Traffic blues in Chennai - Kathippara Junction

Kathippara Junction is worst hit by Chennai traffic in the last two days since the Industrial Estate bypass road was closed for laying. Traffic flowing from Ashok Pillar towards Guindy would normally take a turn through industrial estate and the rest going towards Airport would go straight through Kathipara Junction. Due to the blocking of industrial estate bypass road, both the traffic heading towards Guindy and Airport were forced to take the Kathipara Junction route, which is already conjusted due to massive flyover constructions started an year ago. This caused the traffic jam that choked the entire stretch from Ashok Pillar till Kathipara Junction. We could witness strange frown on the faces of all vehicle ridres who had to undergo this unnecessary difficulty caused due to poor planning by local administration and traffic control authorities. Sudden blockade of a frequently used bypass is really a mess. Road laying is for good but it could have been done in two phases by laying one side of it at a time and allowing traffic on the other. Public was put it in to immense trouble due to this poor planning by local administration implementing road laying without considering traffic consequences. Vehicle riders could show their wrath against this inconvenience caused to them only to their vehicle and other riders by picking up quarrels for not moving. City buses as usual played nasty on the roads by plying through the extreme left and extreme right without any lane discipline and frightened the small vehicles on the road. Since this road is still used to exit the city from Koyambedu bus terminus, all moffusil buses also were part of traffic jam besides city buses. The local admistration could have attempted to reduce this rush at Kathipara junction by informing all moffusil buses to exit through Maduravoyal bypass road leading to Perungulathur on the GST road on these two days. It is surprising to note that Maduravoyal bypass road is not so crowded even though it is open for public transport. Inspite of having an alternative exit route through Maduravoyal, moffusil buses are still using the Kathipara Junction to exit from city towards south. Chennai city traffic controls, Metropolitan development authorities, locan administration dept., National Highways and so on are seem to have too little botheration about public convenience. Generally people say we Indians have very high toleration limits. It seems to be true when we look at these attorcities not being resisted or even criticised by the public in a metro city like Chennai. It is surprising to note that even medias are not paying attention to these issues in their publications as much as they make hypes for cinema artists and other petty topics of no use.

Indiralogathil Na. Alagappan

இந்திரலோகத்தில் நா.அழகப்பன்

The movie starts with a grand introduction of Vadivelu in the character Alagappan. The opening of the movie is comparable to many commercial flicks given by mega stars like Rajini and Vijay. Showing the photographs of father, grand father and great grand father of Alagappan with their date of birth and date of absconding is a good giggler.

Within minutes of starting the play, Alagappan visits Indiralogam, the heaven with the help of Ramba, the aesthetical dancer in the palace of இந்திரன். The story built in favour of Alagappan to get access through Ramba is not so logical but interesting.
Alagappan starts visiting Indiralogam daily and spends the night over there and comes back to real world during day times according to the wishes of Ramba. During his visits to Indiralogam, Alagappan gets the opportunity to watch dance sequences of Ramba, Oorvasi and Menaga together. Also he gets opportunity to listen some of the conversations of Indiran and Naradhar. Later he wishes to see the state of hell where he is trying to teach a lesson to Yeman and gets into trouble. How Alagappan manages to get rid of the heavenly glitches surrounded around him makes the rest of the story. In addition to the role of Alagappan, Vaigai Puyal Vadivelu plays both the roles of Indiran and Yeman. There are lot of comedy sequences here and there in the movie that entertains the audience. Especially the Indiran Vadivelu's quest to find the meaning of mutham (kiss) and Yeman's reaction to a question from his descendant asking "You are a good man or a Bad man" are excellent.
The story takes a turn when Alagappan gets caught by Indiran and Yeman at heaven. As a result of Indiran's curse Alagappan becomes a 90 year old weak man and Ramba loses her physical appearance and remains invisible as a spirit. In the climax stroke the director Thambi Ramaiyah has attempted a novel way to release the knots and given a pleasant end to the movie.
Altogether it makes worthwhile to watch the movie atleast once with kids and family. It is not so bad like what it is being criticised in the movie reviews done by many television channels. Any way lets wait and watch to see this movie becoming a milestone performance of our favourite comedian turned hero Kaipillai - Pulikesi - now Indiralogathil Na. Alagappan.

Chennai House Rentals Skyrocketed !

"Where are you working" is the first question you will have to answer to the house owner if you are looking for rental house in Chennai. Land lords prefer to let out their properties only to IT professionals who can fork out a big sum as monthly rent as they earn bulk pay packages. In these days house owners do not bother to rent out their properties to bachelors who are IT professionals. In cities like Chennai having conservative background, it is so surprising to see a batch of bachelors living in residential apartments. The reason is house owners can get more rent from bachelor occupants than families. As these guys share and pay the rent, each one does not bother to pay upto Rs.2500/- for a 2BHK house that can be comfortably occupied by four. The house owner gets a lump sum of Rs.10000/- per month against Rs.6000/- or 7000/- that he might get if he lents out the flat for a family.

