of the shop in the other end of the city is also given with its name. The housewife is asked to call the mobile number written by that evening to get to know whether she is one of the lucky winners who will get a mixie or micro-wave in a heavily discounted price.

2. The ignorant housewife calls the phone number in the evening and is promptly told that she has won an award after ascertaining her name and address. She is asked to keep an amount handy to receive the highly discounted 'gift', a well known international brand is mentioned.

3. The next morning a van pulls up outside the house with a couple saying that they have come to deliver the 'gift', they collect the money and deliver the goods. The housewife is assured that if she wants to exchange this for some other goods at a later date, she can approach the said showroom that is newly coming up in the neighbourhood! She is also told that there is a further possibility for her to win a free gift if she can call the mobile number again that evening.

4. On opening the new 'branded' mixie or other domestic appliances, the housewife finds that she has been landed with a cheap unbranded variety that does not seem to have anything with the brand on the outside box or the one she has been promised. On further enquiry it is revealed that there is no new shop in the neighbourhood nor is there the original shop in the other end of the city!!!

Two instances have come to my notice in the last two days. Someone with the same story marketing wares in Tiruvanmaiyur saying their original shop is in Royapuram and they are newly setting up a branch in Tiruvanmaiyur and another group doing the same in Madhavaram saying their original shop is in Mylapore and the new branch is coming up Perambur. In both cases it has been found that there is no branch in Tiruvanmaiyur or Perambur. The address given has been found to be false and belonging to someone else. The telephone number does not seem to work as it is temporary mobile number and perhaps no longer valid after it has been well 'used'.

Please forward this alert to your friends across the city to ensure that this racket does not spread and people do not get victimized by such tricksters, our people are suckers for anything being offered at a low cost and seem to forever keep falling for the cheapest trick in the trade.

don't walk, drive and shop

2008-05-20T01:40:00.003+05:30

this evening as i crossed the signal at sterling road, nungambakkam high road junction heading towards the chetpet bridge saw an elderly gentleman scoot across the road from the college road side to the other... with the policemen not always present and people waiting to zoom in 4 corners of the road it seemed suicidal! then it struck me that there was no zebra crossing anywhere in this junction.

chennai has long since stopped bothering about those who cycle or walk in the roads now that it is fully concentrated to making the roads as good 'driving experience' for car drivers, it is really unfortunate that there is hardly any walk way worth talking about, except the beach road there probably is none.

worse is the nungambakkam high road, the platform is almost a feet and half high from the ground and one has to a few dozen such hurdles in which one is supposed to walk if one dares to walk in the footpath, the alternative is to walk in the road (as most people do) with the zooming vehicles going past you at crazy speeds and angles.

it is a crazy city that does not bother to cater to the walking citizens.

the other day driving through the usman road, i realized the macabre humour of the flyover construction. the flyover is necessary for traffic to move in that wretched road, but, the construction cannot stop people coming to do their shopping, so, absolute chaos reigns...all vehicles seem to be allowed from almost all directions to compete with determined pedestrians to occupy this road, the entire scene looked like it was from some old motor car movie with just about everyone moving their bodies in some act of going forward and staying where they were all the time...horrible, wonder what is it that people want to shop so bad that they can do it at the cost of being humans!?

Problems of the Chennai House Rental Situation

2008-05-04T14:55:00.004+05:30

There is a recent report that the first billion dollar home in the world will be that of an Indian in India. Nothing can more contrast the situation and prove the inequality in India than the fate of thousands of homeless and people living in poor conditions.

The urban poor are the worst that way, they live in apalling conditions and most of them service the elite where they get to see the riches manifest in many ways. The condition of urban poor in terms of choice of habitat is limited by their affordability. Chennai real estate having hit its craziest best (Sri. Krishnamurthy a long time observer of real estate prices recently told me that those who were demanding price in lakhs till a few months back now talk only in crores, 'aniyayamga!' as he summarized it), the fate of the poor is even worse. No one, not even the government wants them in prime city property any longer, so, plans are afoot to displace slums into distant pheripheral areas through various means. Those who can afford to pay small amount as rent end up putting up with every whim and fancy of the house owner.

Nandini Voice for the Deprived, a city based NGO recently held a public consultation on the state of the rental situation for the poor in the city. The summary of their consultation enclosed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SKY-ROCKETING HOUSE RENTALS DRIVING THE DEPRIVED TO DESPAIR - Proceedings of the meeting at Chennai on 1st May,2008

Nandini voice for the deprived, a Chennai based NGO organised a meeting at Chennai on 1st May,2008 to discuss the extremely difficult problems faced by the people belonging to the lower income group due to the skyrocketing house rentals in Tamil Nadu and particularly in chennai in recent times.

The meeting was attended by around 300 persons largely belonging to lower income group.

The meeting was presided over by Dr. M.S.Udhayamurthy, founder , Makkal Shakthi Eyakkam and was addressed by Sri. A.K. Venkatasubramaniam IAS (Retd), Trustee, Catalyst Trust and Mr. N.L. Rajah, a senior advocate and social activist.

Sri. N.S.Venkataraman, Trustee, Nandini Voice For the Deprived presented the findings of the study made by the Trust on the problems faced by the lower income group due to the skyrocketing house rentals. Several instances of the sufferings of the poor people were described which moved the audience in no small measure.

Several participants were provided opportunities to express their views and provide their suggestions to solve this problem.

On the basis of the discussions and the observations made during the meeting the following resolutions were passed in the meeting.

1. Electricity Charges :
Several house owners demand electricity charges at Rs. 5/- to 6/- per unit from the tenants, which is much higher than the stipulated charges by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. The Government of Tamil Nadu/ The Tamil Nadu electricity Board should stop this practice immediately.

2. Number of inmates :
Many house owners specified that the maximum number of inmates who can stay in the rented house. The house owners object even to the relatives visiting the house and staying for a few days. If they would do so, they demand higher rent.

It was resolved that it is an unethical and unacceptable practice and the government should take the house owners to task who putforth such conditions.

3. Need for minimum facilities
The government should issue orders that every rented house should be provided with adequate toilet and bathroom facilities. There are number of instances where seven to eight families are forced to share tow or three toilet and bathroom facilities.

4. Demand for advance payment :
The house owners demand advance rent for ten months and more depending on their whims and fancies. They do not provide any interest for the advance amount collected. And in many cases, even proper receipts are not provided. This exploitative practice should be stopped by the government immediately.

5. Fixation of rent :
The government should fix the rent for the apartments based on the size, location and the floor level. Any one collecting rent above this figure should be punished severely.

6.. Tenancy agreement period :
The house owners should provide the rented houses for a minimum period of two years, before which the tenants can not be asked to vacate under any circumstances.

7. Need for new apartments :
The government should immediately construct thousands of new apartments with minimum facilities for the lower income group and sell them to the poor people on long term instalment payment facilities. Earlier, Slum /clearance Board and Tamil Nadu Housing Board were actively involved in such constructions. Unfortunately, the government has shirked this responsibility in recent years and has left the housing construction activity largely to private sector.

8. Need for special courts :
To settle the disputes between the house owners and tenants and to avoid exploitative practices, the government should immediately constitute a “special court” with judicial powers all over the state.

9. Solution :
While construction of thousands of apartments and extending mass transportation facilities are long term solutions, there is need to find immediate solution, as the poor people are being harassed or in dire straits. The government has to ensure fairness in dealings by the house owners who rent out their premises.

The government’s apathy and lack of appreciation of the problems of the poor people is the single big reason for the problems faced by the poor people. The government should realize its responsibilities and come to the rescue of the deprived and downtrodden.

...while on the CM, one smart move

2008-04-25T12:32:00.003+05:30

Some smart citizens have initiated a move to thank the CM for reclaiming the chennai skyline by sticking to his earlier pronouncements of removing the hoardings - www.thankyouchiefminister.com is a website set-up with some very nice photos of the city. It is amazing how much greenery is visible in chennai, I think it was Kushwanth Singh who many years back wrote that chennai had perhaps more greenery than Delhi. I am not sure about that, Delhi looks always very grey to me. But, suddenly you see the greenery in stella maris college and the horticulture department as you approach the gemini flyover from cath road, suddenly the temple tower in mylapore is visible as you step out of saravana bhavan in north mada street, the ugly houses and skeletons of iron that held those smiling faces and bouncing bodies do provide space for extra skyline in the chetpet bridge, for once you see the theosophical society greenery as you go on the adyar bridge...i am sure many parts of the city are re-claiming their skyline.

