Chennai traveller infomation: How to buy travel passes for MTC buses
I had recently put together a brief presentation on this subject, and here it is.

Chennai Roads presents roads in Chennai, Bangalore

Here is another visual representation of the urban mess that India is...

What the inside of a gated community looks like

Here are some photos of a much-publicised gated community site on Mount - Poonamallee Road, near Ayyappanthangal.

We don't know whether the promised Spanish villas have come up yet...

Jeeva Nagar, Chennai: Using Youtube to expose

The media battle today is centred round eyeballs. Television, the Internet and print newspapers are all competing for reader and viewer attention, to the point of screaming their messages and using a variety of lures to attract an audience.

So how do you get your message across in all this din?

The residents of a residential layout in Chennai's suburbs next to Mangadu and Poonamallee, called Jeeva Nagar, have hit upon the idea of using Youtube to broadcast their own 41 second film on their problems.

Earlier, they used the Right to Information Act, 2005 to get important information from the Mangadu Town Panchayat about the state of their layout and plans for development.

See the short video. The scene is nothing exceptional for Indians, although land here now costs about five million rupees a ground! The Mangadu Town Panchayat apparently does not care, although it expects its pound of flesh whenever a building permission application is filed by a Jeeva Nagar property owner. What is interesting is that this has become a film, titles, credits and all.

Small stories about people and places

New media can tell many micro stories easily. Anyone with an interest in his surroundings and a small camera phone in hand knows that. Unlike the high power, bloated presence of television, the keen video blogger can achieve a lot more.

Here is the first of a series of videos that tell those small stories about life in India. These stories will be about small and big men. Many of these themes are too familiar to excite Indians. When put in context, they say a lot for a global audience.

This is the scene of Chennaiites returning home under trying circumstances. Pocket-picking gangs proliferate in these packed situations. Hopes are lost, as are fortunes. Governments don't care much.

These people must just pay their taxes and hope that somehow their lot will be transformed one fine day...

Tanker lorry in hit and run in Chennai: Look out for PY 01 Q 2377

A white tanker lorry involved in a car hit-and-run case escaped in traffic on Kamarajar Salai today, November 22, 2007 around 11.15 a.m.

If you want details, you can mail me.

The hit and run vehicle PY 01 Q 2377 did not cause injuries but damaged a car on the road and escaped. It is possibly involved in some criminal activity. Since the tanker did not heed the signal of road users to stop all along Kamarajar Salai from All India Radio to Napier Bridge, it is most probably involved in some illegal activity.

If you own this vehicle, you should report to Police, if not the insurance company for this tanker should respond. This tanker is not fit for insurance and it is driven by people who do not know driving and are probably not properly licensed.

Members of the public should report the sighting of this tanker to police, urging a proper investigation into its activities.

A call was made to Police on the emergency number 100 today at about 11.25 a.m. but there was no response and the control room did not respond to the call which apparently dropped.

Such vehicles must be refused insurance and pulled off the road, and their rash and negligent drivers arrested for prima facie illegality because they cause economic loss to the country in general and law-abiding individuals in particular.

These drivers make motor vehicle insurance meaningless, because they cause avoidable claims and affect those with unavoidable insurance claims. The operation of nationalised motor vehicle insurance through compalies such as the United India Insurance, National Insurance and others is bankrupted by such drivers, although these companies are partly to blame themselves for not insisting on proper enforcement by the Police and the installation of closed circuit television cameras along roads to fix responsibility.

It is also strange that the Chennai City Police control room did not respond to the call on an emergency number. Even if it was cut off due to call drop, the Police should have used the caller ID and returned the call immediately.

Mobile phones, accessories and competition in Chennai

The mobile phone industry is growing so fast in Chennai that consumers are getting ripped off in many ways. One of the areas in which they are being bled is high-priced accessories such as spare chargers and hands-free sets.

