Chennai Times

' 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 ...

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 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 ...

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 th...

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 ...

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...

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 zoomin...