In setting up a website to thank the CM for this some smart people have tried to eliminate the possibility of the hoardings re-appearing I presume. If you do want to leave a note of thanks or just would like to see photos of the green chennai skyline or even add your photos to the site, you need to visit this website - www.thankyouchiefminister.com

CM's statement on Vivekananda Illam in TN Assembly

2008-04-25T10:41:00.004+05:30

Responsible communication in public life is one of the many lessons we can learn from Gandhiji. Here is quote, 'I have completed reading Rolland’s books on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. I always had reverence for Ramakrishna I had read little about him. But as I had heard several things about him from his devotees, that feeling had sprung up. I cannot say that Rolland’s books have added to it. In fact both the books of Rolland are meant for Westerners. I will not say that we can derive nothing from these books. But I for one have derived very little benefit. The things which had influenced me are also to be found in Rolland’s books. The additional matter which it contains has not added to the impression. It did not appear to me that Vivekananda was as much a devotee as Ramakrishna. Vivekananda’s love was great. He was full of feeling and used to be carried away by it. It was like the golden covering for his knowledge. The distinction which he made between religion and politics was not correct. But it is no use criticizing such a great man and once we let loose ourselves we can criticize anyone whom we wish to. Our duty lies in learning anything we can from [the lives of] such persons.' - Source: Complete Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 56, pg. 82 (digital edition ver.1, GOI)

Such responsibility however has never appealed to Dravidian politicians given as they are to rhetoric as the only tool of political (and social and cultural) discourse. The CM in refuting the charge that he had sent emissary to the RKM asking them to vacate the place for another institution has gone on to exhibit his taste in political statement making.

He say, (my loose translation from report in Tamil, read original Tamil here), '...Vivekananda ate meat, he also smoke, he proved that as long as one had a pure heart, none of these can touch you and he propagated rationality similar to Periyar and Anna', and again towards the end of his speech, 'the head of Ramakrishna Math has said that he will challenge us in Court,..we are not afraid of challenges, monks should not get down to challenging, I request them to follow Vivekananda and Ramakrishna in this issue at least'. What is the constitution of a mind that can recollect these attributes of Vivekananda at first call. In a life lived with innumerable achievements and pronouncements and almost completely recorded by his disciples (including what he ate and smoked), there could be many attributes that could occur to any mind.

To tell the monks of RKM as to how they should follow Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa means either he thinks he knows these great souls better or he thinks he has achieved a state worthy of sermonising to monks of the order. Either way, his statement is in bad taste.

I had contrasted it with the earlier quote from Gandhiji to give an indication of how irresponsible communication by public figures has gotten in Tamilnadu.

Disclaimer: This need not be construed as my attempting any comparison between the two, that would be both blasphemous and extreme benevolence, both of which I am not capable of.

Vivekananda Illam NOT to be demolished now

2008-04-24T17:47:00.002+05:30

This afternoon's assertion from the CM on the floor of the assembly sets to rest the four day old drama on the fate of Vivekananda Illam, I should confess driving past the Illam this morning I was looking out for some kind of government seal and battalion of police men outside the gate. None were there and the place looked as peaceful as before.

'Tamilnadu Chief Minister has dismissed reports about plans to demolish Vivekananda House near Marina beach in Chennai. He said the government had no plans to build a Tamil cultural centre in its place as reported in the news media.

Replying to a special call attention motion in the Assembly, he said some were trying to create a conflict between the government and samiyars by spreading malicious news that the memorial of Swami Vivekananda would be razed down. ‘We don’t have any problem with Swami Vivekananda. His preachings were almost similar to those of our leaders Periyar and Anna,’ said the Chief Minister....' (read full news story)

However, Sathya opines that this is only a temporary respite and as long as legally the Math gets the lease extended for the next thirty years, there will always be problems in 2010. He points out that DMK will still be in power in 2010 when this lease will come up for a review. He also has mentioned that this is part of a larger re-assessment of all prime real estate property by the government that seems to be going on in a large scale.

Another friend this morning queried 'why should every place that Vivekananda visited be saved for posterity?'. In the days to come there would be such opinions more openly floated and public response sought. My own thoughts are that once such a place for a certain purpose has been created it is better not to destroy it and spend whatever time in strengthening it. There is no other museum of the non-government kind in Chennai to the best of my knowledge. Certainly not on the Indian culture and tradition. Yes, like someone had written a letter on the Illam sometime back, it can be said that the Illam has Swami Vivekananda as its focus, but, that will be case with any such centre being managed by a certain institution, it would present its own leaders most.

We do not have any place where people can meet and learn about Indian thinkers in Chennai. I don't know whether there is even such a place for Dravidian leaders such a Periyar and Anna. I know there is a library in the Periyar thidal, but, I don't know whether there is an exhibition and a place where some activity takes place regularly related to such thinkers. The shrinking of public platforms of any kind for serious activity, either social or cultural is our city's bane. Those that have only taken the recreational route or have appealed to commercial investment for publicity returns alone have survived.

Updates on TN government bid to take over Vivekananda Illam

2008-04-23T11:39:00.005+05:30

Since my post yesterday on this issue there have been further developments. This morning's dailies all carried news on the DMK's bid to take over the Vivekananda Illam obviously each with its own twist to it. (image below: yesterday's Indian Express Lead)

The Dinamani which broke the story yesterday through front page lead articles, gave responses from people who oppose the issue - Jayalalitha, Cho Ramaswami, Pe Su Mani, Sarath Kumar among others. The Dinamani carried an interview with Swami Gautamananda, the President of Ramakrishna Math, Chennai along with the protest from Jayalalitha. The Hindu characteristic of itself, made the Math sound like some kind of pavement squatter to be permitted and evicted by the Government at will.

Other News items:

AIADMK, BJP against TN Govt's 'move' to vacate Vivekanandar Illam

Chennai, April 22: The Opposition All India Anna DMK (AIADMK) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today opposed the Tamil Nadu Government's alleged directive to the Ramakrishna Mutt to return the Vivekanandar Illam off Marina.

In a statement here, AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa, reacting to a report in this regard in an English daily, said the DMK Government was in no way justified to ask the Mutt to move out of the premises, named after Swamy Vivekananda, by April 24 to enable the Government to set up a Classical Tamil Centre there.

Instead, the Government could find a new premises for setting up the Centre, she added.
Source: Chennai Online

Vivekananda House Re-location Opposed
Source: IANS

TN govt wants Mission house back

- Call to return building where Swami Vivekananda stayed ‘shocks’ Ramakrishna Math
Source: Calcutta Telegraph

Meanwhile here are some excerpts from an article by Muthiah of Madras Musings fame about the status of the building before it was offered to the Math and since then, published in the HINDU a few years back:

'...The question most asked, however, was what happened to Ice House from the time the ice trade came to an end till the gifting of it to the Ramakrishna Mission in 1997. Ice House had apparently belonged to the Government – what it was used for or who built it is not known – but Government leased it from 1845 to the Tudor Ice Company for its ‘San Thome depot’.
...
Sister Subbalakshmi rented it in 1912 for her Sarada Ashram. When the Ashram for child widows moved out in 1928, the building fell vacant till Government bought it in 1930 to serve as a hostel for the teacher-trainees of neighbouring Lady Willingdon College. It remained a hostel till the 1990s, growing more dilapidated by the day. Restoration of the skeleton of a building that remained began only after it was gifted to the Ramakrishna Mission.

Source: Column of S.Muthian in the HINDU, 22/10/2007

Some of the devotees of the Math from India and abroad have already set-up available at:
Online petition - Save Vivekananda Illam in Chennai
If you want to mark your protest, you too can sign the online petition, though currently it is not addressed to any particular person in the government.

Vivekananda Illam under threat by TN Government

2008-04-22T10:26:00.003+05:30

The majestic looking Vivekananda House on the beach road in Chennai must have caught the eye of some of our politicians too frequently. Read this morning's tamil news and English one here

The 'Ice House' as it was called earlier was handed over to the Ramakrishna Math on lease to establish an exhibition for Indian Heritage about 13 years back. The Math has historic connections to this building too. Swami Vivekananda on his return from the famous Western travel gave a series of lectures starting at Colombo and finally reaching then Calcutta and beyond. Some of the most powerful lectures (link to Madras lectures) were delivered in the then Madras in the year 1897. He was given one of the best welcomes in Chennai at Egmore station and taken in a procession to the Ice House, then known as 'Castle Kernan' and owned by a prominent lawyer Bilagiri Iyengar. He is reported to have stayed there for 9 days during this trip and later the Ramakrishna Math was formally started in this very building by his brother monk Swami Ramakrishnananda and functioned there for a few years.

The government take over of the building was in the 1960s when a home was established for poor people there and later a teacher's training college was established, the building was an eyesore and slowly started being less and less functional and in fact a adda of anti-social elements. Amidst all this, the only people who were interested to reclaim the building were the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. Eventually, on getting the government lease (from the current Chief Minister during his earlier tenure), the Math re-did the building at great cost and with contribution from ordinary people who valued the place and created a beautiful cultural and heritage exhibition there with some wonderful paintings (link to article about the exhibition in the HINDU).

It is ironic the the Chief Minister who visits 'Golden' temples because he is impressed with the charity work done by the institution promoting it, wants to take away a monument that has been created with public money in celebration of an institution that has contributed to the city and the state in a major way. The Ramakrishna Mission has been the seed for many social institutions in the state that are over 100 years old and have built the minds and character of generations who have created this state what it is today. Its work in the area of education in particular and its influence in the education sector through its publication and interaction is a major strength to the state and need to be acknowledged.