But I discovered at the Essar and Virgin co-branded The Mobile Store that you can get travel chargers for Rs.99 and hands free sets for Rs. 99 (single ear piece) and Rs.149 for the stereo sets from iBuddy. The audio quality is not bad, and the price is certainly a pittance compared to the avarice that guides the pricing of "originals" from the big names such as Nokia (they want Rs.800 to Rs.1300 for wired handsfree sets).

It is possible that there will be safety questions raised about these products (which would remind us about Hewlett Packard warning us not to refill our printer cartridges and instead fork out a lot more for their "originals").

What about explosions in off-brand mobile spares, some might counter. Frankly, I don't know. The Mobile Store avers that these are safe. Moreover, a hands-free cannot explode, and chargers seem a remote candidate for an explosion because they don't contain any recharging chemistry. But you decide.

Travelling Wise, in Chennai

Information, they say, is power. It is also money. If you have to travel in Chennai without catastrophic expenditure, you must have the best tips on low cost mobility.

One of those is the "Travel As You Please" passes offered by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, commonly referred to as the MTC.

I have put together a presentation on Google's new online presentation utility, on this. Actually, this kind of travel information should be publicised by the MTC proactively. Because they will not do it (although the National Urban Transport Policy of the UPA Government expects them to do so), I have done my bit.

With some time and effort, it can be expanded and hopefully will help many passengers travel wise. At present, I am only discussing the passes. I will add other aspects in future...

Free transport to fight climate change



One of the fundamental ideals of any Green is the promotion of universal access to the basic necessities of life. Mobility is one of these, and so it is natural to advocate universal access to free or near-free public transport, paid for by taxes.

Although this would appear to be an extremist viewpoint, one that would win little support from the majority of people, there are indeed many who support it around the world. The latest vote in favour of free public transport comes from the people of Australia, who have participated in a poll on the issue, in the context of climate change.

Lowering greenhouse gases requires reduction in the use of personal vehicles. We need more trains, buses, trams and bicycles. The Greens Party Senator in Australia, Kerry Nettle reports that the majority of Australians are indeed in favour of free public transport funded by tax monies.

London is already using taxes to pay for augmented public transport (if not free) and the Mayor of New York has come to the same realisation. When will our politicians wake up to the reality that improving public transport will improve the climate, reduce road accidents that kill and maim helpless people and lead to a better quality of life for all?

We in India need a carbon tax on private vehicles TODAY!

MTC responds to RTI Act petition

The usually recalcitrant Metropolitan Transport Organisation of Chennai, the monopoly bus operator has responded to a petition under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) seeking information on its Travel As You Please passes.

Chennairoads believes that one of the simplest solutions to improved commuting and tourist movement in Chennai is to popularise travel cards. These cards should be sold the way SIM cards, recharges and and top ups are being done, for mobile telephones.

That might be a tall ask as of now, because of MTC's 'sarkari' bent of mind. The Corporation exists to provide employment to several thousand people, not for the mobility needs of a six million population, it would appear.

Anyway, here is the link to the information provided by MTC.

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.

Why Dell deals are nothing extraordinary

Computer maker Dell's India executives are bullish about its fortunes, with the impending opening of a manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.

The international outlook for the company now led by its founder Michael Dell is less rosy, and "Dell Continues to Sink" as this blog from the New York Times indicates.

As someone who bought an expensive Vista Home Premium-preloaded Dell desktop recently, I was surprised at the impersonal way in which the company deals with its customers. One must grant Dell a reasonably high level of efficiency in order taking and supply, but after that, the company does not seem to be really concerned about the customer. The salesman from Hewlett Packard called me three times and promised total on-site support, but I declined that order because I thought the Dell way was superior. Wrong.

Dell has overpriced but not cutting-edge hardware, such as graphics cards, on offer. But if you buy your own card, they will not instal it for you. What kind of service is that?

We don't expect any long-term handholding by Dell. But we do expect basic courtesy and customer support. Without that, Dell will sell fewer PCs, despite opening a new plant in Sriperumbudur.