An year ago, a 2BHK house was available for rent at Rs.4000/- per month. Now this standard has sunstantially risen to Rs.6000/- levels. Interestingly we are not able to see any "Tolet" board in the city as the houses getting vacated are immediatly occupied by the next tenant.

The surprise is not over. Get ready to experience the next shock if you are looking for residential property for rent in Chennai. While house owners hike the rent almost double that what it was an year ago, they are not ready to take anything less than 10 months rent as advance. An advance of upto Rs.1.00 lakh is a dream sum for middle class families who are not part of IT glory in the city. Worst scenario is that house owners asking such middle class families to vacate to replace them with IT professionals.

While common people like us do not have any say on such inequalities, law should be made enforceable against such undue demands made by house owners. Let's wait and see who is going to bell the cat !

A day of Rain and Shine !

Today Chennai witnessed a day of rain and shine. The sky was cloudy since dawn and started shining now and then. Suddenly it started pouring in the some parts of Anna Nagar at about 11.45 am. The shower continued for about 20 minutes and stopped as it started shining again!!
When some parts of Shanthi colony was wet, say from 1st main road to 6th main road, the other part from there till 100 feed road did not find even a single drop of water on the road!!

While we moved through 100 feet road (inner ring road) towards Vadapalani, the sky became cloudy again at 12.20 pm and it was showering heavily for about 10 minutes. The whole stretch from Koyambedu till Vadapalani was wet. It started shining again which stopped the rain. The city had a sunny day thereafter.

Other parts of Chennai also witnessed similar trends and received little showers that helped to cool the environment that is getting warmed up towards the summer season ahead.

New Holiday Spot in Chennai !

34th India Tourist and Industrial Fair 2008

Island grounds in Chennai was jam packed due to mass entry of holiday enthusiasts finding their way to spend the Sunday evening at the fair when we had a round-up on 03 Feb 2008. It is the regular spot where the fair is conducted in the past many years.

Surprisingly, the entrance of the fair was engulfed by long queue of cars besides non-stop flow of two wheelers. Does it indicate improving life style of Chennaites? Nevertheless it confirms that the tourism fair is the hot spot for all class.

As we entered in from the rear entrance on the Anna Salai, we had to take a long haul to reach the ticket counters. It is recommended to enter from the main entrance on the beach road to watch the fair in the right sequence.

The fair is full of shops, stalls, dizzy rides, exhibits, snacks and all those accessories of an ideal fair. This year we find many thriller spots like Dracula cave, Den of the Ghost etc. as a result of overwhelming response from public in the previous years. But visitor feedback indicates that the excitement did not meet their expectations.

Food and snacks stall are of plenty in number offering varieties ranging from pop corn, sugarcane juice, candies, bajji, bonda, delhi appalams & more. A news paper report says, 10,000 appalams are prepared per day, that are dried in the sun to be oil fried and sold in the evening.

Next exciting thing in the fair are the dizzy rides - cup & saucers, giant wheels, roller coaster, bumper cars, kids train and what not? Majority of the crowd revolve around these rides and enjoyed them more than once some times. After all the rides are not so expensive when compared to the excitement that they have in store to offer to those ride lovers!

Shops as usual had all those routine stuff ranging from cooking ware, arts & crafts, home decors, electronics, etc. Interestingly a fancy shop that was pulling the crowd was having a large collection of articles offered at a flat price of Rs.10/- each. To our surprise we have noticed even stalls for computers, mobile phones & accessories etc. Woo the customer in the middle of their excitement seems to be the funda of selling those white goods in a tourism fair stall. Hope it helps them to improve the visibility of the brand and the price offers that they make to the public. Right place to catch the attention of thousands of people. It makes sense !

Other interesting stalls are the ones that displayed fishes in aquariums and birds in cages. Those are crowded by kids to watch those tiny little living things catching their attention. Other stalls that children enjoyed are the science exhibition, dancing mickey etc.

Last but not the least are the stalls set up by the government departments. Revenue, Electricity, Slum clearance board, Railways and Police are some to mention. Good work and interesting content did not fail to attract people who were patient enough to come in queue and take a glimpse of every stall till the end.

The tickets are priced at Rs.7.00 for adults and Rs.5.00 for children. Fair is open for public between 3.00 pm to 10.00 pm on weekdays and 11.00 am to 10.00 pm on Sundays and holidays. City buses are plying through this hot spot connecting all parts of Chennai. A special city bus counter is available in the beach road entrance / exit to guide the public to the buses that keep coming in so that none are left stranded even at the odd hours after the close of the fair in the night. It is learnt that the fair attracts as much as 60,000 visitors on a holiday. That makes this fair a preferred holiday destination for the Chennaites, within the reach of their city.

Hope this write up gives a realistic feel of visiting this fair. Being in Chennai it would not be fair if you do not visit this most happening spot at least once.

More about the fair soon. Watch this space !

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