Grey Matter

Sriperumbudur is now Thiruperumbudur.But our politicians are missing the bigger picture.Every place name in chennai has a story behind it.They might want to change almost every place name if they know about these stories.

Take for example a seemingly tamil name such as kodambakkam- it is actually Goddamn Beckhem.
Now dont ask such a silly question like how did they name kodambakkam even before beckham was born,haven’t you heard of Nostradmus.He predicted everything thats possible including finding the value of infinity.Early chennaites deciphered some of his predictions to name their place names.They were so intelligent that they played around with words to create names. The royal beings of contemporary royapettah named their place as “Royal! Bet Ah?”
Note here “bet ah” is a gutsy term asking is there anybody to protest their claims.

The ever skeptical citizens of Alwarpet said “All war bet?” They thought people would go at war to show who is more royal.

There were few who doubted the claim to royalness by asking “Royala aprom..” That became Royapuram.

But the beings in current saidapet supported royapettah’s claim by asking “Sari da bet ah?”

Then there is this whole place named after tamil brahmins. Tam Brahm is a colloquial term for refering to Tamil Brahmins. Tam Brahm is the present day Tambaram. The anti- brahministic movement leaders certainly missed out to notice this.

A dumb beckham is Adambakkam
Patni Beckham is Pattinapakkam

Like this so many beckham bashing places are there in chennai.But why beckham? What has chennai got against beckham? Well, thats the Victoria’s secret.

Sanjay Ramasamy in Gajini now Govind Ramasamy in Dasavatharam. Can someone tell me who is this Ramasamy?

When will our writers get over the concept that any intelligent Hero should have two names first name little modern(Modern might just be a sanskrit name for tamils) and the other a pretty old name.

One more that comes to mind right now is Santhosh Subramaniam.

Finally i have jumped the ship. Quit the Aircel and joined the Airtel bandwagon.

My first day of Airtel made me realize how much i have really missed. I had some problem with activation. I called customer care and somebody picked,spoke courteously,fixed my problem, which was as simple as switching off and switching on the phone.Even though it was “Duh!” question for him he answered my questions properly.

And guess what, i received an instant SMS to give feedback about his customer service.I can SMS to the toll free number if i was dissatisfied with the customer service !

This reminds me of my tryst with Aircel customer service(was there one) earlier. They had cut my prepaid connection! for no reason. When i called the customer service number it was either always busy,keeps ringing and no one picks up,or somebody picks up and doesn’t give a proper reply.After two days the most effective of the replies i got was that i have to come to the Aircel main office in spencers.Only then they can fix the problem.And getting things done from the people at main office was as difficult as working with government office people.

Aircel would change the plans without even sending out an SMS to inform the customers.

Airtel: Fantastic! you bowled me over.

Aircel: Better concentrate on customer service or you might lose out on your every so decreasing customer base.

In the past few days i have been walking a lot and that too in the late nights and early mornings. When i was back to the city last weekend i was dropped off at tambaram at 2 am in the morning. Luckily there was a night service bus that was going to Broadway. Me and my friend got down at Gemini flyover, searched for any 24 hour coffee shop in nungambakkam area so that we need not wake up others at home.But then there was no shops open at that time of the day,

Yesterday i walked a even longer distance because of Kulfi. I saw a Kulfi man on the way to the bus stop. It was so tempting that i bought one. Don’t know why most of these Kulfi guys sell only at night.While i was buying the Kulfi a bus passed me.And that happened to be the last bus.
Had to walk back home again.

I always get some crazy experiences when walking in the night.Yesterday there was a handicapped man driving Kinetic Honda near Gemini Flyover.The guy suddenly stopped the vehicle near the American Embassy and started lying down on the road. Me and one police, who was patrolling near the embassy,went near him to see if he needs some immediate medical attention. We called him out asking what happened.And does he need any help. The fellow coolly said he felt like taking rest so he slept there. He was completely drunk. Now this is a paradox. He is handicapped so that should evoke sympathy but he is drunk and crazy. The police was still in his sympathy mood that he never booked him under drunken driving.  We asked him not to sleep on the road–either get back home or sleep on the pavement.

Then there are these street dogs. Most dogs look up, recognize you,and get back to their licking ways.But some starts barking vociferously.

Some of the observations made in these walks:

At 11:00 pm you will find a big crowd near Tasmac shops as thats their closing time.And the nadar kadai owners close their shops.Do puja and leave in their M80 bike.

At 12:00 am the ones that were crowding the Tasmac shops will be found lying around in the streets.Fast moving bikes and cars with blazing sound are predominant.

At 2:00 am there is no one around.Its only you.Occasionally few cars and police men might pass by you.All the night security men will be found sleeping.

Finally any city is beautiful at night.A walk down the Gemini Flyover at 2:00 am when no vehicle is around is a good thing to do when you have nothing else to do.

The cash counter guy mistakenly gives us an extra meals token. Had it been any other day we would have given it back to him. But this guy tried to act smart when giving back the change.So what do we do.Save that token. Eat the lunch. Come out. There stands a beggar. A perfect beggar. He comes at you asking for money, pointing his stomach indicating that he is hungry.

We give him the token. Tell him that he can go to the restaurant and have a full meals with that. And watch him go to the restaurant, sit and give the token.

The restaurant guy watches in bewilderment. We smirk.

