deponti

In Chennai...

One, the Corporation building:



And two, the Central Railway Station:





There are many, many more...some are falling to ruins...

We want to find our way through a city? We buy maps, we look up Google maps, or... we ask for directions. Especially in India, we do this as we stand...or park...in the middle of the road, generally getting the person with the lowest IQ in the area, who either gapes at us or confidently gives us wrong directions.

But our politicians have better methods.


On my way back from the walk, I noticed these rounds on the side of the road:




I was curious, and when I found this man making those rounds by tapping a basket full of lime powder on to the road




I asked him what he was doing. "The CM and another leader are coming this way," he explained.


Here's one of several posters of the CM (of Tamil Nadu)...with the usual paeans of praise:



(this one says, "Oh, Kalaignar (artiste) who gave us the meal scheme, welcome, welcome!"...referring to the noon meal scheme for children in Corporation schools, perhaps)

Here are some flags of the

DMK
with the leader's face on them:




....for a wonderful exposition on how to make a political poster in Tamil Nadu, visit

this blog entry by Krish Ashok

The other leader is G K Vasan, the son of Karuppiah Mooppanar. (his photo, too, is up there in the second photograph.)

And the round markings? When the driver of the leading car in the political convoy sees them, he (you think there will ever be a she-driver in a Tamil Nadu politcal party convoy?) knows where to turn off the main road!

Isn't that a great navigational method? I would be rushing, right now, to buy my "chunA" powder and my basket, but I don't have someone from the Chennai Corporation to do this for me, alas...

I also found a police car



and some police (or some other enforcement agency) officers going around, checking the route:



No, I didn't talk to them for fear of being told,

I can't take photographs

The man making the rounds (I carefully didn't ask his name) has been working for the past 26 years, he said, and was doing his duty diligently, on a wet and chilly (for Chennai, 25 deg is chilly!) morning.

The occasion...was the 80th birthday of Mr.Mukta Srinivasan, the well-known film producer.

So all you techies with those fancy GPS gadgets....all you need to do is become a politician in Tamil Nadu...navigation is a piece of cake...and several round markings!

Apparently the lime powder also acts as a kind of anti-bacterial agent, and is often sprinkled on garbage heaps. So there's multi-tasking for you!

Today, I was photographing the I.G's Office building to add to my walk collection. one of the women constables (or inspectors, I don't know her rank) came up behind me as I continued my walk, and kept insisting that I should not take photographs of the building.

I found this utterly ridiculous. The building is in an open space, and there are literally thousands of people going past in their cars who can take photographs. Any of the pedestrians with a mobile camera can take pictures too. But since I had an identifiable camera, I was targetted.

Worse, when I said that I was taking photographs for myself, the lady said nothing more and let me go. In case I had been a terrorist, I would have said exactly the same thing, and would have got away with whatever it was that the authorities are scared of.

So what on earth is this stupid policy of always going around telling the public that they can't do something, which the authority in question has NO way of enforcing? Why do we seem to live in the British Raj still, in so many ways, where it's always an authority vs. general public attitude? Why do we still have obsolete, futile rules which it takes the lower orders all their time and energy to try and (unsuccessfully) enforce? It seems to be harassment for harassment's sake.


I also fail to understand in what way my photograph would have posed a danger to the building or the people within, that an image from Google Earth would not.

"You can't do X, you can't do Y" is the anthem song of our bureaucracy,government, culture, and police....when are we ever going to get rid of this mindset?

Happiness...is getting something to eat when one is hungry.






Unhappiness..is not being able to eat.





I wonder how that crow manages with that broken beak...certainly the bird looked woebegone in the rain.

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/1543-bengaluru-photographers-to-shoot-leonid-showers

However, the title I had chosen was...Shooting Stars Shoot Shooting Stars".

Very long post, read only if you have some leisure.

I do love my country, which often has its flag represented in unique ways:



And I like walking through its cities.

Each city in India is quite distinct from the other; not for us the bland homogeneity of a skyscraper downtown and sprawling suburbs...I find Indian cities totally fascinating.

Like all Indian cities, the architecture in Chennai is an often astonishing mixture of old and new idioms, which are radically different from each other. It's fascinating to watch...and there are also the this-es, the thats, and the others as I walk. I decided to take my MLC for a walk, too...and we went together, through a few roads in

Mylapore (town of the peacock), now called Thirumylai or the place of the divine peacock

( walk with me through Mylapore )

Think about the beauty of seeing a small temple, that's traditionally built under a spreading young

Peepal Tree



...and make my way home....


Some more on Mylapore

the walk without photographs

Mylapore Tank


New Year in Nageshwara Rao Park

Chennai vignettes

Mylapore Tank

And if you STILL have patience for more,

here !

You know you've spent too long abroad, when....you sit in Chennai and find yourself trying to calculate what time it is in Bangalore!




I tried out

tree-climbing


...and a couple of days ago, I snapped this:





It struck me forcibly that what was just a pastime for me, and a sport for others, was a livelihood for some people. (You can see that the man in the photograph above is using a sealant on the windows.)

This morning, when I opened

The Hindu

I found

this article by Liffy Thomas

Talk about high living....these people, like Microsoft, make their money from...Windows!

and we have a new proverb...people who live in glass houses, need their windows cleaned.

The Marina Beach in Chennai

is one of the public open-air spots in the city that gets a lovely sea breeze in the afternoons, and is a popular spot to visit.


It has a line of statues, that the wiki link above lists; and here's the sunrise on the statue of


Kamarajar (kAmarAjar)






The beach faces east, and sunrises are beautiful...when there's a sunrise, can thoughts of asakiyume be far behind? :)

Here's the "Gandhi silai" (statue of Gandhi) that stands at the junciton of the Beach road and Radhakrishnan Road:









True to his reputation for simplicity, Gandhi walks, while all around him, the rich park their cars to come and walk, too...!