It is strange that the place which didn't mean anything to the government and was permitted to be dilapidated and which has been recovered at great cost and with much care re-done without disturbing the original architecture (it is the only remaining Ice House built in a period when Ice was imported with Colonial encouragement from America to India). And, now suddenly the Government is interested to take over the place to destroy this structure and build apparently an institutions for Tamizh!! The same CM was earlier responsible for erecting the 1330 ft tall Tiruvallavur statue in Kanyakumari just to belittle the Vivekananda Rock Memorial nearby. The difference was obvious, whereas the Rock Memorial is a monument hat was built with the contribution of people from across the land, the Tiruvalluvar structure was erected by a jingoistic state machinery. One is a people's monument even today visited by thousands everyday, cared for and taken care of by ordinary people and their contribution, other is a state built and maintained monument with all its corruption and lack of care.

It is important that all right thinking people of Chennai register their protest against this greedy and mindless act by the government.

Humble Teacher of Vedanta passes away...

2008-04-05T06:41:00.004+05:30

Only a few days back I was talking to Prasanna about Sri. C.S. Ramakrishnan, popularly known as CSR among the circle of Ramakrishna Mission friends, heard just now that this genial vedantin passed away in the early hours of this morning.

Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore is one of the earliest modern day spiritual institutions to be set-up in Chennai city. With the Student's Home and the Vivekananda College all at Mylapore and the grand new temple this institution is a representation as well as a integral part of the Mylapore culture now. It was the citizen of Mylapore who offered the land and invited the brother monk of Swami Vivekananda to set up the monastery and stay there. In more than a century, this institutions have shaped not just the culture and landscape of Mylapore, but, much of Chennai and many other parts of Tamilnadu. The monks of the order have played a vital role, but, the role of the chennai citizens is no less significant. The voluntary spirit of the Chennai citizen who happily dedicated their all towards spreading the meaning of Vedanta and doing service in the true spirit of the motto of the RKM as laid out by Vivekananda, 'atmano mokshartam jagat hitaya ca' is to seen in person to be believed.

CSR can certainly be called the brightest star among such devotees of the Ramakrishna Mission. The HINDU for a very long time, maybe for decades, only had him review almost any work on Vedanta, many of his reviews not only carried clean and sharp review of the books, but, a reasonable preamble that would show his in-depth knowledge of the subject of the book. A true intellect, he has immensely contributed to the Vedanta literature published by the RKM and served as the editor of Vedanta Kesari, the flagship english publication of the order for a brief period.

Some of us had the unique opportunity as students to learn Vedanta from this gentle teacher, who would patiently explain the verses and meaning of the Upanisads to the level of the youngest of listeners. An unassuming person, he always had a warm smile and a gentle enquiry to everyone he recognized or was acquainted with at the Ramakrishna Math in Mylapore.

CSR lived a life of a role model whose likes are no longer common in Chennai. As the tradition of many centuries struggles to re-discover itself amidst the onslaught of commercialization and depletion of human values in public life, the departure of his humble teacher provides an opportunity to stop, ponder and yet again assert the values that still charecterize some parts of this city, and, perhaps could become its leit motif if only we understand and permit it to grow on us.

Exnora: Playing populism to the morality of Chennai middle class

2008-04-04T11:47:00.005+05:30

Exnora was once a people's organization, both conceptually and functionally. It could have continued to be the neighbourhood community organization it was till the 'International' came into picture and it started living the Chennai middle class dream of having a 'global storm' out of every small noisy sneeze that it makes.

It is today highly populist and is the biggest balm for the mindless consumerism of the chennai middle class. It makes them feel extremely comfortable in their lifestyle, never challenges them and instead gives populist, visible, gestures, a pitch more sophisticated than the Kollywood type.

Here is one more from the ever imaginative brain of Exnora - 88888, an idea it hopes which will attract the chennai minds to the perils of global warming, how?

Simple gesture - switch off electricity for 8 minutes at 8 p.m. on 888, why not 8 a.m.? far less to switch off then, more convenient; what if i choose to write 08/08/2008 instead? what do we do after 8 minutes, when it becomes 8:08?? do we switch on again and wait for 090909? so that we repeat it for a 9 minutes to express our solidarity with this cause? What happens when we cross the hour barrier of 12? will we do a 24-hour time cycle from 13 to 24 again? what do we do after 24?

AND worse, they choose to do awareness of this entire thing with a bunch of visiting 'foreign' students on bullock carts carrying cut-outs of 8! and why? according to the news paper report (below), to signify 'transport simplicity'!!! all these people travelled from Sweden to India by bullock carts?

There was some confusion on what this was supposed to symbolise, with organisers saying it was meant to promote the concept of transport simplicity — reduce greenhouse gas emissions by walking, cycling or using public transport. Several speakers, however, used the slow procession as a cautionary tale — if the world runs out of fossil fuels, we could end up returning to the bullock cart.

Global warming happens because of developed nations have not been challenged in their lifestyle, including jet-hopping, globe trotting for promoting good causes. The Chennai middle class is happy that its children are part of that country and life the life style of the developed nation, they are trying their best to realize such a life style in Chennai too. They are happy with rising real estate values, the ascendas work environment and reliance retail for shopping, they are happy with aircon buses and metro to travel. They are certainly happy with their invited holidays in the US of A, the biggest polluter of the world.

The chennai middle class has benefited from the globalized world, Exnora's populism caters to the ego of the chennai-ite without challenging their lifestyle. Truly Exnora has transcended from being a humble people's organization that once was chennai's pride, to that of a globally visible, locally irrelevant organization that caters to the middle class ego, chennai middle class and exnora are inseparable.

First Report on Claude Alvares lecture at IIT-M

2008-03-22T07:48:00.003+05:30

Earlier I had forwarded an invitation for the lecture of Dr. Claude Alvares with this group. It was good to see a full room for the meeting and the lecture was well received looking at the student response after the lecture was over. The response was even better from the young professors. Here is an initial report / summary thanks to Mrs. Chitra Nagesh.

Report on Dr. Claude Alvares’ lecture on Multiversity
given at the Humanities Department, IIT-M on the 18th March 2008

From the minute, he walked in; Dr. Claude had set the mood for his talk – informal and refreshing but never missing a chance to add a sharp and earthy remark at times. He kept a hot afternoon session lively. (No mean feat, certainly!) .

He reminisced about his earlier visit to the city and mentioned about his work on Shri. C. V. Seshadri. He expressed his admiration and respect for the scholar’s work at the grassroot among the local people.

Dr. Claude shared his experiences of his work in the various committees in a light hearted vein, but the underlying concern for the absence of honesty and integrity in today’s business ventures was obvious. In a way, it hinted what direction his lecture would take- call to the youth to move away from the earlier generation’s views, leanings and approaches.

The tribulations of his sons in an effort to be ‘educated’ were brought out with a good dose of humour but a subtle attack was directed towards the teachers and professors.

However, it is what he did to ensure burden free and voluntary learning for his children that is behind the emerging of Multiversity. How his sons went on to seek knowledge that they desired and turned out to be successful in the material sense and otherwise is another story altogether.

The arguments that he put forth for decolonising education may not be new to some of the persons in the audience. Then it is his depth of conviction and sense of commitment that breathed fire into those ideas. When he questioned the audience how a 300 year old society can teach sociology, philosophy or political science to a 5000year old civilisation or how a problem in our local community can have a ready American solution without mincing words and with passion, the impact must have been felt at an individual level.

He felt that the present curricula bring out a soul destroying course. It saddens him that academicians and educators have not paid attention to the tremendous potential in terms of our knowledge systems be it political science, philosophy or even psychology. According to Dr. Claude, students are treated like buckets to be filled and the present learning courses do not allow learning in the real sense of the word but just encourage cramming of mere information.

When serious questions were posed to him during the interactive session particularly by some students, one can hope at least for an independent thought process which eventually will lead to changes( positive ones, of course).

Visited the Science Train at Egmore Station today

2008-03-05T17:36:00.002+05:30

Thanks to a friend from the Goethe Institute, visited the Science Train in Egmore today. This train a joint Indi-German work has been designed with the purpose of spreading the message of pure sciences and encourage people to learn the same. In all about 12 bogies (10 actually considering one was fully for advertisement of sponsorers and one was an 'activity' area) of the exhibits (consisting of about 10 panels in each compartment with about two video based communication and one interactive gizmos in each) consisting of the following topics exhibited major achievements of Germany in these spheres along side with information on education and research organizations on those subjects: Nuclear Science, Nano-science, Biotechnology related (2 bogies), neuro-sciences and understanding biological sensory behaviour, one on astronomy (well the first one on energy starts with the big bang, but largely to do with nuclear energy), one on sustainable development, one on integrated systems (I suppose on multi-discplinary sciences) and one promoting the sponsorers and key organizations involved. I have written the above out of memory and these may not be the names in which they are called by the organizers, surprisingly, the security was so tight that no one was permitted to carry any bag, book or pen or camera inside the train, rather strange and inexplicable. So, all that I have is the good old memory to rely upon!!

