Music on the move

It is no exaggeration that a ride on a train in this country will provide an interesting glimpse of the diversity of its social life.

On a suburban train, one can see those who have been generally failed by the Indian welfare system, starting with blind people trying to sell cheap plasticky stuff to earn a living, fruit vendors, mendicants, street performers and vagabonds.

I saw this girl with a slightly older boy and a woman, presumably all from the same family, performing minor contortionist tricks on the train. The boy and girl danced briefly to the beating of a drum by the woman, then wriggled through tight metal rings, before seeking alms from the passengers. After their first act, the children were fascinated by the sight of another train moving in the same direction on the adjacent track, its horn loudly blaring. They smiled at each other and momentarily suspended their circus.



To the credit of most people, they parted with at least 50 paise, and I was quite sure that if this troupe could carry on with its act regularly (though that would be possible only until the kids remained 'small') they would at least stave off hunger.

A information entrepreneur

It was funny to read in The Hindu the other day, that Chennai's monopoly bus operator, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation does not have a printed bus guide.

It was funny because the MTC many years ago produced not just a guide giving route information, but even a good system map. It appears that as technology advances, policy regresses and a well-run transport network has gone to seed.

Back to the question of travel and transit guides, I found an entrepreneur on board a Tambaram - Beach suburban train selling an interesting pocket guide for the wholly affordable price of three rupees. Besides a set of time-tables for the suburban rail system, it has details of the State Express Transport Corporation bus services, emergency phone lines for hospitals, 24-hour pharmacies and call taxi companies.

The guide contains the following address: English Tamil Publications, 29.81, Red Hills Road, Opposite Gupta Convent, Villivakkam, Chennai 49. Phone: (044) 2617 4439.

This nifty guide suggests that it would make an ideal hand-out for trade unions, film fan associations, political parties, residents welfare associations and so on. I completely endorse the value of such a publication.

Stone surprise

It is intriguing that the passage leading to the Kodambakkam suburban railway platforms presents a solid concrete stone bang in the centre. They are puzzled because the stone serves no apparent purpose.

Remember that at dusk, this passage is plunged in darkness and unless you are a regular commuter, you may not be able to spot this stone. The results of such failure are all too imaginable.

In the background is the staircase leading to the platforms. More about that later. I am riding a lot of trains these days and have come to call these staircases the "42 steps."

Here are a few pictures from the past couple of days. This is what Chennai's suburban railway looks like. More to come, of course.

A three car train that runs between Thirumailai (Mylapore) and Chennai Beach:

The new train information system installed with the sign "on trial" at Kodambakkam station. It did not appear to be too accurate and as you can see, there is no clock in the board itself. You would have walk further on the same platform to spot the clock! If this system had been electronic (as it is in airports and even some major Indian railway stations) many display terminals could be connected to show the same information. So why is the wheel being reinvented?

The inside of some of the more recently introduced trains on the Chennai suburban railway looks like this. Considering the ramshackle past, this is welcome, but it lacks system maps and wastes opportunities to communicate useful information to a large commuter population. Note the man squatting in the passage (partly seen). Quite common in Indian trains.

The railroad - the sensible road ahead

As the Americans call it, it is the railroad. We know it as the suburban train, and in London, it is the tube. To many others, the modern versions are the Metro trains.

Whatever moniker suits you, the train does a lot of good to Chennai. Only, it is still in its antiquated Victorian state, rather than modernise with the times just as the Ambassadors and Fiats have given way to the Marutis, Hondas, Fords, Skodas and Toyotas. Of course, Chennai's buses also remain hopelessly primitive and the design of even new bus bodies obsolete.

As someone who uses trains everywhere (I have had occasion to use urban rail in London, New York, Washington DC, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Hong Kong) I cannot help noticing the miserably archaic train system that we have in Chennai.

The only redeeming thing about the train is its capacity to carry a large number of people. Otherwise, it is simply, hopelessly outdated in terms of infrastructure and operations.