I will be documenting that morning walk of mine...yes, I did take along MLC2 yesterday.

But some things are even more eye-catching than others...


As I turn from Santhome High Road on the Marina, into Radhakrishnan sAlai (erstwhile Edward Elliotts Road), I find that I am suddenly in New York!

( see New York in Chennai )


Well, I was not in a militant mood, I was...affable...!




In Tamizh, the sign says "appapuL" (in Tamizh, "f" sound is written,somewhat awkwardly, with a "therefore" sign written before the "p" consonant...but that wasn't the case here). So, I was appapul instead of affable.



I do enjoy taking my MLC along!


It's beginning to pour with rain again...I'm going to enjoy going to get some vegetables now...

....what about onions, ask the Jains....

My father...I've never written about him, for some reason. Like all caring and resposible fathers...an amazing guy. Born to easy affluence as the son of someone who was the Financial Advisor to the Government of India, and who earned an OBE, or Order of the British Empire, he really enjoyed a princely lifestyle, shuttling between Delhi and Shimla,going to the best schools..and he decided to study Electrical Engineering at the

Benaras Hindu University

(Just take a look at that link to see the eminent Vice-Chancellors they had!)

( more about Appa )


I just went through some old newspapers yesterday, and found a very telling illustration of the troubles he must have faced....

Here's a cutting from the Amrita Bazar Patrika of April 21,1976:





From another cutting, I learnt that a computer to help with billing and systems had been earlier installed in 1969, and then *removed* because of pressure from the staff and the United Front Government...this cutting asks the then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, to "take steps to prevent the installation of a computer" as it would take away jobs, and since the "existing tabulators and calculators are under-utilized", it is "not understood why a high-powered computer should be brought in".

There is also a request "not to allow a new power project by securing external assistance."


Oh, the progressive outlook of our politicians...and what an ironic situation in a country that would become the spearhead of the software revolution!


Appa...I love you and appreciate you more as I grow older...

One of the things I have been introduced to lately, is

Wheat Grass

and wheat grass juice....

I am hoping that this has a very beneficial effect as an ill person has this every day with two spoons of

honey

I have learnt how to grow this on the balcony; soak the wheat grains overnight, let them drain in a cloth until they sprout, and then scatter them in a pot which has mud and fertilizer....


Here, you can see the various stages of its growth:




The wiki says spinach is just as good, but the green of that grass is definitely soothing to the eye as well!

We thought the mist on the hills would prevent us from spotting birds. It didn't. We thought it would prevent us from photographing birds. It did.

But then we realized that the mist, in itself, was a thing of beauty.




( more images of the mist )

And just to see how it would look, I decided to take one image of the passing scenery through the rain-washed window of the car:






And finally, you can see the way the rainclouds are moving ...gliding...along the hilltops...












Rain and mist make for beautiful photography....!

It was raining in Bangalore. It is raining in Chennai. Well, it held off long enough for me to take a long walk last evening, but this morning it's pouring again.

Here's an image I liked, from the Nandi Hills trip, of Garima holding out her hand to feel the raindrops...







Off to do various duties now...back later, when I can...

The Nandi hills trip was wonderful...but from this video, you can get an idea of how it was for birding....






It was utterly beautiful, and we did manage to see a wide variety of birds, and though I don't have the images to back that statement up, I have...plenty of fellow-birders to testify to it!

If

Karthik

comes, can moths be far behind?

Yesterday, he told us that this beautiful

OLEANDER HAWK MOTH

was sitting on the staircase of my apartment, so mohanvee and I went off to photograph it...





Meanwhile, he had also spotted these two...a lovely gold-and red one:





and an even prettier "pied" moth....





I guess all moths and butterflies know an expert when they see one, and consider Karthik a kind of foster moth-er....

Couldn't resist that!

Non-birders... please exkoos, as they say here.

We took a trip to Maidanahalli ("village of the open meadows") on

Rajyotsava Day

...it proved to be a birding bonanza! It was as if Karnataka just wanted to shower us with sightings and observations!


The day started with the usual CKMP (Crow Kite Mynah Pigeon)...but the raptor quotient went up sharply with the sighting of this

WHITE=EYED BUZZARD

in its rocky habitat:




Later, the bird soared in large circles:





Next came this

BOOTED EAGLE





( many birds sitting, standing or flying here )


...and the trip to Ramnagara to see the not-at-all common

LONG-BILLED VULTURE




came to mind, too...so, right now, you can, quite rightly, call me a bird-brain!

( List of birds on two of the trips )

I'd posted about my first photograph of the

SIRKEER MALKOHA

...and on the way back from Maidanahalli, we saw first one, and then, high up on the rocks, two near each other.

In an interesing switch, I got this FS (Foozly Shot) of the Malkoha taking off from the rock:




(I still like the image a lot.)


then I got this video of the bird in its habitat, where it's doing nothing but sitting quietly!






Photo with action, video with none...that's the way wildlife and birding goes, sometimes!

We were waiting at the watchtower in Maidanahalli for the appearance of the endangered Blackbuck...and I was looking around.

I was very tickled to see that three rhyming friends (or relatives or family, perhaps that's more likely) had visited:





When we visit a place, we need to leave our impress upon that spot...the equivalent of "Kilroy was here"....!

I must get down to posting about the variety of birds that we saw in Maidanahalli, but right now, I'm just thinking that dentists are a pain in the........teeth.

I left St.Louis, to come home and do some wildlife trips...but I did not realize that we were going to have our own wildlife there...





How rare would it be to have a Lion in St.Louis!