A Five Star Experience

Its very rare for me to visit restaurants in star hotels. I get to visit them at times during our client visits. I had been to one such restaurant in Nungambakkan the other day during a recent customer visit. The seats were already reserved for six of us when we went there at around 7 in the evening. It was a restaurant that specializes and serves south indian delicacies. The interiors there was one of mood elevating. They also precisely knew how to jackup the ambience. On one side of a dais, there was this girl, an amateur, dancing bharatanatyam making small steps to the natuvangam of an old man. It was funny to see her stop and pose, whenever somebody tried to take a photograph of her. On the other side, there was a parrot fortune teller. who was looking very sleepy during that early evening time. The parrot seemed to be drawing everybodys' attention with its chirpiness. We settled for samplers and were served food items that were popular across regions in the southern part of India. We started with Banana Bajji and Vada. We were served Appams, Idiappams and parathas. The side dishes were too many and i dont remember the names of all of them. But i remember tasting different chutneys and also the avial and Poondu (garlic) kuzhambu. I should admit the taste of all these items were divine. I normally dont eat parathas, but the parathas served there were so spongy that they just melted in my mouth. I asked for a glass of grape juice without ice and the waiter astounded me by asking "At what temperature"?. I am not sure if any juice gets boiled anywhere. Finally, the bill arrived and we asked it to be billed to the company. I was curious to know the price of the different food items and just sneaked
into the bill. I could manage to see only the price of poondu kuzhambu and it read Rs 850 against it.

In the Rat race for a Pigeon Hole

Last week, there was a 3 page advertisement in one of the newspapers about a new hosuing complex that was coming up within a kilometer in a road off the IT corridor.
IT Corridor! I hope everybody knows that the age old OMR(Old Mahabalipuram Road) is now called the IT corridor of Chennai. If you want to know more, ask any budding BE graduate(Comp Sci guy preferably) in his 7th or 8th semester and he will tell you the history of the OMR transformation. This is just a 20 KM stretch from Madya Kailash to Siruseri, which is one of the major contributors to India's GDP every year. Coming back, the advertisement was dazzling. It had all the ingredients that any family could ask for. Gymnasium, Swimming pool, Play Area for kids, Walker's path for the old. As i am the one of those old prosaic software pro's, who has the privilege of touching the IT corridor everyday, i thought of having a glimpse of the location and surroundings of this newly coming up project on the way to my office. The construction site was about a KM in one of the narrow interior roads from the IT corridor. The leading road just had marsh lands and water stagnant fields on both sides. The road was too narrow and i couldnt avoid having close shaves with the vehicles coming from the opposite direction. When i managed to reach the site and enquired about the price per square feet, it was few hundreds more than what the advertisement claimed. I was told that only a very few apartments were offered at the price that the advertisement quoted. There were also a few other grand complexes that were coming up near by, and the rates were much higher. I could feel that a house with a decent amount of living space wouldnt be anything less than 50 Lakhs. Lot of other thoughts started haunting me. Where will all these 3000 odd apartments get water from? Deep borewells!! what will happen to the ground water table then. What about schools and hospitals. To top it all, It means an EMI of 20 to 25 thousand for the next 20 to 25 years. I heard that that most of the apartments have already been sold out. People seem to be brave and confident nowadays. But i really could not make an judgement of what Chennai as a place would be in the next ten years.

Budget Blockbusters

In recent times, there have been lot of movie releases in the indian film industry that boasts of a 100 crore or more budget. The tamil movie Sivaji was made out of a whopping 100 crores and Ravan with almost a same budget. Does a movie necessarily have to be made with millions in order to be a box office blockbuster. Not sure, how many of you have seen the tamil movie "Angadi Theru" which was a blockbuster inspite
of being made with bugets, that were peanuts when compared to that of Sivaji and Ravan. No doubt, high budget movies are a spectacular treat to watch. The song sequences in "Angadi Theru" in which the hero and heroine complete a duet in a "Saravana Store" style shop, may be of no match to the picturisation of a Sivaji song, with Rajini and Shreya dancing to AR Rehman's tune in snow clad mountains of Switzerland. But the impact that Angadi Theru as a film had was long lasting. I still remember discussing for half an hour with my friend, on the roadside, the story and screenplay of the movie, once we came out of the cinema theatre. We discused and discussed about how cruel and shocking the fate can be in one's life, due to events that can suddenly unfold. But Sivaji, on the other hand was dazzling, but was just another film. I also could not hold my thought as to how many films like "Autograph" or "Anandam" could have been made with the budget that went into the making of Sivaji. The Mani Ratnam directed "Mouna Ragam" is another masterpiece example for the portrayal of characters. Its such a simple movie that broke all box office records. Do you know that the piece that Karthik characterised in the movie is part of the curriculum in the Pune film institute to showcase students as to how best a supporting character can be portrayed in a movie. Such was the presentation of the characters in the movie that each one tried to out do the others. But, the characters in the movie did not cross Delhi.
Another question in my mind; Does all mega budgets become box office hits, I think that it goes with the combination of the budget and star value that makes these high budget movies a box office blockbuster. But cant say so unequivocally, Ravan was a flop in spite of having been made with several crores of ruppees and had a defenite star value in the likes of Abhishek Bachan, Aishwarya Rai and Vikram. May be, high budget movies should just have star value but shouldnt create so much of an impression of a story among the audience. Ravan created a story-based expectation among masses whereas Sivaji was such a straight forward no-brainer. Movies made in India are already touching budgets comparable to those made in hollywood and in all likelihood is bound to only increase in the years to come, but a paradigm shift is really required to get them big on impact that was created by an "Independence Day" or a "Titanic".