If one wanted to understand German accomplishments and possibility for research and learning and whatever is the latest in these areas, the exhibition would be great to visit! - it is scheduled to visit other parts of India for the next three months before it ends its journey in Delhi from where it started its journey. Having said all the good parts first, here are the not so good ones about the exhibition:

1. Highly dependent on intense technical textual presentation - I haven't seen an exhibition that is so much relying up on technical text based presentation compressed in such small space anywhere. The language put off many of the visitors, particularly students and with absolutely no crowd regulation (except the railway policeman who thought asking everyone to move on and not ponder to read any of the text was the best way to regulate crowd!!!) it was impossible for anyone to read the entire text even in a single compartment leave alone the entire train.

2. Lack of imagination in presenting the interactive parts - there seems to have been no serious though applied in customizing the interactive parts, there were about 1 in every compartment. They were not self-explanatory, they did not have the required volunteer to encourage and make people try things out and learn.

3. Very poor local organization: the crowd of school children that thronged the station were clearly not the intended audience of the exhibition. From the content it would have been final year high school or higher secondary students who will be the obvious targets. It is ironic as all of them will be sitting for their exams now. So, loads of lower class children happy to get a day off (a friend who visited independently during one such school students visit to this train commented that some of the students were happy to get a day away from their science classes!!!) and marched in the heat to view something they will hardly comprehend, with not much help, no great interactive learning possible, not adequate time. It is criminal to waste the best years of our students in such meaningless activity. I would have hoped that the kind of information in the train warranted a half day workshop among science students from colleges and higher secondary classes, that would have been more productive in terms of knowledge creation in them.

4. In an otherwise impressive exhibition, there were needlessly two panels kept on 'Indian Science legacy'. The panels were an insult to the legacy of science in India and in any other country would have been strongly objected. The two panels consisted of images of 5 items - the knowledge of pi in India, Aryabhatta (who alone was credited with a period), ayurveda (with images that looked familiarly like an massage centre advertisement), bronze statue found in Mohenja-daro and a para on knowledge of astro-physics with an image which I am unable to recollect.

The remaining part of the legacy were on 'green revolution', 'dairy', which the panel informed us 'went through a white revolution to become leading dairy producer of the world in the 1970s' and an image of a cotton mill with a write-up alongside that said something to the effect that , 'went on to achieve excellence in textile manufacturing' or some such. If these are part of the science legacy of India, either Germans have long since divorced their Indologists knowledge base or this was written by some imbecile from a government department in Delhi on a jobless afternoon using scissors and glue stick. I am surprised no one has protested to such poor representation so far, either self-respecting and knowledgeable Indians have not visited this train or people are so tired by the time they get to this particular compartment (which is the last) that they don't notice this goof-up at all.

5. Smaller details that were not worked out: the serpentine queues outside with scant respect for the students standing in the sun, the disposal plastic cups in which water was being distributed to the students (who will learn about sustainable development and green house gases, waste, etc. in one of the panels!), the needless hype of security with some of them dressed like cowboys and behaving rather rudely with some people, the allocation of less volunteers, no crowd management plans in place, asking people to leave their bags (if they came with one) outside in a pile for security reasons(!) is humiliation in my book...all these would not be an issue if there was more thought into the constitution, understanding of the purpose and clarity in targets - none was visible in the otherwise nice exhibition. I was told that the local organizing was done by the Tamilnadu Science Forum (TNSF), a left-wing science promotion movement based in Chennai. It was surprising that they had done such a sloppy work considering some of the quality of people I have encountered from this forum in other places.

The caption outside every compartment read, 'Ingenious India' and 'Germany - Land of Ideas' , apparently, both ingenuity and ideas were placed elsewhere when this exhibition was planned.

Photo Blog: imposing Kalamkari at the artisans exhibition

2008-03-02T08:32:00.003+05:30

Found this massive Kalamkari painting at the artisans exhibition at Kalakshetra. No more words, look at the two photos, they don't do any justice to seeing this painting live.

hoarding lessons!

2008-02-20T09:11:00.002+05:30

On the way to office this morning saw two hoardings side by side that made strange reading:

'Infrastructure will change India' said the first one (HDFC Infrastructure Fund, I think) and
'to change exchange' said the mobile shop ad. bang next to it!!!

What are being exchanged in the name of infrastructure in India!!

two events coming up in chennai: feb 16th and feb 22-mar 8

2008-02-14T11:42:00.002+05:30

Mark the calender with these events:

1. Launch of ReStore - a group of people coming together to promote more environmental friendly ways of living in this mad city.

2. Exhibition of Kumbam terracota arts and crafts at Kalakshetra.

both announcements below.
---------------------------------------------------------------
eStore
health * livelihoods * nature

We are delighted to invite you to the Launch of reStore with a Celebration of Traditional Foods
at *Shastri Nagar Welfare Association Hall *(Tel: 2446 0822)
18/11 5th Cross St., Shastri Nagar Adyar
Chennai 600 020

On *Saturday, February 16th 2008, 5.30 to 8.00pm*

*Please contact reStore for your dinner passes*
http://restore.org.in
Tel: 94441 66779 or 98844 09566

reStore (http://restore.org.in ) is a new community organization of people interested in activities that promote healthy living, sustainable livelihoods and conservation of nature. reStore is to be inaugurated on Saturday February 16th 2008 at a function in Adyar. The launch event, for
which the public is invited, will feature puppet theater, a multimedia presentation and dinner featuring healthy and tasty traditional foods. The dinner will be cooked by volunteers from organic ingredients sourced from local farmers. Organic grains, recipe booklets and information about sustainable lifestyles will be made available, as well as lively interactions with farmers and health practitioners on the benefits of millets (siru-daanyangal).

reStore works to restore wellness of the general public, livelihoods and ecological balance. With this in view, the organization is creating a network of retail outlets that promote sustainable products including organic food, books, household items made from eco-friendly material, handspun and natural-dyed organic textiles, gardening inputs and health products. Products will preferentially be sourced from local organic farmers, self-help groups, organizations promoting livelihoods of marginalized people, and traditional artisans and weavers.

reStore plans to engage with people via a variety of activities such workshops, farm visits, film screenings and organic gardening sessions. These activities are aimed at increasing awareness of issues and connecting consumers with the producers of their food and other articles of daily
living.

reStore welcomes everyone interested in regenerating their own health and that of the earth to participate in its launch event which will be held between 5.30 and 8.00 PM on February 16th at Shastri Nagar Welfare Association Hall, 18/11 Fifth Cross, Shastri Nagar, Adyar. For free dinner
passes please contact reStore at Tel: 94441 66779 or 98844 09566.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

k u m b h a m

invites u for an exhibition of their latest terracotta creations at

Kalakshetra Foundation
Thiruvanmiyur

Chennai

Feb22 -Mar 2 2008

10:30 to 8

Products on display.

Framed murals, mirror frames
Cooking vessels, curd setter.

Work Table Accessories; Pen stand, Name plate, Paper weight, Pin tray,
Clock stand, Photo frame, Trays.

Kitchen and Table ware: Dinner set, Cutlery stand, Cooking vessels,
Tava, Jars, Jugs, Pots, Mugs.

Architectural/house hold: Decorative tiles, Framed Murals, Wall lamp,
Letter box, Magazine holder, Soap dish, Tooth brush holder, Coffee table,
Architectural column.

Landscaping Products; Bird bath, Urns, path lamp. garden lamp, frogs,
tortoise, Mushrooms.

And several more...........
Jinan,
www.kumbham.in
http://www.flickr.com/photos/terracotta_murals/sets/72157594503980465/
09447121544
www.re-cognition.org
http://my.opera.com/jinankb/albums/
0487 2386723

Obituary: Thatha Venkatraman

2008-02-13T17:29:00.003+05:30

One of the grand old men of scouting in Chennai died recently. Venkatraman, called thatha Venkatraman by almost everyone was one of the leading lights of the movement in the city.

He was closely associated with the south madras district scouting movement, children garden school and the besant camping centre that is part of the theosophical society in adyar.

An energetic and warm gentleman who was rather sharp with his comments, he left everyone whom he interacted with a sense of care.

I grew in scouting days, though never directly under his tutelage. He would visit us all the way from Sholinganallur farm of CG to Madhavaram in his small phut-phut TVS50 those days when chennai had the same roads and lesser traffic. He cared much for his children and ensured that he got to know them as much as possible and always used to enquire about everyone he though you know about when he met you.

A scout is supposed to be many things, cheerfulness, care and concern chief among them. Thatha Venkatraman exemplified these qualified. A true scout who deserves a scout salute.

Hoardings menace in Chennai!

2008-02-12T14:58:00.000+05:30

Interesting findings from discussion on hoardings in another on-line group! This is what the consumer law says regarding obscene hoardings.

4. Posters and hoardings containing obscenity and vulgarity attracts Section 6 of the Indecent Representation of Women(Prohibition) Act, 1986. Any depiction of the figure of a woman; her form or body or any part thereof in such way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to, or denigrating women, or is likely to corrupt the public morality amounts to Indecent Representation of Women. (Complaints should be given directly to the Police.)

5. Section 292 of IPC directly deals with any obscene poster, book, pamphlet, paper, writing, drawing, painting, representation, figure etc. The material shall be deemed to be obscene if it is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons, who are likely to read, see or hear the matter contained in it. (Complaints should be given to the Police.)

