Madras Memoirs

Today (17 September 2024) The Hindu Newspaper carried a news story on page 2 that really broke my heart. It’s about the collapse of 4 starving workers from West Bengal at Chennai Central station. Apparently, they had come to Chennai and travelled up to Ponneri in the outskirts, seeking agricultural work, unable to find any, they decided to return to their native village. While waiting at the station, without food for 2 days, they collapsed on the platform no. 4 before the Chennai Corporation officials rescued and admitted them to hospital. While three others are stabilised, the condition of one worker is still critical and on ventilator support.  Several thoughts raced through my mind on reading this report. The very same newspaper carried full colour advertisements of Luxury cars and Grand Villa properties on the front pages. Obviously, these lavish full page advertisements show that there are people in this city, who could afford such insanely expensive properties and vehicles. Y...

I don’t understand the obsession of our people with the once ubiquitous but soon to be extinct paper tissues.  At restaurants, I see people grabbing a bunch of tissues and the small stand that holds the tissues neatly is empty in no time. The server may even happily bring you another cup of steaming hot sambar, but he will not bring another single tissue! In many small restaurants, issuing of paper tissues are highly regulated. In fact, you’ll get one handed over along with your change only at the cash counter. After you had duly paid - bypassing the stares of the bearer who served you the filter coffee and upma hoping for the elusive tips - the cashier will ceremoniously hand over a single 5x5’ inch crumpled tissue. When you visit the ‘hand-wash’ area, the moment the tissue stand is filled, there’ll appear from nowhere a dozen hands to grab them all – never mind that they had already wiped their hands clean on their pants or their duppattas – no gender disparity here.  The ...

As the year wound down to a battered end with muted celebrations, a prayer for a kinder 2021 is on everybody’s lips. Looking back at the horrendously sounding annus horribilis , it’s been a cruel, grim and yet a figthing gritty 2020 indeed. Once again undying human resilience and hope shone forth amidst the all encompassing darkness. Here is a quick round up of seven images that stood out during the year: 7. Chaos and Covidiots : Close on the heels of the pandemic, the other malaise of infodemic reared its ugly head. Tweets and WhatsApp forwards blitzed the cyber space and created chaos and havoc. Conspiracy theories and quack cures ruled the roost. Bizarre therapies like cow dung and cow urine were touted as ‘indigenous’ cure for covid and covidiots had a field day. As 2021 dawns on us, with a glimmer of hope in the form of vaccines, there seems to be no cure or let up from this spread of misinformation, half-truths and blatant lies. 6 . Social Distancing – what the hell is that?: F...

While scores of Chennai citizens are glued to TV and Netizens glued to their monitors or mobile phone screens to purportedly follow the Nivar Cyclone, I have a much simpler and more accurate way to forecast the weather for the day.  On days even when it’s a rain holiday in town and people are advised to stay at home it’s quite normal in my household for people to depend on me for their daily dose of weather bytes. My daughter would call out to me “ Appa, can i go out now ?’ without hesitation I would tell her  “ yes, you can go. There’ll be no rains today”. “Umbrella..?’ ‘Nah..! ’ Sometimes, it may be still bright outside with only a faint hint of dark clouds, and my daughter would be ready to dart out, I’ll tell stop her, ‘ don’t go out today, it’s going to rain or if you must, at least take an umbrella with you ” And so far, my weather predictions have worked without fail. If you are wondering if I have a supercomputer tucked away under my bed or if I have downloaded a soon-...

Good morning Friends Sharp at 9 am today, we huddled – sorry maintained social distancing  - in front of the TV to listen to PM’s address. We always switch on Doordarshan channel (no. 620 in Tata Sky) as they display  full transcript of his speech in English in real time and we can read it and understand his Sudh Hindi. But today,  the transcript was absent and we could not follow what he was saying. Other English and Tamil News channels were as usual showing Dettol and Lifebuoy advertisements. So, I quickly took out my notebook and started jotting down the words I could follow and made a list as follows: Panch April– that is 5th April Nau baje – 9’O clock (later I concluded it’s 9 pm) Bandh – as in Bharath Bandh where they close all shops, shutters and doors Then thankfully I heard quite a few English words like: Torch light, Lamps, candles, Mobile phones (he emphasised mobile phones) He also mentioned Ravivar and Diya – they must be some high ranking offi...

The 2010’s were surely a tumultuous and overwhelming decade for the common man. Our memories stretch longer than the queues that waited outside banks and ATMs in the bitter November of 2016. Demonetisation was a body blow from which some people have still not recovered. Before we could recover from the shock of our currency losing all its value overnight, further assaults were made to our democratic consciousness. As we close out this decade in a few days, we are forced to live with decisions that were brazenly thrust on unsuspecting citizens. I shudder at the thought of how many of us would be scrambling to gather pieces of paper to prove our citizenship as the new decade dawns on us. Perhaps few sections of our community may no longer live in India as the next decade plays out in time. Crimes against women was the highest this decade and made all of us hang our head in shame. The cry for instant justice is gaining momentum and vigilante justice is becoming the norm a...