Here is a glimpse of a station for the most recently introduced train, running on the Mass Rapid Transit System line:

To be fair, this is Fort Station, which is at the surface level. Half a kilometre from here, the MRTS goes on to an elevated section.
But look at the non-working clock, the lack of any signages for passengers indicating basic train information. The ticketing systems are simply pathetic. One has climb a steep flight of stairs to reach the ticketing office and then move to the MRTS platform.
An example of the ticketing offices of the suburban train system in Chennai is this one, at Kodambakkam on the Beach -- Tambaram line.


This office is deep inside the station, on the platform. The downside to that placement is that if you have a train coming in, you would have to sprint up to the office, to get your ticket and then jump on to the train. Being entirely manual, the ticket system is slow, involving a queue in most cases.


The worst disincentive to using the suburban railway system is the lack of automation in the form of escalators to reach the platforms. The approach to the suburban train stations, particularly those on the Beach - Thiruvanmiyur section, is invariably dark, dank and dirty. This puts off many potential travellers.

Car-free Sunday

A week after the Hyundai Elantra knocked my car out of circulation, it was another Sunday. On a day like this, you become aware of how severely car-dependent you are, because India's (more particularly, Tamil Nadu's) policymakers have all but abandoned expansion of bus systems. Trains don't really present an alternative except for long distance commuting. That leaves us with autorickshaws.

Chennai's unregulated autorickshaw business is well-known. It is one of the costliest cities when it comes to hiring such intermediate transport. The fares approximate to between Rs.12 and Rs.15 a kilometre, arguably the highest in the country. The Governments led by both Ms.Jayalalithaa and Mr.Karunanidhi have over the last decade all but abandoned the need to regulate such feeder transport systems.

There is thus no functioning law governing autorickshaws. If you have lived here long enough, you know where you can bargain more effectively and save a few rupees. Trying to hail a crusing autorickshaw in most neighbourhoods is simply useless because the drivers recognise a monopoly principle for stand autorickshaws. Only after your negotiation with the local stand autorickshaws can you hire one that is cruising (and may hence make a more reasonable fare demand).

One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the long shadow of political parties on the transport sector. Let me explain: the major Dravidian parties saw early enough that given their inability to generate employment in most other sectors, urban transport was a means of providing a livelihood to the party faithful.

Thus, autorickshaw permits are secured by the middle rung city political leaders (and sometimes by those associated with leading film personalities) and the autorickshaws are handed over to people from the lowest strata to operate. Given the lack of education and any system of oversight, a high degree of lumpenisation exists in the sector. In fact, in the early 1990s, autorickshaws became the symbols of lumpen-led attacks on political and other opponents. The autorickshaws also demonstrate their affiliations on the vehicles in the form of flags, stickers of party colours, photos of the leaders and so on, all in violation of the Motor Vehicles Act rules. At the same time, few of them have functioning brake lights, headlights, windscreen wipers and indicators, as required under the MV Act.

Is it this vested interest the reason for not expanding the city's bus system, which has grown at the rate of about 100 buses a year for a decade, to serve a metropolis that has expanded in residential population terms by about a million and half people, and in area by a radius of 20 km in that period?

The robust economic growth of the country has accelerated the demand for transport in Chennai, but the Governments have preferred to encourage private vehicle ownership over provision of public alternatives. Private participation in Chennai's transport system is seen as politically unacceptable, although the families of Dravidian politicians own powerful private television networks both in India and abroad.

More on this later. Meanwhile, my car-free Sunday cost me and family Rs.200 by way of autorickshaw and bus fares.

Beyond the car windows

For most city drivers, the world outside their car windows is a distant and remote place. But many such coccooned citizens in fancy cars come face-to-face with the inconvenient reality everyday.

I am talking about the scores of women and children who frequent the traffic intersections in Chennai, appealing to those inside the cars to buy vehicle-cleaning cloth, ear buds, in-car fancy dolls and other assorted stuff.





On Independence Day, I saw this woman who was going from car to car, trying to sell miniature India's national flag displays. These are usually intended to be kept on the dashboard, a public show of patriotism in a land that has failed many of its citizens even after nearly six decades of independence.

It is always worrying that some of these women and their children might come in harm's way, as they keep flitting between vehicles and scurry off just as the lights turn green.

