Polam rei...

It's the war cry that nearly every citizen of the fair city of Chennai who's ever had the misfortune of traveling in the city's buses is well aware of. Varying in pitch and intensity from a Nordic growl to a Singaporean pip-squeak, it is the cry that conductors spend hours practicing. And the finely tuned ears of Chennai's bus drivers have honed their aural skills to a fine pitch, waiting for this specific battle cry which signifies the moment to slam down hard on the accelerator with their rubber/leather thong sandals and start flexing their muscles to coax the stick shift into what is nearly always second gear.Yet, bus drivers in Chennai are just another class of poor drivers on the road.

What irks me though is how the poor bus drivers of Chennai seem to have their brethren elsewhere in the state of Tamilnadu as well. Especially on her highways. On my recent road-trip to Chennai and back, what I did notice, or rather what struck me as the poster child for poor driving were the state transport buses in Tamilnadu. The red or blue ones, with almost everyone of them registered in TN29 or TN30 plates. What makes them the worst highway drivers ever, you ask?

For starters, although the roads in the cities of India are death traps in the guise of pathways, where danger lurks in every corner and safe or good driving is an Utopian dream, the GQ highways are another matter. At least here the vehicles follow the lane system (actually, lane marking exist here). And the slower trucks move on the left. Except of course for our friends from Tamilnadu. They drive their buses at 60kms per hour on the right lane where everyone is traveling at 100kms per hour. And they have no compunction for doing so. Everbody else be damned, I will drive as I please. On the fast lane, at 60 kmph. Come the next town for a bus stop, and they swerve to the left lane; pick up passengers and promptly head back to the right lane. Why don't you guys have any common sense?

Of course the worst situation is when you have a truck on the left lane and a Tamilnadu state transport bus on the right. Both moving at the same speed, both hogging the entire road. Of course, the truck has nowhere to go. Pissed off that other vehicles can actually go faster than he can, the bus driver from Tamilnadu refuses to back down and switch to the left lane. So you're stuck waiting for a sliver of space to open up while one vehicle is a few meters behind the other and then you make your move. You do have one truck at 42 kmph trying to overtake another at 40 kmph, but at least they move out of the way when they're done. Not a pleasant experience when you have to slow from a 100 kmph speed to 40 kmph, but better than the kind of shite that you have to endure with TN bus drivers. What a load of bozos.

Madras Musings - When Chennai was still Madras

On Wednesday afternoon I was strolling down the footpath on North Usman Road in T.Nagar. I'd just finished lunch at Ganga hotel (of Ganga color xerox fame). I was amused by the fact that there were a couple of folks from 'North India' seated behind me and having lunch with their Tamil colleagues. I couldn't help but overhear. One of the guys was telling his Tamil colleague that 'Chennai hotels have different types of rice'. Much to my and the colleague's confusion. Then he explained, 'Sambar rice, Lemon rice, Curd rice.'. Oh. Like that.

Anyways, lunch completed, I was strolling back in the relatively mild December sun of Chennai, contemplating the ugly monstrosity of a 'mini-flyover' that has been built to bridge N.Usman road with Mahalingapuram. Bloody shame, I felt. At least some places were as before. Like Ganga hotel. And as I was walking along the pavement, I was thinking that there was a time when that part of Madras did not even have pavements, let alone ugly flyovers. My earliest memory of a pavement harks back to school days. My friends and I used to save the 50p, later revised to 70p bus fare and walk the 3-4 kms home. And there were no footpaths from Habibullah Road till Meenakshi college, save for the walking path on Kodambakkam bridge. And then one day in 93-94, we saw trucks emptying cement slabs on the existing 'footpath'. And lo and behold, in about 3-4 months lots of places in Chennai were proudly sporting paved footpaths. And one of my recollections of that period was how the cement slabs had the year of manufacture stamped on it. I was curious to see if the ones in N.Usman road were from that lot. Sure enough, I found one slab with MC 94 within a ellipse stamped on it. 94 for the year. C for Corporation. M for when Chennai was still called Madras.

Cheers. And have a happy new year.

P.S.: I couldn't think of a better title for this post. Sorry to rip it off so shamelessly from what is (was?) undoubtedly one of the best columns on Madras carried by the venerable 'The Hindu' newspaper.

P.P.S: Just got back from a 4 day trip (down memory lane) to Madras. I had 2 days of employer leave to be availed this calendar year, and I felt that spending it in Madras, catching up with old friends would be a nice way to end 2009 and ring in 2010. I drove down from 'Namma Bengaluru' on Wednesday (30 Dec). Fairly quick drive; left at about 7 am and reached Porur around noon. Guess it was lucky as well, considering the chaos that Bangalore was thrown into by the death of a local movie star. Again, return trip was fairly uneventful. Started around 11 AM from Madras, reached home by 4:30 PM. Did use the GQ NH4/NH46/NH7 route both ways.

Chennai (1) - Mumbai (0)

This morning, I read about Aditi and Aalif's struggle to register the birth of their newborn without providing any sort of religious identity. You can read about it here

This is precisely what I've been advocating vocally to my friends and other sundry folks for long. Why should the religion of parents be fostered upon the child? It is absurd that (like caste) a child should also acquire the religious identity of the parents. I've long felt that it is totally and utterly ridiculous, just like the actual concept of religion itself.

Imagine you consider yourself a devout Hindu today. In India's pseudo-tolerant society of today, you're probably then also a closet (or open) basher of other religious faiths. Yet, your own religious identity is a fluke of your birth. Just as you cannot choose your parents, you've not chosen your religion. You could have just as easily been born into a non-Hindu household and then you would have had a non-Hindu upbringing and a non-Hindu religious identity.

Religion as a concept seems very irrelevant to me. While I understand and appreciate the nature of excellent social work performed by religious organizations worldwide, the ultimate price that we've paid for it in today's society is huge.

Let's go back to Aditi and Aalif's quandary. I had the same issue when taking up mu first job. There was a column in the registration form for 'Religion'. I put down 'None'. Imagine my complete and utter frustration 2 years later when I found out that I was branded a Hindu by the folks in HR. Why? Because the SAP HR system in my company did not have an option for 'None'. And because I have what is a Hindu sounding name, some bozo in HR thought it appropriate to brand me as Hindu. I tried to get this reverted, but to no avail. And this was not some small fly-by-night IT operator. At that time, it was India's fourth largest software company. What was more incredulous is that this was in the private sector, and not some government body.

Interestingly, I dug up my birth certificate issued by the Corporation of Madras in 1983. There is no mention of any religion there. Actually, it does not even have my name printed on it! Are we moving backwards, or is the Mumbai Corporation just ages behind the Chennai Corporation? For more on how Chennai rocks, read this.