Mirchi Suchi: Good to listen, not too good to watch live!

2007-11-29T06:59:00.001+05:30

I normally avoid criticism of individual talent in this blog. But, having been a unfortunate spectator to the disaster in programme compere talent of Suchi (popularly known as Mirchi RJ Suchi) I had to blog her.

On line write-ups call her one of the best RJs, perhaps she is. I am not an avid FM follower, but, Suchi, or more precisely her voice was pointed out to me by none other than Organic Krishnan, who claimed at that time to be her fan (and has since then denied it)!

I heard her screaming saucy voice quite a few times, particularly while travelling in crowded and overstuffed autos in Chennai suburbs. As far as I could make out, she spoke a universalized chennai tamil, no local dialect and generally seemed to converse in a backdrop a non-stop giggle. Her indulgent tone towards phone-callers to the programme is probably a rule for all such RJs.

But, she on stage as the master of ceremonies (or comperer) is a nightmare, particularly if you are the organizer. I watched her do an entertainment programme last year and was appalled at her goof-ups. It was during the John Britto dance company annual show, which normally is well produced programme. She almost gave a negative built-up to one of the well choreographed numbers, placing her opinion far above the announcement she was to make.

Yesterday, I saw her again at IIT in an award ceremony for rural innovators. She not only goofed up bad, she turned the entire programme on its head by shutting down the video on the innovators in the middle of the programme!

I bet she is talented and she certainly is a costly comperer to get (her charges for a couple of hours programme I am told could be as high as Rs.20,000/-), but, if someone cannot manage the stage and understand and present the spirit of the programme and instead is too keen on presenting themselves, then you realize perhaps the person is not fit beyond the indulging RJ role!

Suchi needs to grow and for the sake of discerning public, stop compering programmes.

women constables - flower maidens?

2007-10-10T02:11:00.000+05:30

Have been wanting to write this for some time now.

I pass by on section of the road used by the CM about half an hour ahead of him everyday. Without fail I observe a series of thin, scrawny, women constables who decorate both sides of the road at equal intervals. They are everywhere, even on top of the flyover. The special white badge that police personnel in the CM route have to wear adorns their uniforms.

My question is what are they doing in the hot sun?

They are not controlling any crowds, on a normal day there are no crowds to cheer the CM in every street corner. They are not certainly regulating traffic, this we have important looking traffic cops who can appear in the roadside just a few minutes before the CMs convoy appears, shout, scream, shriek and ensure that the traffic is frozen till the convoy leaves and just as swiftly disappear after the stipulated number of seconds they are supposed to hold the traffic frozen.

But, the poor women constables arrive well in advance and have to hang around much after the CM is gone. The only purpose I see is they are substitutes for some hangover of a flower-maiden who need to adorn the route of kings of yore. Sometimes, they look weak and seem to be spending eternity waiting for the VIP to pass them by.

I had an interesting encounter of this once outside the airport. I had arrived in an evening flight and was walking to the road to hire an autorickshaw when I was surprised to find that they have all been shooed away from the entrance by a traffic cop who helped me with the information that they were expecting the CM to take a night flight and hence no vehicles were to stop in front of the airport. There was the familiar women constable hanging around and while I was getting directions from the traffic cop, she enquired with him as to how much longer will it take before the CM were to arrive? to which the traffic cop informed her that it would be another hour! With some disturbance she informed him that she has been in the post since 5 p.m. and this gentleman shrugged and pointed out that it was not his mistake if she came so early!!

That they stand on the roadside when the CM passes by seems to be some kind of a order to be maintained. Looks silly actually, I often wonder if it is some kind of the obsession to show the big boss that there is an equality of sexes being practiced by the city police? Once late evening with the CM still not gone home, I noticed a group of women constables getting some snacks in a pavement shops that springs up in one of the bye-lanes of the main road. As my vehicles turned into the main road and headed up the flyover, suddenly, there were sirens screaming and cops yelling, looking back I found the one remaining women constable doing a sprint to reach the top of the flyover to cover up for the ones who couldn't make it.

Chat Shops in Marina are 'encroachment' and will go now!!!

2007-09-05T07:45:00.000+05:30

Full Story at: http://www.ibnlive.com/news/from-tomorrow-no-chaat-on-chennais-marina-beach/48055-3.html?xml

Chennai: Mustafa has been selling chaat on Chennai’s Marina Beach for around two years now. But Mustafa, a familiar face for regulars at the beach, will no longer be able to sell delicacies here.

That is because the Chennai Corporation's deadline for encroachers to move out of the Marina Beach ends on Wednesday.

“Since my childhood I have done this job. I don’t know anything else,” Mustafa said.

The around 400 shops which have come up on the beach in the past two years are the ones being targeted but those which have been here for a long time will be spared.

“This is being done only to make the beach more clean,” Chennai Mayor M Subramanian said.

The state government and the Chennai Corporation are undertaking a major beach beautification drive. They plan to spend Rs 35 crore on making the beaches of Chennai clean and people friendly.

So, soon people will be able to sit on benches and watch the waves roll by but what they will miss out on is munching a hot mirchi bajji while doing so.

Follow-up on Hoardings in the city

2007-09-04T09:51:00.000+05:30

I had wondered whether we will really see the hoardings go in this city in my earlier post

Looks like the government is serious after all, this time around the hoardings are really vacating the sky-scape of the city and as I reached office this morning there were gaps in the hoarding line beginning to show through which it was possible to see some clouds and the sky.

The newspaper headlines today are agog about the drive. Kudos Corporation and the Chennai police for taking up this act. Would they also make the hoarding men to re-plant all the trees that they have chopped off over a period of time for that 'vantage' point? or is it expecting too much?

Whatever may be the case, take your camera bags and start shooting the green chennai for once as long as it lasts. Being the eternal skeptic, my auto driver friend and adviser warned me that probably this drive would not last beyond a month, ' எல்லாம் helmet மாதிரி சீக்கிரமா மறந்து பொய்தும்' says he.

Road Problems: Photo Post

2007-07-25T10:24:00.000+05:30

how much load is permitted and how much width and length can two wheelers occupy in the roads? A perinneal problem in the chennai roads.

A Tale of a Mother and her two sons - True Inspiring Story from Chennai Suburb

2007-07-07T23:40:00.000+05:30

Magesh and Rajesh lost their father, who was working in the Eveready Battery in North Chennai when they were still very young (the elder one was in his teens). Their father within his limitations was trying to support many distant relations who were finding it difficult to make a living in the process putting himself and his family security at risk. When he was found to have a terminal illness whatever was remaining in the family saving too was wiped out and it took the last of his savings to see the family spend for his funeral. The sons were left with their mother and the remaining Rs. 30/- to fend for themselves. Magesh remembers spending the entire night with a crying mother and a brother too young to understand what has befallen them.

But, the father had instilled a spirit to fight and survive in his sons, so, they began...from a small start with helping others to learn their skills (both the kids dropped out of school at some point in time), the honed their skills in photography enough and had earned adequate to set-up their own small studio, the Sun Photo Studio at Kodungaiyur in the northern suburbs of Chennai. But, the father had not only left the family with the survival skills, he had also left them with a spirit of service. So, despite the family being in difficult conditions themselves, the brothers started to gather local students and organized evening classes in their terrace, a small student programme in the name, 'thalirgal' (a name that Magesh remembers of a childrens club he was a member of in better times when he used to be small boy). The small group of youth that gathered in their terrace slowly became the promising youth movement in the neighbourhood and some more youth from the locality volunteered, taking care of the students, providing them guidance and supporting her sons in all their endevours is Sampoornam Amma, an independent lady claims proudly that despite not going to school, neither of her sons have any vices! This may not look unusual unless one realizes the neighbourhood in which they live, where most of the youth are addicted to alcohol at a very young age or drugs and anti-social elements thrive.

Today, the brothers manage a Trust in their father's memory, RAS Sumaithangi Trust, and provide supplementary education to primary school children in their neighbourhood apart from also providing free uniform and educational aids to more than 50 students. And all their expenses comes from their own earning from the Studio apart from an occasional small donation. 'We would like to one day have our own educational institution where education is provided free to anyone who enrolls' said Rajesh when I first met him, 'why just school, we should even have a college', echoed Magesh!

Interesting? You can meet these brothers in person, the Trust celebrates its fourth anniversary on the 21st of July 2007 with a day long events including free eye camp, an awareness camp on employment opportunities for the disabled and distribution of free learning aids for students.

Their Contact details:
RAS Sumaithangi Trust
38, Narasimha Nagar, First Street,
Kodungaiyur, Chennai - 600118
Mobiles of Magesh and Rajesh: 09840161961, 09840253606

Home Loans...????

2007-07-04T08:27:00.000+05:30

The blogging Monster is back and with some scary news!!
Yesterday's Express carries an article on home loans right on the front page that is terrifying.
If you have taken a Home Loan after 2004, then you have a lot of unpleasant music to face.
The rates of interest are going up up and away... and so are the EMIs!
So pretty soon, i think we are going to have a lot of Crime in Suburbia...(committed by innocent middle class people forced to resort to any measure to pay astronomical mortgage payments).