Mission Impossible : Chennai minus fly swarms

What tropical country can afford to be without its swarms of insects, which make up the famed biodiversity of these Southern nations?

That question would be applicable to the great natural areas of these countries, such as the deciduous and wet evergreen forests but not the maddening urban agglomeations that are called metros in India.

Today's The Hindu has a story on yet another planned onslaught on a rising fly population in the metropolis, which has about 7 million people living in the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA).

The reason for the swarms of house flies invading Chennai neighbourhoods can be found in the proliferating mounds of garbage that are left scattered on the road side. Even in places where privatised garbage collection is found, this is the state of affairs. There is lot of organic matter to which the city population adds its unending supply of spit and phlegm at every turn.

To me, the answer to reducing the fly population lies not in bombarding the streets with poisons that will be absorbed by humans, but by putting organic waste neatly into closed containers, where the flies cannot get at them. But there is no history of the middle class in this metro taking responsibility for its waste. So the flies will have the last laugh.

Sivaji - Rajni the stylish David fells the ugly Goliath

Rajnikanth makes many points in black and white, although Sivaji is a riotously colourful film. It is difficult to imagine that a theme that is sheer constantly coiled tension between a do-gooder NRI and a hydra-headed, corrupt State can meaningfully convey anything in the midst of constant diversions and distractions, not the least of which is the silken Shriya Saran.

But Sivaji does present his case, and in black and white, without being diluted by any greys in the picture. The most interesting part of the exploration is of course the character of money in India. What is black is only an intermediate stage between two white phases, if it is used to do good. Then again, with no apologies to Fair and Lovely, black is real and recognisably genuine, while white may only be a cover for evil, whether it is Suman's dhoti-shirt in the film or the Tamilised attire of the power elite in everyday life. A black Mercedes may have a symbolism of its own when someone evil is at the wheel - which is not surprising, as it is often an iconic representation of third world decadence, despotism and corruption. Rajni is seen with a silver Mercedes for a while, although the system finally turns him over to a black SUV.




Sivaji is concerned about the evils afflicting the system in this much vaunted largest functioning democracy in the world where the middle class pays donations to put its children in schools and colleges run by crooks in white. Director Shankar is a master of this genre. He trained his ballistic directorial skills at the monstrosity that is government to blow holes into it with Indian and Anniyan. This time, he literally drives a massive knife into the soft underbelly of the sleazy system using Rajnikanth's own patented style. Though he told The Hindu that there is no blood or gore in the film, there is a strong message of positive violence in Sivaji.

It is tempting to look at Sivaji as the first of a series of Rajni films that are bound the way of MGR. In fact, Rajnikant does not lose the opportunity to declare that he "is MGR," although he explains that it stands for M.G.Ravichandran. Never mind, we all get the message.

The big question, of course, is how Shankar pulled off a film which inflates the protagonist, the superstar, to a stature that dwarfs the Establishment and pummels the political class, the police and the bureaucracy into a bruised, injured and cowering state. Alas, to retain that overpowering persona, even 'Sivaji' has to seemingly reincarnate himself in the course of the film, handing a victory to the Establishment however superficial it might be.

If there is a resonance in Rajni's Sivaji, it is on the ascendance of greed in contemporary India and the helplessness of individuals who pose a threat to the corrupt merely by being charitable. Money and muscle, in khaki and out of it, gratefully serve corrupt masters.

The rest of the film, beginning with the grand spectacles that characterise Kollywood as much as Bollywood, are no more than digitally enhanced musicals. A regal day-dreaming hero, a nubile and fluid Shriya, Rajni's style made intelligible to the digiterati by A.R.Rahman's techno-vision and giant masquerades by Thotta Tharani...are these the defining features of Sivaji? Or has MGR just started taking aim at the establishment, hoping to tame the Goliath someday?

Chennai sways to 'Sivaji'

One of the most hyped films of recent times is AVM's Sivaji, but apparently there is a lot to the film that is different from Kollywood's mega starrers that feature super heroes like Rajnikant.