Nostalgic Nanganallur

Not long ago, I was searching for blogs/sites in the web about this southern part of Chennai. However, the search was tiresome. After all, this place doesnt deserve so much invisibility for having been responsible for all the nostalgia it continues to sway over so many homesick mortals that have chosen to settle down in the other parts of the world now. I have a vague feeling, rather unjustifiable, atleast 70% of the chennai tam-brams have some kind of a link with this, once upon a time, hamlet. May be, grand parents exist(ed) here or uncles live(d) here or the person himself or herelf in question was cradled here and was a product of the modern school and Jain college combo. May be, our guy moved out of this heaven in search of so-called greener pastures in the gulf or the US and our gal has got married now and lives in London or Los Angeles. Nevertheles, i am sure that both of them must be relishing memories of the days they lived or spent here during their school or college days. I too have always had a grudging adoration for this suburb right from the time i was a schooler. But, this has now grown to become a "developed" locality due to its accessibility to the OMR better known as the IT corridor of Chennai. Techies have started thronging this place for the last decade or so, making it unaffordable for commoners. The roads where you could once see only bicycles and probably a bus passing by, couple of times a day is now jammed by all the latest car models mostly driven by the blue blooded software pros. Man, Its all money honey. Call it development, improved standard of living, any bull. They have all jabbed the calmness and tranquility of this place, it once was. Where did all the tranquility of this place go? My uncle and cousins would have a better answer for they have lived here for almost the last quarter of the century. Nevertheless for me, the memories about this place have always been green and relishable. I lived in Nungambakkam then, called the heart of Chennai it then was as it is now. It was a fun-filled journey by bus from Nungambakkam to Nanganallur which almost tooks 2-3 hrs. I never used to get bored with the travel time and more so, about time itself which was the only thing i had in abundance that time. Travelling all the way from Nungambakkam to Nanganallur always made me happy and getting a corner seat in the 18C was a special icing on the cake. Train journeys were even more thrilling. I used to take electric trains from Chetpet to Meenambakkam and walked to my my mama's house in the Hindu colony. It happened most of the times that i reached my mama's house in the late afternoons or evenings. I was usually greeted by my Mami with a coffee made with the Eswaran coffee powder, the coffee chain of Nanganallur and Madipakkam. Evenings were so much fun. The evenings were a choice between movies in Ranga or temples or a jolly stroll in many of the desolated streets of Nanganallur. Whatever we chose, my cousins could ace it, for all the years they had spent living in the place. The tickets in Ranga those days were a lowly Re 5/- and slightly upwards. Those were times when movies were the predominant entertainers without any private channels on TV. We used to look for posters to decide on the quality of the movie to see if it had a high dose of fight and dance sequences of our favorite cine stars of the 80s'. It had always been relaxing to see movies in Ranga inspite of the meagre ambience it offered. We also used to frequent Kumaran at Madipakkam in bicycles. Now, there is an addition to the list of theatres, Velan. But only the ticket prices have skyrocketed in these 20+ years. At times, we also visited the Pillayar koil in the State Bank Colony, the Arthanareeswarar & Hayagreevar temples. If we decided for the stroll, it was always a refreshing walk with my cousins & their friends. We discussed topics that circled around cinema and food. Our evening duty would end with a dinner at home or at a hotel. For dinner in a hotel, we used to go to my cousins favorite, hotel Asoka, who served water with tumblers inscribed with "Stolen from Hotel Asoka" as a mark of respect to the customers who by mistake took tumblers home. Our dinners were normally followed by "Seetu Kutcheri" (Rummy) which used to prolong as late as 2 or 3 AM the next day morning. We would sleep until 10 AM the next day to start our daily chores once again. Those were the good old care-free days which i crave to get back. Technology seems to have snatched away the pleasure of simple things in life. It has changed places and people. Nanganallur is no exception. 20 years ago, most of the chennaites would not have even known this place. But now, even a small piece of land in Nanganallur costs several lakhs of ruppees. Time has rolled & the place has changed. But, the sweet memories remain forever.

Home Alone

How many times have each one of us been left alone at home? Your parents/wife goes for a so called inevitable relative's or friend's family function leaving you unattended :-). What kind of feelings surround you when you are alone? Is it a time for a self introspection. Do you get a scary feeling of how life will be, in future, if all our dear ones leave us and we are left to fend for ourselves, rest of our life. Have you ever noticed your elderly acquaintances that you occasionally come across in a train or a market place trying to strike an endless conversation with you, with scant respect for your time. If you keenly retrospect, they would have been people who neither have the privelege of being surrounded by the dear ones at home nor have close friends, whom they can share their emotions with. Life in lonliness is not something that all of us can put up with. I personally have felt it many times alone at home. You start with the confusion of whether to make coffee at home or to go to a restaurant, to the choice of lunch for the afternoon. How long can you go on with reading or listening to music. The end result, you start looking for acquaintances to come across in the day, from the paper boy to the man who comes to collect clothes for ironing. Humans are social beings after all, who subconsciously long for love, affection and caring. A shiver ascends my spine when i read in newspapers of people being sentenced for life and may have to spend rest of their life in desolation in jail cells. But, i have heard of my friends who get into a mode of silence for a month in a year. They do not talk to anybody even at home for a month. They write down in a piece of paper, if they have to convey anything, and only if its very important. I have great reverence for such people and even think if such a practice will be possible for me. May be not. I have made resolutions on many days in the morning to talk very less for the day, both at home and at office. But unfortunately, they have turned out to be days when it would have been a riot talking and laughing. I need to seriously introspect my power of will and self control. Silence seems to be golden, may be for a few minutes, but if for ever, seems to be a torture.