All the regular banks, such as Punjab National Bank, State bank of India, and so on and so forth have already upped the ante...

Gear up and Chennai and be prepared to face cacophony of music thats headed away..
Of course if you are not ready, then you can just pack your bags and start blocking pavement space right away!

Chennai Hoardings to go???

2007-06-27T17:01:00.000+05:30

If the following news is true and without any flip-flop Chennai may be seen as never before in living memory!!! You will actually see the trees (whatever remains of them) that line up Cathedral Road, you may get to see the greenery of Theosophical Society as you cross the Adyar bridge, you will see the facade of many buildings in Mount Road for the first time, the government estate greenery will be a pleasant sight for all those passing by mount road from the island side, people may even get to see that there is an island ground in chennai, there will be surprise sights around Central station, many parts of Chennai will become safer for pedestrians again...and if the rule extends to political hoardings also, you will for once get to see the front side of Arivalayam at Mount Road too. But, will we see the bold side of the occupant of the Arivalayam on this issue? Many such earlier ventures have only resulted in review of orders after representations from advertisers and partial permission, again violation, exempting violation either through corruption or legal sanction...I say, lets wait and watch!

No hoardings in Chennai: Karunanidhi

Chennai: After Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s orders to pull down all the hoardings in the Tamil Nadu’s capital city, the administration is getting its act together.

Outdoor advertisers are getting worked up on this decision of the CM

to dismantle these 5,000 hoardings.

"Nearly one lakh families depend on the business that comes from the hoarding industry. This decision of the CM will make these people jobless," says AG Nayagam President of the Tamil Nadu Outdoor Advertising Association. read on

99.9% in Chennai feel financially insecure

2007-06-26T10:41:00.000+05:30

If the following financial express report is a true statement, we sound like a thoroughly insecure lot in this city. It is not surprising to find that 69% of conservative Chennai people restrict their deposits to their banks, but, more surprising that 12% retain their savings in their homes! No wonder, robbery in Chennai is high. It would be interesting to see how much of this 12% come from the elite class.

CHENNAI, JUNE 25: A recent survey revealed that 99.9 per cent of households in Chennai believe they are financially at risk due to ineffective saving habits and misplaced financial optimism.

Almost every household in the city felt that they could not survive for more than one year on their current savings in case of loss of major source of household income, said the survey findings.

The study was jointly undertaken by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and Max New York Life Insurance Company Limited on 'How financially protected are Indian households' by assessing how India earns, spends and saves.

As per the survey findings pertaining to Chennai and rest of Tamil Nadu (RoT), 38 per cent households in RoT and 12 per cent households in Chennai keep their savings at home.

46 per cent of households in RoT and 69 per cent in Chennai prefer to deposit their savings in banks.

Though a large percentage of households were saving in banks, they were not investing in high yielding investment tools, it said.

Chennai Pride!

2007-05-28T08:04:00.000+05:30

I love Chennai with a fierce loyalty..
Even if there a number of things wrong with the city.Sometimes i get so angry with the way people from other parts of the country..(Not the world).. People from other parts of our very own country make assumptions about the city and its people. I want to relate something that happened recently. I was recently out of town for a performance with an artiste. We did 2 shows over a period of 3 days, organised by 2 different events companies. Now i came to know that when the artiste communicated to the events managers that the dancers had to brought from chennai, the first guy reacted like this:
"Chennai??? But the dancers will be too dark!!! And wont they dress badly????"
The second guy reacted like this:
"Chennai?? Why Chennai??"
Now never mind the fact that we are a reputable dance company with over 2000 shows all over the world to our credit with some of the best costumes in the city!!
If you are a South Indian from Chennai, then automatically you must be dark and ugly.. and dont know how to dress!!
This made me so furious..
These kind of prejudices in a country of dark skinned people is ridiculous, absurd, disgusting and frightening!!
I have a million things to say to all those people who have such ridiculous prejudices.
I have met and interacted with a number of people of African origin in my line of work and the kind of pride they have in their colour and their race is heartwarming!
Its downright stupid to make such dumb assumptions in today's Ratrace world.
I personally think that its South Indians who are the actual brains in this country and world over.
Why make assumptions about people from here, when tomorrow they will have the power to veto anything you say.
Its true, i think that Chennai has the capacity of becoming a superpower within the country, if only we Chennaiites could learn to harness all of our talent and use it harmoniously.
We should start a movement!"BE PROUD TO BE BROWN!" And as a part of this movement, we should right at least 70% of the wrongs in this city and face down anybody who dares to think we are weak and stupid just because of our colour!
Make this a warcry!!!"BE PROUD TO BE BROWN!"

Rajnikanth: Silent Pope of the Tamil masses

2007-05-25T11:28:00.000+05:30

'Sivaji' will be released on June 15th (unless something else crops up in the meanwhile) and the City of Chennai doesn't talk of anything else for the past so many months. Autorickshaws sport the Sivaji stills as stickers in their front, large hoarding have come everywhere in the city, blogs and websites have been agog about the making of the movie, the music is already a celebrated hit and is repeated being played across the city. Rajnikanth is back and with a bang. Since his earlier movie, Chandramukhi, there has been too much expectation and the combination of talent that has come together for Sivaji has ensured that the rumour mills have been working over time.

Rajnikanth as a phenomenon is South India, particularly Tamilnadu is worth understanding. The best way to describe his stature is that he is a religion. The celebration, anticipation, faithful following, reckless spending, mindless sentiments all those other things Indians do with their religion, they do to him too. That doesn't mean he is God though (the only time he tried to call himself that, the box office bombed like never before in Baba) unlike the earlier generations of MGR, NTR, Krishna, etc. At the most, he is a Pope, a silent one at that. He is religion and adhered to and followed with great fervor as there is no regulating of his followers as Hinduism does. His silence as to what his fans should do (except for the one famous, 'even God cannot save you' statement endlessly and shamelessly exploited by the DMK) has perhaps made him an enigma to whom anything can be ascribed. The fans want to believe he is the ideal person, indeed, my favourite friends, the autorickshaw drivers of Chennai, when queried as to why they need to keep his photos with them, state that it is because ' he is a good man'! All his limitations can be forgiven for this purpose.

In times deprived of leaders and models among men, in the social and political milieu of tamilnadu where spiritual / religious quest or even an inclination can only be ridiculed, where jingoistic showmanship rules the roost as social commitment, where the nonsensical verbiage of a person is often directly proportional to his eminence, Rajinikanth is an exception. He doesn't talk often, never seems to give any large interviews, does not endorse any products, does not hide his spiritual / religious inclinations, does not make a show of his giving (except a few times when there were rumours that he will eventually join politics) nor try to derive unnecessary media and political mileage out of it. Yet, despite all the political rhetoric that is placed on his door step, he has managed to rule the hearts of the tamil masses through movies that repeatedly portray the oldest formula on earth - the good will eventually prevail! The success of his movies is partly based on the machismo attached to the 'good' that appeals to the tamil masculinity. But, at the same time, his appeal to women is no lesser, at least two generations of women have admired his 'style'!! He is not the best of actors, but, the effortless ease of his performance of any role (mostly the action hero) ensures that the movie goer is never to forget the fact that this is all celluloid. His message is rather direct and often becomes the most used one liner, gesture, gimmick in Tamilnadu. Some of them have become legendary and are repeated for generations.

The spectra of a Rajnikanth movie release in Chennai and Tamilnadu is to be seen to be believed, Sivaji is already booked for the first month according to my informers (all auto-wallas), it has had a record sale of its music, it is being released in Japenese and some African language also. I find that there are large number of blogs that offer everything from unofficial photos to song downloads of this movie, there are even blogs in French and Japenese!! It may be a movie for the rest of the world, but, in Tamilnadu and particularly in Chennai, the religion of Rajnikanth will be seen in action...its achievements and pitfalls yet again discussed, rumours of his eventual entry to politics once again resurrected, the madness of high cost for the first day ticket and the meaningless acts of sentiments discussed by the intelligent...the show start soon!

Chennai Smells!?!?!?!?!!?

2007-05-24T17:57:00.000+05:30

With no self-delusion, the first smell that I can recollect of Chennai (particularly as I am away from town right now) is the repulsive smell of sewage. The visual of men stepping out of open drainages completely covered with muck to empty in the roads with complete nonchalance open garbage extracted from the bowels of the 'cultured' city in whichever part can be easily accompanied with the stomach churning stink of the contents that thousands will step over, drive over with their noses covered never to care as to how they cause it. Most people stepping into Chennai city for the first time will either encounter the overwhelming smell of urine of the central station (go there late night or mid-morning to watch the splendour of a lady cleaning shit from the rails with her hands) or the smell of dust, sweat and cigarette as they step out of the airport or the smell of polluting vehicles if they have to step down from a bus at Koyembedu.

The other prominent smell is the smell of urine that stems out of every sidewalk (and many staircases), particularly after our showers, the very memory of those smells could repel one from stepping into any road during the monsoon and the amount of scrubbing people do to themselves after they reach home during the monsoon because they had to wade through the water is partly because of the overwhelming memory of the smell - of a concoction of urine in the walkways, the residual fecal matter of many years, the garbage thrown by uncaring and insensitive society.