For one, it is finely tuned to the visual aesthetics of the iPod generation and Shriya is a great light emitting diva (LED), providing tremendous electricity to illuminate Rajni in his new clothes. Hope to watch the film and give some more comments.

The Hindu has a couple of stories on Sivaji's release today and a gallery of images from the film.

Green perspectives in architecture

Today's Property Plus supplement in The Hindu, Chennai edition, has readable articles on ethical decisions in modern living.

"How frugal are appliances?" That question is posed by Biju Govind, who then follows it up by providing some answers in the form of Bureau of Energy Efficiency tests on electrical appliances.

There is also a delightful article on garden houses in Chennai by Madhavi Desai, exploring the intersection of the bungalow type of building with the European villa style, resulting in a grand structure that nestles in a huge tree-filled garden with tall ceilings and a vivid white exterior.

Is it all too vulgar and elitist? Perhaps, from a historical perspective. In the latter day, can it be varied to provide aesthetic alternatives that include subaltern feelings?



Meanwhile, here is an interesting story on use of solar energy in Seville, Spain narrated by the BBC, and linked to by many architecture websites.

Chennai's suburban splendour

The real estate market in Chennai has been cooling off a little, after soaring to dizzy heights over the last year.

Some of the evidence for the slowdown is in the higher volume of advertising for upmarket properties in The Hindu's Property Plus supplement. Some of the properties on offer have been advertised now for weeks together, indicating that there may be overpriced supply, if not oversupply.

One of the big ticket builders is ETA Star of Dubai, which has been advertising Jasmine Court at the Poonamallee end of the Mount - Poonamallee Road.

Here is a view of the project being advertised by the promoter:



One of the key things to bear in mind is the absence of sewerage and piped water supply in such suburban havens. There are almost no good schools or colleges in a radius of 5 km, although this property refers to the Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute (about 2 km away) as a facility available nearby.

When Paris Hilton is off the road

"I do not expect to be treated better than anyone else who violated probation. However, my hope is that I will not be treated worse," says Paris Hilton, as quoted by TIME magazine.

What a pity that some countries take their driving norms seriously and send people to jail for driving on a suspended licence during probation.

All that such people need to do is take a flight to India, where people are never ever penalised for the way they drive or cause accidents due to their rash and negligent behaviour. Why driving norms, in this land of holy cows, the holiest cow is the motor car! Next only in importance is the motorised two-wheeler. If you have one, you can violate all rules, starting with red lights.

What a shame that Paris has to wear an orange jumpsuit and spend time in jail, when her daddy has kept a fortune for her. India chalo bhai! Here is where you enjoy life, with S Class Mercedeses, Audis, BMWs, Honda SUVs, Toyota Camrys and many more machines all zipping through shanty towns, on dusty roads lined with open toilets.

And if you are Paris Hilton at the wheel, you can get prime time attention on all our fantastic news television channels that are desperate for celebrity sound bites. If you are caught DUI, you just fork out ten notes to the cop team and they will give you a salute. If you are too drunk to notice people and end up killing someone, just raise your compensation package a little. But never, ever, will you go to jail for such silly reasons.

"East is East and West is West. Never the twain shall meet"

An incompatible mix? Nokia PC Suite, 6101 and Dell's Dimension E520

I recently installed a Dell Dimension E520 desktop running some really muscular hardware - A dual core processor, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, A 256 MB Nvidia DDR2 Graphics Card - all powering the new-fangled Microsoft bundled OS, Windows Vista Home Premium (aero interface).

As many of us Vista owners now know, MS has sold a product that is still work in progress. It does not add anything revolutionary to XP functionality but forces you to fork in a lot of money on additional hardware. What is worse, it has huge gaping holes where it should have had drivers for the most common devices that we use with PCs - mobile phones and MP3 players. (Microsoft acknowledges indirectly that there is a problem in this instructional article on its website). The poor compatibility of Vista with iTunes and iPods is universally known. Disappointingly, Vista does not even have drivers to recognise mass storage devices. I found that out when I tried to connect an APRO MP3 player to the new OS and was rejected. I then installed a driver from the manufacturer's website and it has worked so far.

