In Chennai, all cars are bumped

You see those nice car ads on television and ultimately decide to take the plunge. You drive off a spanking new, shiny, smooth piece of metal from the automobile dealership, the celebratory tape on the bonnet telling the world that you have decided to make the traffic jam worse by at least one car.

In Chennai, you then realise that your shiny contraption is destined to soon look battered and bruised. Your relatives don't see the point in avoiding driving into the mad whirl of T.Nagar. So you inch along, with autorickshaws that look like noisy garbage cans threatening to test your nerve. Large garbage trucks crowd you out, semi-literate drivers in three-wheeled carriages rush at you...you feel that you and your new car are in a nasty PC game that could be called "Monster Chennai Traffic" or something.

THUMP! Your rear bumber has finally been put to the test. Behind you is either a crazed motorcyclist who wants to drive through you, or an Indicab taxi, or sadly, a very literate stupid middle class moron driving, mostly, a battered piece of junk.

That's what happened to me in my new Alto today. There was this stupid out-of-towner in his white junk-like Maruti 800 (TN 38 F 4955) who just thumped his car into the back of my stationary Alto in front of Chennai's nuclear traffic generator, Saravana Stores, in Panagal Park.

"Sorry," said the culprit. He was so nervous that he quickly sped away.

Luckily, the Alto has been designed for backside hits from middle class morons driving mobile junk. So it showed only a couple of scratches, although the laws of Physics tell me that some of that energy from our moronic friend's Maruti 800 has indeed been transferred to the bolt holding the Alto bumper. It won't hold very well if it is repeatedly targeted by more morons.

But it is not just me in this sort of position.

The next time you are on the road, or better still in a parking lot, look at all the cars and you will find that they all have that bruised look, particularly in the bumpers and on the fenders.

Which is why I believe that many of us should be abandoning the car and taking to the bus and the train. Those who insist on driving should be made to pay extra, so that the money will go towards buying more Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses and suburban and MRTS trains and operating them at sane fares.

Until that happens, we will have only bruised cars, new and old. Don't be fooled by all those girls who feel a little naughty and want to rub some sun tan in an Indica...or by the leather jacketed girl who is overcome by the sexuality of the widebodied Logan. Neither the girls nor those roads exist in real life. On the road with your new car, it is morons that are behind you, ahead of you...all around you.

No MRTS on weekends

It would have been the kind of interesting "view from the sky" ride that one normally pays heavily for in a theme park. From Chintadripet, in the centre of Chennai, to Adyar (Thiruvanmiyur) in the Southeast on the elevated MRTS.

I wanted to ride the MRTS to listen to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on the subject of "Health and the Society." It would have been a dream to go on the elevated train to the Adyar point just opposite the venue, which was Voluntary Health Services.

Sadly, Dr. Sen's lecture was on a Saturday and for some strange reason, the Mass Rapid Transit System of Chennai does not operate between Thirumayilai (Mylapore) and Thiruvanmiyur during the weekends. What a shame.

Ultimately, I carpooled with a colleague, and a friend joined us. The only achievement we could speak of was the use of one car instead of three.

If the folks at the Indian Railways Fan Club do read this, can they campaign for the unsung MRTS, please?

I imagine that if the Railways were less greedy and more sensible, they would price their MRTS at two rupees flat for a ride, and run trains every five minutes, potentially packed to capacity.

Too bad the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad is getting so much attention for good performance without really doing anything about this train system and the "stiff upper lip" Southern Railway bureaucracy could not care less.

Lalu, Harvard, Wharton, IIMs...

Union Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's contribution to the so-called turning around of the Indian Railways is now the subject of study by two business schools, Harvard and Wharton.

There are few materials available on record to show that Mr. Yadav has implemented any special management measures that have led to a profitable spell for the railways.



By most accounts, the Minister has been wise enough to leave the running of the gargantuan railway system to the somewhat reclusive set of professionals who make up the Indian Railway Technical Service and the Indian Railway Accounts Service.

As I have been repeatedly pointing out, Mr. Yadav and his less prominent deputy in the Ministry, Mr. Velu have done little for the Mass Rapid Transit System in Chennai. The picture shows it all. There is a lot of real estate in the MRTS stations, such as Chintadripet here. But it is completely wasted because the only occupants of the neglected building are some transport contractors and parcel agents for bus operators.

On most days, the approach to the station is dark, the entrance obscured from view by a proliferation of bushes and storm drains without covers that people fall into.

Not the kind of rail transit system that someone from Harvard or Wharton would imagine Mr. Yadav is running at a profit, or come to think of it, even at a loss.

Metro railway for Chennai

At long last, it appears (just appears) that Chennai is moving ahead with a Metro rail project.

Here is A.Srivathsan's report in The Hindu on it.

If the DMK government is intelligent (which is unlikely in its present avatar) it will built a solid metro for the city and stake its claim to have revolutionised mobility in Chennai. The first step of involving the DMRC is positive, but the future course is hazy at present.

Srivathsan makes the important point that the MRTS in Chennai in a sort of stupor because the State Government sees no stake in it, and a similar attitude to the metro rail, bus and suburban rail options in the future will create another dysfunctional system. So far, the State Government has not shown any interest to go beyond its atrophied bus monopoly, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation.

Sadly, the two dravidian parties and the palsied Congress in Tamil Nadu cannot bring themselves to think beyond the immediate future and the filthy lucre that they can make from deals. The other parties, including those professing green credentials, only give the impression that they are perpetrating an elaborate hoax on the State.

There are others also who think that cheaper cars are not the answer to Chennai's mobility problem, metros and buses are. Here is a blog post that reflects this view.