Then there is the smell that is an hybrid of cheap food and dirt, of petrol fumes wafting through the ajino-mato filled chinese food sold at a throw away price to satisfy the gastro-intestinal cravings of a stomach long since rendered insensitive by liberal helping of alcohol, particularly in north Chennai. The smell of large quantities of rotting food discarded in the open outside the most fancier restaurants in the morning in mylapore that produce their unique quality by mixing with the strong coffee grinding machines closeby, the overwhelming smell of shit combined with salt water that you experience while walking early morning in the marina, the stench of truely cosmopolitan garbage consisting of domestic, hospital and community waste carried during peak hour traffic by open lorries, discarding semi-composed mixed left overs of a million homes as a mosaic of mixed medium carpet on the roads for everyone else to step / ride on to their work, some while experiencing the lung choking stench if they were to be right behind the lorry in the most crowded roads; the mixed smell of sweat and baking soda (that is applied in lieu of perfume) that one experiences in buses crossing doveton or the smell of cheap perfume of different makes, all worn together and with equal flourish that hits and could cause temporary black out when one is in certain parts of the old city like triplicane; the overwhelming smell of petrol fumes in Nungambakkam, enhanced with the smell of burning tar whenever the corporation decides to dig the road, which it does every few weeks.

The smell of cheap oil frying unhealthy edibles on the road side only over powered by the DDT sprays by the corporation dark vans around Shastri bhavan. For that matter the combined smell of oily food, open decomposed food waste, sweat, dust and dirty leaking sewage that comes from every campus canteen whether it is IIT or Stella or any other.

The smell of the omnipresent 'udhubathi' adorning in reverence plastic gods painted in gold tucked using discarded cigerette packs on the autorickshaw front panel combined with the fumes of carbon mono-oxide of questionable origins that spew in different shades of black in volcanic proportions from the sides of the metropolitan buses. The strange smell of food and cheap 'jasmine' (its always that) room freshener in every restaurant of middle class category; the smell of mixed flowers from the flower vendors combined with the smell of discarded garlands and putrified and discarded 'theertham' outside many temples (inside few too), the smell of cigerettes combined with cheap aftershave that wafts out of every men's saloon. The smell of cheap upholstery that is not wiped of other people's sweat in the call taxi's of the city. The smell of garbage being burnt any time of the year in kodungaiyur and perungudi that compels you to question whether it is worth living in this city.

The smell of cow dung thankfully is now restricted to a few areas, but, the not the smells of the city's drainage which one can feel if one were to use (whatever is left of) the sidewalk. The gaps in the sidewalk that cover the city's drainage system opens in equal intervals (I am sure with every intention to swallow some innocents during the monsoon) gives a stench that perhaps is unique and may well qualify as the smell of Chennai.

Smells of chennai!!

2007-05-24T08:52:00.000+05:30

I have travelling recently, and i realised something. Psychologists have probably done this subject to death, but i discovered that smells have a lot to do with how a person associates with a place. I love Chennai with a fierce loyalty that scares some people. Inspite of all its faults, i think its an amazing place to call home! And i realised that i am someone who has travelled all over Chennai in my trusty old two-wheeler and each area has its own unique special smell. A person just knows where they are by the smell of that place. I just compiled a list of smells that i just cannot live without. Feel free to add to that list
The smell of CDs inBurma bazaar
The smells of humanity, silk sarees and jewellery in Pondy bazaar and T.nagar
Spanking new electronics and that particular metallic smell they have in Richie street
The smell of lights, paper, clothes, fruits, vegetables, people, flowers, food, plastics and temples in Parrys. etc
The traditions and temple smells of Mylapore.
The Cosmopolitan, perfumed fragrance of Nungambakkam
The shiny new smell in Annanagar
The smell of the sea and nature in and Besant Nagar
U can smell the sandwiches of Montieth road all over Egmore
The combined smells of old money and the cooum in Adyar
The unique, special smell of Mount Road near LIC and Devi Theatre
The smell of army fatigues and musty British era buildings near Secretariat
I can go on for the rest of the day....

Small Venice in Big India!

2007-05-20T13:09:00.000+05:30

The Hindu, dated 20th May: The magazine section has some nice articles. One is called the Gulp Holiday. Its about Dubai, and since i just went there recently, this article made a lot of sense, and the writing is really witty! Thats one. The other article is something that i have wanted to write about on this blog.Its about the waterways of chennai. I live with 2 old people at home, who have told me zillions of stories about the fantastic trade that used to happen through chennai's waterways. Imagine if we bring them back to their former glory, the number of advantages that we traffic clogged chennaiites would have.Imagine the waterways having green and clean embankments where there are benches, with big leafy trees to protect us picnickers from the sun!Every waterway has a small pier from which a beautiful restored ferry leaves on guided tours around the city. Think of the tourism opportunities. Also the citizens can do something else with their spare time, other than blowing hard earned money on greasy overfried food in a plastic oversized "mall" where various offers tempt any sane human being to act like animals.Imagine having those peanut carts and cotton candy vendors and little game stalls in one corner of the embankment. Think of the employment opportunities. We could have a caretaker, and an eco-management team, who take care that people don't litter the park area.We could also have regular ferries that take you from one area to the other just like bus services.We could be India's own Venice!Just Imagine!I have half a mind to become a politician just to see this dream come true! If anybody wants to see this happen at least in the next 10 years, write me!!

art attack??

2007-05-15T08:16:00.000+05:30

If you have been following the news lately, then the art issue with artist chandramohan won't be unfamiliar to you. Now i dont know the details of the so called "obscene art" that he displayed, but i have one thing to say to the moral police." There are a million things wrong with this country today, but there are also a million things right with it. Lets concentrate on making the wrongs right again and not harass commoners. In the land of Kamasutra and Kajuraho (where some of the most erotic sculptures are displayed), sex and sexuality were a part of life, long ago! I don't know how or when this whole concept of moral policing started, but to put it in the language of the youth, It simply sucks!!". Now how does this issue relate to chennai? Let me tell you.
a. You cannot go out with a guy, even if it is just a friend to places, like the beach, park etc. without getting harassed by a two bit cop, who's looking to make some money off you. Even if you decide to go to a posh restaurant or a cineplex, if you travel on a two wheeler, you are sure to shell out so called fines on the way there.

b. You cannot drive a two wheeler, if you are a girl, without being commented on, overtaken, laughed at etc. by condescending, patronising policemen.

c. Try wearing a sleeveless top and making a harassment complaint against an eveteaser. "oh honey, don't you know? Its all your fault for dressing provocatively!

d. If its past 10 p.m. and you are out on the road, the cops look at you like you are a "you-know-what"? They are allowed to ask you all sorts of stupid personal questions, even though the country is not at war, we are not facing a curfew situation or any such thing! All this while the local friendly cat burglar is sneaking into a house and making off with his bounty. Why were'nt the cops there? They were busy harassing Innocent people!!

ALL THIS IN THE NAME OF MORAL POLICING!! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO, " INDIA IS THE LARGEST DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD"?

British Deer Hunting in Chennai and the British: GCP's sense of humour!

2007-05-14T10:56:00.000+05:30

'This tells the story of the deer in the British period', ends a panel that explains the Gun Spotted Deer kept for display at the Children's Park, Guindy. This tongue-in-cheek comment caught my eye while ona visit with family! I never would have expected the babus of our departments, that too the forest department to have such sense of humour.

Aparently this large metallic deer on wheels was used as a moving shooting targer and the idea was to shoot the holes in the deer's body (10 of them informs the panel) before the British babus could indulge in the shooting of the real ones. I think they should supplement this information with the total number of deer that were perhaps thus shot by the Brits.

to follow or not follow?

2007-05-14T08:24:00.000+05:30

i am someone, who travels a lot. all over! and something thats always bothered me in chennai is road rules. i drive a two wheeler, and i used to be pretty rash and always ran lights, went the wrong way.etc. i embodied the true indian road user. people admired me, looked up to me even. see deep within, i probably am not a maverick, i have that innate common man's fear of being caught doing something wrong, so i generally try to follow rules. so when i went to malaysia and realised that even if it is 3 a.m. people stop their vehicles behind the stop line, they dont run lights and god forbid they drive down the wrong side. it just doesnt happen. so i came back, fully inspired to follow all road rules and be the single one that changed the minds of all those wannabe racers on the roads of chennai.but.....I GOT ABUSED!! seriously if u want to sample the local language, try stopping your vehicle behind the stop line, u will recieve an earful! oh and also if the seconds on the red light have come down to 10 it means you can start crossing the intersection. how about that? try waiting till it comes down to 0. you just try it today, you will learn that even a sophisticated 30 something software professional driving one of those sleek motorbikes(that dont give you mileage at all) can speak like the local mechanic! will wonders never cease? don't get me wrong. i do think that individuals can make a difference. but in this case, only if you want to get abused.try doing the following things if you are a road user in chennai and tell me what happens.1. stop behind the stop line. make a conscious effort.2. wait till the seconds on the red light comes down to zero. don't bother if your eardrums are ready to burst from the continuous horn honking behind you.3. absolutely don't drive on the wrong side. now i know this is difficult since the chennai traffic police have taken it upon themselves to block every gap in the median, but thats a subject for another day.