Yellow line fever

I remember the film White Line Fever, in which monstrous trucks race across America. The world has changed a lot and it is now possible to track down crazed drivers, but in Chennai, it is now Yellow Line Fever.

You might wonder what the purpose of these lines are. Police personnel occasionally take the trouble of painting these lines, continuous yellow or broken yellow and broken white lines that are supposed to mean something to drivers.

But not in Chennai.

Look at the response of drivers to plastic bollards that have been placed by traffic police on Anna Flyover at Gemini, and you get an idea of what I mean.

Earlier, we had traffic ignoring the double yellow lines painted on the flyover, and going the wrong way into T.Nagar. They closed that entry at night, because vehicles began to have head-on collisions.

Then, the police have a set of cones on the lines, to demarcate the two halves of the road. Many of those cones were crushed by drivers with impunity. After all, what do a few cones mean in a city that has no rules? People don't even stop at red lights here!



So the police got plastic bollards, thin red cylinders about a couple of feet tall. We have seen even these getting crushed, because no one in the traffic police is ready to wait on the flyover and get the Mad Maxes who are knocking them down and crushing them!

Look at the Lancer car in the picture, straddling the broken white lines, ignorant of what they are supposed to mean. The British brought the automobile to India, but they never taught Indians what lane discipline means. If you are getting very hot under the collar because I talk of the British, why not show me Indian leaders who have done better?

Rooftop riders, only this is not an open top tourist bus!

How do you like this picture of some youths of Chennai riding on top of a city bus, celebrating in a style that may not be common in much of the civilised world?

Riders do hang out of buses for want of space during peak hours, but I watched these urchins generally making a nuisance of themselves and keen on attracting attention through such antics. But in a country where it is difficult even to get your 15 minutes of fame, perhaps they don't have much choice!

Footpaths for whom? Surely, not for advertisement billboards!

It was Independence Day and I was out on the road, without a car but many a care.

My mobile phone camera kept clicking pictures of Mera Bharat Mahaan. In a bus, looking at the dirty Cooum (river) behind the posh Connemara Hotel... Here is one picture of what is left of the footpath or sidewalk at Chennai's best known junction, Arts College.

If it will impress you, this atrocity on pedestrians has been perpetrated with the help of the World Bank, which has been loaning funds to the Tamil Nadu Government in the name of improving civic infrastructure!

Chennai roads, senseless drivers and South Korean indifference

I had started this blog after a bad accident in which the personal driver (Indian) of a Korean executive of the Hyundai company rammed an Elantra car into my small, meek, fuel-sipping Maruti 800 car on August 13, 2006.

That post seems to have disappeared, so I am trying to recreate it here.

As a buckled-up, bespectacled and somewhat timid (on the road) driver who is always at odds with the drive-as-you-please Chennai traffic, my experience on the road took a great turn for the worse on that day.

A small town fellow, who gave his name as just Ravi proved my worst fears about Chennai traffic true. This ill-trained person at the wheel of a shiny wine red Elantra jumped the red signal at the junction of Music Academy on Radhakrishnan Salai and rammed his car into the side of my six-year old Maruti.

I was following the green light and going with two occupants in the car towards Marina.

Unlike the God after whom my pint sized car is named, the Maruti is a weakling when it comes to meeting metallic monsters in road combat.

Therefore, this is the result:



If you looked around the car, you would find that it does not have any dents elsewhere, in the six years that it has been on the road.

All that it took to spoil that reputation is one "classic" Indian driver called Ravi. This man said he has a licence issued in Arni, a small textile town in northern Tamil Nadu not particularly famous for the civic sense of its drivers. Surely, not now.

The occupant of the Elantra at the time of the accident, a Korean woman was completely engrossed in her own affairs, and she was content, as we found, talking to someone on the phone seated in the luxurious car. It mattered little to her that her personal driver had nearly killed three people after jumping a red light.

Perhaps people don't bother about traffic lights in South Korea - or at least, those who are executives in Hyundai motors don't. What is worse, Koreans don't seem to have basic courtesy, if this lady is a model South Korean.