My Nokia 6101 mobile phone experience is a new low point for Vista. I installed the latest version of Nokia's somewhat tacky PC software, PC Suite (v 6.83), which the phone makers says is compatible with Vista 32 and 64 bit editions. Not so.

The OS simply would not recognise the phone, although I had used the same phone successfully with Win XP, connecting with the same CA 42 cable (bought not from Nokia but from third party manufacturer on Chennai's famed Ritchie Street for a tenth of Nokia's rip-off price).

I then uninstalled this 'latest' compatible version of PC Suite and installed an earlier version that is pre-Vista. Voila! The phone was recognised by Vista, but it would not let me copy files from the camera's storage on to my PC. I had to open each file separately and make a copy. No Ctrl C and Ctrl V option available.

What a crummy piece of software to be touted as the world-leading OS! I think this would be a good subject for the next Get-a-Mac advertisement from Apple. And shame on a profit-hungry Nokia for producing such inferior connectivity software that obviously has not had much of an interaction with Microsoft to make it easier for the user.

Chennai's unapproved plans and multi-crore real estate speculators

These are times when land suddenly appears covered not with the arid dust of the coromandel coast, but the glitter of gold.

Almost every page of The Hindu's Property Plus has giant advertisements promising 'nirvana' to the wealthy, in the form of gated communities and villas that have tranquil pathways that disappear into misty woodland. This idyllic promise further throws in chirping birds that will wake you up, storks and swans magically appearing in azure waterbodies sending you into a dream-like state. (As many are aware, these are all stock photo images of European and other first world countrysides).

What happened to all the slums, the open sewers such as the Cooum, the Buckingham canal, the Adyar, the Mambalam canal, the human excreta on the road, the felled trees, the blistering heat of the concrete cosmos, the autorickshaws without silencers, the careening MTC buses and the insane call taxi drivers, you wonder. Is this a dream or is this a scene from the virtual world of Second Life?

Buyer, beware. This is a paradise on not even high quality paper, but on newsprint. These vistas are like scenes on Microsoft's Windows Vista aero dreamscapes, floating ethereally on your TFT screens, but never tangible.

There are big names in the real estate advertisements - Hiranandani Upscale on Old Mahabalipuram Road (what else can the projects be called but Greenwood and Bridgewood?), Palm, which offers Rs.71 lakh-plus villas in Medavakkam, Puravankara's Purva Swanlake on OMR, and Sai Surya in Pallikaranai, Chennai's chosen spot for chemical and garbage dumping and burning.

It would be wise to see if these big names have a copy of the CMDA-approved plan available at their office, before forking out your saved / borrowed money. There are reports that many builders have their applications waiting in the dark and inscrutable corridors of the "regularisation"-friendly Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority as "negotiations" go on. As we all have seen, the CMDA is an oxymoronic body that has repeatedly dealt devastating blows to Chennai's quality of life through corrupt dealings with property developers and big money interests, example the T.Nagar shopping area.

Why suffer in a property meltdown later? Property buyers are discovering in the US that they were sold houses by unscrupulous builders at inflated rates and they are now unable to repay their loans due to the economic slowdown. They are now suing the developers. But in India, it is the money bags that rule. So why burn your fingers?

Here is an extract from a Wall Street Journal story today on this issue --

As Market Cools, Home Buyers Seek a Way Out
By Michael Corkery and Ruth Simon

In the latest fallout from the housing market's decline, disputes are breaking out between builders and buyers who signed contracts for new homes and condos when the market was hot -- and now want to get out of them.

Even as many of the new buildings are completed, buyers are filing lawsuits claiming they were duped into purchases they couldn't afford, or victimized through fraudulent investment schemes. Some are scrutinizing their contracts looking for loopholes, or searching out tiny flaws in finished homes that might allow them to back out without losing their deposits.

-- So don't fall for claims. Do verify.