Auto Driver 1482: Sardar's Caste Problem?!

2007-05-11T14:23:00.000+05:30

I met Sardar yesterday when I took his auto from one end of the city to another. One way of categorizing the Chennai auto drivers is those who talk and those who don't. Sardar belongs to the former category. This category requires very little prompting from the customer to start talking, so did he.

But, why do I bother writing about my encounter with Sardar? Because of his current problem. He went to admit his son to a school and they asked him to produce a 'caste' certificate. Sardar is a Muslim born and brought up in one of the lower income areas of North Chennai and is not aware of being anything else other than a Muslim all his life. He does his prayers, he tried to be sincere in his vocation ('started driving auto when the minimum was 4.40 and tried to carry on without 'sudu meter', but, had to give up because it was not viable') and has worked hard to make a living. He does not know under what category of 'caste' he belongs. He told this to the school authorities, but, they declined admission saying that his child should belong to 'some caste' and he better find that out.

So, Sardar says, he told me yesterday, 'I don't know, you see, we Muslims don't have a caste, even the likes of Rawthars and Maraikkayars are occupation based groupings. Rawthers are horse riders and Maraikkayars are the fishermen, etc. If I go for my prayers and even if Abdul Kalam were to come late, he has to stand behind me, neither can he expect to be given the front place nor will be he offered. We may out of respect make way for him as individuals, but, according to our religion, all are equal.' So, how did he respond to the school authorities, I asked him.

'I told them to classify my son as the lower most caste if need be as it didn't matter to me, but, they insist that in that case he will get a few benefits, so, I better get caste certificate. So, I told them to mark him as the highest caste possible, but, nor will they accept that for a Muslim, and insist that I produce a caste certificate. I don't want to accept caste, I don't think it is good for us, but, I am in a fix, I don't know what to do. I am not sure what to do'.

In one sense, Sardar is the real urbanite, he refuses to be reduced in his identity, he is happy if his child just gets an education, but, the education system wants him to create an identity that he is neither clear about not wants to adopt.

I didn't have a suggestion for Sardar. Do you?

Someone teaching Traditional Sciences in Chennai

2007-05-08T17:52:00.000+05:30

Just now found this blog of Mrs. Sujaritha teaching Vedic Mathematics in Chennai. Wonder how many more such people are there who teach various modern interpretation / variations of traditional sciences and technologies in and around chennai?

The Vedic Math Forum India Associate Blog: "The Vedic Math Forum India Associate Blog"

Anyone knows??

As the New Tamil Year ushers in an 'Integrated City', Felling of Trees, Disappeared Side walks continue

2007-04-15T21:11:00.000+05:30

The new tamil year came in with a large promotion of an 'integrated city' coming up in the neighbourhood...news papers carried special advertisement features, a popular filmstar was on television through the day promoting the same, there are hoarding all over the chennai city promoting an 'integrated city' in chennai.

This new 'city' promotes walking!!! The ad.s read, 'walk to work', 'walk for entertainment', 'walk to the club', 'walk to school',...and it promised a lot of greenery all around. It also claimed to be the first integrated city around the chennai city!

Strange suckers we are! A city that was to begin with had much walk ways (foot paths, platforms, whatever you call them), destroyed them systematically (and the cycle ways too in the process) to ensure that citizens were discouraged to walk, they were further discouraged to cross the roads through the building of large boulders for road medians with the authorities yet to decide where to have the zebra crossings, then we have the continuing chopping of trees (more are to be chopped in the coming week we are told in usman road, ttk road and other places) and all this to make way for 'customized' city where people can walk to work, walk to school, have greenery, walk to shopping...whew!

Gandhians in Chennai - some events

2007-04-05T16:37:00.000+05:30

The old Gandhian of Chennai often fighting the mighty single handedly, Sri. P.N. Srinivasan is planning a meeting to celebrate the centenary of Satyagraha at the Marina Beach at the Thilagar Thidal (this place is located behind the current subway near Kannagi Statue, a small cement platform where Bal Gangadhara Tilak had once addressed a public gathering - recognition and restoration is one of the causes that PNS fights for) on the 10th of April 2007 evening between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. If you are interested to meet some old (and a few not so old) Gandhians of Chennai please do make it.

I also wanted to mention two other events of Gandhian institutions in Chennai that I am aware of (and have tried to participate at some point):
1. The weekly book review that is held at the Gandhi Study Centre - this happens every wednesday evening between 6 - 8 p.m. Gandhi Study Centre is the one institution everyone knows thanks to the dynamic leadership of Sri. Annamalai and Smt. Prema Annamalai. All kinds of books are reviewed and on an average there are about 25 - 30 participants.

2. Gandhians meet at the Gandhi Mandapam every month on the last Saturday evening. This programme is again organized by Sri. PNS. I have been told that about 20 people turn up.

Photo Exbition on Tibet and the Tibetans in Chennai

2007-03-11T06:39:00.000+05:30

From the 10th to the 12th of March, a collection of photographs by photo-journalist Vijay Kranti is on at the Lakshana Art Gallery in Mylapore. I have had the opportunity to interact with the Tibetan student community (TSAM - Tibetan Students Association of Madras) in Chennai many years back when I accompanied them on an awareness cycle rally across the state and it was good occasion to renew oneself with one of the most peaceful struggles in the world when I attended the inauguration ceremony of the photo exhibition on the 10th March (yesterday).

Something interesting from the speech of the photographer, Mr. Kranti - he said that it is in India's interest to have a peaceful Tibet as that would cut down Indian government's expenditure on border maintenance with China! Wonder what would be a response to this from those who believe that India ought not to too overtly support Tibetan cause as it upsets our relationship with China and currently our relationship with China is important to us, etc.

Foreign Affairs are not easily discussed topics in students' circles in Chennai, but, cannot escape such discussion with the Tibetan students around. Some short good speeches were also given by two Professors, one from MCC and other from Madras University during the inauguration. In an otherwise technically oriented city, it is indeed a strong single community today where most of the students are studying arts and not sciences.

The exhibition itself is a mix of the photographer's effort to capture life in Tibet, in Lhasa particularly, some very moving scenes of the status of Tibetans (rather journalistic and almost casual in their captions, it could have done with more sensitive captions and less cliched ones), the life in exile in Dharamshala, Bailagoppa, Mussoorie, etc. If you are in Chennai and can spare some time, visit this exhibition.

Does Chennai Blog more than other cities??

2007-01-10T23:43:00.000+05:30

This news item caught my eye:

In blogging, Chennai scores over Mumbai

According to this Chennai has more bloggers than other IT cities in India...conservative Chennai eager to communicate? Tamilian like yapping for sure...forever arattai arangams of different natures are the proof.

But still inadequate is the number to generate a free tamil translation from english web page...surprisingly there are no on-line instant translation from english to tamil software!! These blogs that I write can be translated and read in quite a few other languages now (check it online, scroll to the end of the page for translation to Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, etc.), tried to find out who offers an Indian language translation, tamil in particular...no one!!!

Chennai Slums: The Role of the Judiciary

2006-12-29T14:45:00.000+05:30

In a sense, 2006 has been a year when a gradual transformation has taken place from a parliamentary democracy to a judicial courtocracy. More and more issues of public policy - be it the height of a dam or the areas to be sealed - are decided in courts and not in legislatures or cabinet meetings. The union cabinet can decide on reservation policies, the court is inclined to question them. Chief ministers can give the green signal to setting up special economic zones, public interest litigations can challenge the policy in court. Even MPs disqualified by parliament in the cash for questions sting can go to the court seeking redressal.
The above is from Rajdeep Sardesai, one of our most seen television faces in his blog.

Maybe, that is another view. But, then the judiciary doesn't have plans, doesn't have the systems in place to attend to issues and (notwithstanding some rare examples) is not meant to be pro-active. Like I said in my first write-up on this issue, the judiciary will have to give importance to speedy attendance to the issue presented in front of it rather than exploring all the dimensions of the case for the larger good of the citizen. Later in his piece RS argues that the nexus between the Judiciary and Media could play a vital role, I disagree. Currently, the most visible and vocal media is also the least informed and often least sensitive. Making News into Entertainment has meant that if there is a lack of visual content, then the news is not even worth reporting. With such dominant media and judiciary driven by other priorities, it is a strange nexus and if they result in delivery good, then it is not by design.

More on Chennai Slums: Example of what they are useful for...

2006-12-29T12:53:00.000+05:30

About 5.7 lakh people in Chennai with a monthly income of Rs. 2,000 or less will receive free dhotis and saris for Pongal.

This morning newspaper provides an example of what the urban slums are useful for. I wonder how many of this 5.7 lakh are part of the displaced population, quite a few of them seem to have ration cards. Would they still count of as BPL in Chennai metropolis, readily available for such largess by the politicians?

By the way, 5.7 lakh is more than 10% of Chennai population according to the Census of 2001.