If you are upset reading this particular part of the post, then you should sit inside one of the cars that Hyundai uses (presumably they do) for crash tests. It might give you some idea of what it feels like to be banged against some object.

Anyway, back to Ravi, who kept repeating after the accident that he was driving a car that belonged to a "Hyundai owner," which was shorthand for the few traffic policemen who had gathered, that his employer was an influential person. So watch out, he was essentially telling them.

Since my own car belongs to a major newspaper in this city, the police were in something of a quandary. They were relieved, in the event, to hear that they would only have to issue a certificate for insurance purposes, and not register a First Information Report and pursue the case and prosecute Ravi.

All this should give you an idea of what Chennai roads are like, when it comes to -- sorry for the pun -- crunch. Incidentally, the road where the crash took place leads to the houses of both the present and former (and possibly the future) Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu.

I called up a colleague and he sought the good offices of a senior police officer to get the insurance certificate issued quickly. After all, since Ravi was going to go scot free despite attempting to murder three people using a Hyundai Elantra, why waste time with the formalities?

So a somewhat bored head constable was asked to accompany me as I drove the battered Maruti several kilometres, to the J 2 Adyar Traffic Investigation unit at Besant Nagar. The certificate took only a short while to obtain. One must remember that the accident had taken place in full view of three or four traffic policemen, and at least 20 law and order reservists who were sitting inside a police truck, at the Music Academy junction. Why had not a single policeman stopped Ravi is of course less of a mystery, because that is the way Chennai (and much of India) works.

In all of this, I must say that the seat belts of the Maruti really did their job. Neither me nor my kid in the front left seat (the side that took the hit) were shaken seriously, but a passenger in the back was thrown to the opposite side and left with some minor sprains and bruises in one arm. So never drive without the seat belt fastened.

If you wanted to look at the stupidly driven Hyundai Elantra car this is it:



The boot is ajar because the broken bumper of the car has been placed inside by the deviant driver.

Let me say at this point that I don't care much for cars, and think they are all contraptions that are only useful to get from point A to B. In fact, I believe it is criminal to sell such monsters in large numbers in a poor country like India (yes, despite the tall talk of India shining and superpower status etc), to drink up precious fuel for the pleasure of a few (like the lone Korean woman inside this one), while the bulk of the people in Chennai are sweating it out in ramshackle buses and overcrowded trains. Perhaps if we had air-conditioned buses and trains operating at affordable fares (without long waiting times), and they were funded by taxing such profligate consumers, I would not feel so bad.

All of which brings me to my pet raves and rants.

I am a proud advocate of public transport, car pools, ride shares, congestion charging and costlier fuel. I just love those good trains, buses, trams and the wide sidewalks (or footpaths if you wish).

You will find these themes recurring in this blog. So don't go away!

More on the Hyundai car crash episode

I thought I should share the police certificate on the car crash. Here it is, in pdf form. If you drive a vehicle and haven't seen a certificate from police to claim insurance after an accident (involving no injury, because if someone is injured, an FIR is registered).



Given the credibility of the enforcement mechanism of India's Motor Vehicles Act rules, the rash, negligent and arrogant driver of this car will not pay any penalty, other than the palm greasing that he did on the day of the accident. What is worse, he quickly sought the help of a off-duty constable to plead his case with me, urging that I should only ask for insurance money, and not file an FIR which would lead to a police investigation. Helps everybody, doesn't it? So Ravi can drive another of these cars stupidly and crash into another guy like me. Anyway, companies like Hyundai are there to bail out such untrained drivers who are employed practically as manservants in the house of the executives

Here's why Onyx stinks

We all know that Onyx, the international "waste specialists" who claim to have the best environment technologies elsewhere in the world, work only to transport trash in Chennai from houses to a dump in South Chennai, at Perungudi.

I have a picture of an Onyx three wheeler piled high with trash, most of it rotting vegetable waste, speeding up on G.N.Chetty Road.
So here's the image. Today is Wedneseday, August 16. This is the way Onyx carries much of the trash from parts of Chennai to the transfer stations, and from there, it is carted to the dump.