Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Thank you, Proud Balija Naidu. You have given me my pedigree, have shown me why I am wrong and rewritten my history.
Hi Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan ! Are you a Ceylon Tamil (Demala) ? I am damn sure u are one. Only you Ceylon Demalas have this kind of name, i.e., Chandrachoodan. Only u Demalas want to vivisect India & create a greater Tamil Nadu. When u can’t defeat the tiny Lankan Army, how can u defeat our mighty Indian Army ? Ur stout leader Prabhakaran was axed to death. So, stop daydreaming. Your leader PERIYAR EVR belonged to our caste. U Tamils are good-for-nothing fellows. Only our Periyar liberated u Tamils from the clutches of the Brahmins. You Tamilians are useless bastards.
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Would you advice the honey collecting, hive building insect to ‘bee itself’?
A friend and I came up with this one this afternoon.
In the world of bees, there are no existential crises. To be or not to bee is not a question. For they are.
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Would glow-in-the-dark onions be described as bright bulbs?
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
Madras.
Thank you for all the fun. Thank you for the countless hours of pain and pleasure, of freedom and ambition, of company. Of being my muse in all my phases, through all the changes I had to necessarily go through. Happy birthday my friend.
C
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
What was the ol’ chestnut about distance and heart? True enough on broad concepts, it utterly fails to quantify the details, ignores the tree for the wood. I miss, miss Madras, and having the tangy salty air in my face and the chaos of morning traffic adding 20 minutes extra to my commute.
I also miss being hard pressed for time as I move from one event to the other during the Madras Week. Oh well. The Chennai PhotoWalk has been a fixture in the Madras Week calendar for the past couple years, and this year is no different. While Vatsan has reduced the number of Madras Week special walks (usually 3), the quality/significance of this year’s walks are not lessened. I’d say these are superb routes and great parts of the city to look at.
I highly recommend you attend the walk, at the cost of everything else.
Walk #1 – The 15th of August 2010
Reporting Point: Perambur Railway Station. End point: ICF
Time: 7 am
Perambur is a superb place to walk around in. I live (while in Madras) in Kelly’s and Perambur is a familiar haunt. The old houses, the beautiful railway quarters, the metal fences, the shrubbery and undergrowth that is at once chaotic and pleasing, the quaint streets (in parts) are all superb photo opportunities. Somebody tell me, has there been any progress at all on the flyover near the station?
Walk #2 – The 22nd of August 2010
Reporting Point: St Thomas Mount (outside steps leading to the Church). End at Veteran Lines
Time: 7 am
Another familiar haunt, St. Thomas mount and the area around it are, if one wants to believe certain stories, important settlement sites of early men. In any case, the area has superb history, and the architecture and landscape here make for good photos. Somebody please photograph the statue of Jesus looking out at the city, a-la Rio.
As always, for directions, further information and general stuff, call Vatsan on 9500070176 or 94449 99456.
And, if this point even needs to be made, don’t miss any of the Madras Week events. They are all superb and fantastic in their own ways, and in all the sense of those two terms. Here’s a calendar of events, try and squeeze in as much as possible.
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Madras. The twang of salt spray and drying kippers on the banks of the silted Buckingham canal can do nothing to lift my spirits. Neither can the hot sands that give my coast the name and brought trading Arabs and Englishmen here. Madras, the muse for this failed writer, has failed when I needed her the most.
Madras. As the day winds down and as men and women grope and grasp, anonymous and private in a place teeming with millions doing much the same, like Poe’s purloined letter, and as the crows give way to the cricket, as the phosphorous sea reflects distant ships and near rafts, the city that was more home than the four walls and a ceiling I live in, Madras and the Marina have reneged on an unworded but implicit contract. And I shuffle aimlessly, forlorn and lonely, among the sands and crabs.
The girl, as it always is about, she with the soft plump shoulders[1] and wiry frame, she of the coast and the valleys, does not know. Once, as I walked the back streets of my city, showing her why Madras would never be another place and more importantly, why no place could be Madras, her eyes dark and smouldering like the sea not more than a few streets from where we stood, throwing question marks at the patina-ed walls and yellowed leaves of the fishermen’s tenement. And making small talk with the old lady selling sundal and murukku (and for special folks, deep fried fish and prawns) and spinning tales of men lost to the sea and the spirits that posses dogs in the night as they walk the streets made of packed and tamped down mud.
I now walk that lane again, little rivulets of brackish water, as invisible as borders and as intractable, showing friends and foes, and neighbours, where was what and who could sit where. Here a rusted hand pump creaking, hesitant to give up that last litre of water, there a plastic drum which would later in the evening support a carrom board and four elbows and pitched battle under a naked light bulb. Weeds holding together grains of sand and nests of the turtles who have found yuppie support. In all this, with the restless waves crashing on an immovable beach, I am still uneasy and depressed. As again, the shoulders and the eyes and the freckled triangular face give me not a moment of quiet.
Madras. In a short while, the moon will feebly light up this dark stretch of coast, and lovers and smugglers will prepare for the night ahead. Men, world weary and muscle heavy, will scrape away the sand in search of buried treasure: sunda kanji. Madras. There it is, stretching west and gently rising up from the sea that caused it to be. Madras, with all her faults she cannot be faulted, but has failed today. The city that made me forget it all, makes me remember the one person and the one betrayal I want to forget. Madras, despite all that they say, beautiful in this half light, with the sea the zari to her sari, can do nothing more than reopen the old wound. I feel the pain all over again, fresh as it was many years ago.
[1]
எக்கர் ஞாழல் புள்ளிமிழ் அகன்துறை
இனிய செய்த நின்றுபின் முனிவு செய்த
இவள் தடமெல் தோளே.
~Ammuvanar, Ainkurunuru 143,
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Vatsan writes in.
This walk is along a classic Chennai route. It begins outside the Pallavan Headquarters opposite Gymkhana Club and near the Chindadripet railway station. Then we proceed to walk down past the new Secretariat, crossing the historic Simpson building, Kasturi & Sons, P Orr and Sons and the Daily Mail office. Finally the Bata Showroom, where Douglas Jardine, presumably* stayed while traveling to Australia for the Bodyline series. Beyond that is the Barath Insurance Building, which just got a new lease of life since the courts issued a stay order against its demolition. Finally, ending the walk near Augurchand Mansion opposite Spencers plaza.
Date: 24th July 2010
Time: 7 am
Meeting Point: Outside Pallavan Headquarters Mount Road
And incase anyone is lost please contact me on 9500070176/9444999456 or mail me @ sm.vatsan@gmail.com
PS: 24th July also happens to be the Worldwide Photowalk, and the Chennai Photowalk is a part of it.
*Um, not presumably. Factually. He and his team did stay at the D’Angeli’s hotel which was taken over by the Bosotto Bros, which company either became bankrupt or defunct, (though, they had (or still have) an outlet on Nungambakkam High Road, if my memory serves me right.) and the building became the Bata Showroom.
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