Shiva is still sitting in the pathway between chetpet station and the over bridge. Smoke all over around him.He has smoked continously for more than 30 min now.The yellow light emanating from the neon street lights in the bridge above, combined with the smoke around him gives an errie look.The pathway is inbetween the railway tracks and the overbridge but is full of trees.It almost would qualify as a mini forest.The place doesn’t seem to be part of the city. Like a metaphor for what he feels right now.

This is the last train leaving towards chrompet.If he misses this, he would have to wait for another 4 hours before the next day service starts.

He climbs an empty railway car.The train starts.He stands at the door front,watching a crematorium in the distance.Then he looks down at the subway that comes next.He gets a sudden realization that he is on the edge of the door.Even a gentle push from somebody from the back would make is way to the crematorium he just saw or atleast break his limbs for sure.

He gets in the coach.Now he finds that the coach is not completely empty and a man is sitting over at the far end.He is watching him.He feels that middle aged man must have been watching him all this while. The man waves at him asking him to sit beside him.

Now this is not what he wanted.Some middle aged man trying to strike up conversation for the entire journey. He is so fed up with all this. He sits in the front in opposite direction of the man. The man now comes and sits beside him. Anyother day he would have scolded the man with a F* word.

The middle aged man extends a hand. “I am Nahar .What is your good name?”

Shiva doesn’t respond to this. Nahar doesn’t seem perturbed by this.He goes on. “You seem to be in a bad mood.What is that you are worried about?”

Shiva gets angry.He has to stop this immediately else this guy would go on speaking.He starts yelling at him.”I dont want to talk to you ^%@#. All you guys pretend.Dont try to be this nice guy to me.I hate you all.Now would you please shut up “

Nahar doesn’t get angry at all. He goes on “Good. I was hating everybody like this.They all seem losers don’t they ?”

“Yeah.They all. There was this class mate of mine.We were in a narrow street.Walking towards each other.I give her a smile of recognization,all she does is quickly look down trying to avoid getting the eyes meet up again.”

Now having said that.Shiva wonders what made him respond this man.He was hating him just few seconds back.But something in his eyes tell that he is genuinely interested in hearing his story.

Nahar smiles.”May be she had a big brother who doesn’t like her talking to guys.”

“Well i dont know that.But what I did was, i played by her game. Passing by her acting as if i didn’t see her.And after few steps thought why don’t we have more fun and went back stood right before her and said a ‘Hi’.She was caught unaware. All that she could speak was that,how come i was here, as if she hasn’t seen me a few minutes back.Pretention i say. What makes these people pretend? i hate seeing pretenders”

“You hate people.People love to hate others. You can see in old movies heroes used to be this communist guys who hated the capitalist guys, who are always shown as evil guys.But then when the same hero becomes a millionaire in just a span of one song.No questions asked.”

“Ha ha.Exactly.When you do it,its fine but when it is the other way round it is wrong.”

“There is a theory that the hatred towards others is just a culmination of your own insecurites and fears.”

“Well i dont believe this theory .What about the people you hate simply,like auto men.”

“Good point there.This auto men is a good case study. People hate auto men because they are unruly and are drunkards. But when they find out their own son being a drunkard they blame it on his friendship. They go like ‘my son he was a good boy. He friends cirlce spoiled him.’ When their son drinks its a societal problem but when the automan drinks it is his problem. Because he is auto man, you know.”

“And in Delhi begging has been criminalised. See even the government hates beggars now.They dont speak of rehabilitation,they speak like ‘you beg so you are a criminal’”

“Now that you understand it is nothing to do with you.It is just the human nature.Tell me what make you happy?”

“Well i really cant answer this exactly.”

“Ok tell me this. people,material,your ego satisfaction. does all this cover all the things that makes you happy?”

“Well i think it does.I am not sure”

“Ok.Let me explain. There are some people, who when you talk to, makes you happy. For example talking to kids,your mother,spouse,friends etc., isn’t it? then there are this materialistic pleasures which could be something as small as eating a chocolate,drinking a hot tea on a cold night and as big as buying a jet plane. And finally your ego satisfaction such as helping out somebody,solving something that was termed impossible,becoming famous and all that”

“Wow.Yes it covers everything that makes a man happy.”

“Now let me burst each of those causes. First up the materialistic pleasures.If i give you a million dollar and tell you that you cannot exchange it for goods does that bring any happiness to you?”

“Of course not.”

“Humans – we desire things,we feel as if the thing is all important for the rest of your life.But once you get it and the excitement fades,life is the same as it was before.Think how you wanted each of those toys when you were younger. But then life was the same after a week with the toy.”

“Yes.I could add on.Thinking about eating chocloates is more happier moment than the one after you ate.”

“Good.People make you want things.They sell it to you.Get your money and what they do with that money they go and buy things that others made them want to.I sell plasma TV to you.And go buy a jet airplane.”

“Interesting,So you mean to say that people should be void of materialistic desires?”

“No.Don’t jump to conclusions so early.Let me take you along with me till the end.Then you decide what is best for you”

“Okay”

“Now that the main thing is bursted the rest of the two can be easily bursted.I mean people though they seem to give happiness, It is just your thoughts. Same goes for the ego satisfaction. It is your thoughts that make you feel happy or sad. “

“I am not fully getting this thoughts thing.”

“Let me explain. Think of you as a tubelight. Well, pun not intended. You radiate light.And when dust covers you,you become less radiant. The radiance is the happiness. The dust cover is the thoughts.”

“thoughts come to you.You dont have to control your thoughts.The more you try to control your thoughts the more it comes back at you.It is just this thoughts that make you sad. Imagine you had a eraser in your palms.When you wipe off your forehead with your palms your present thoughts are erased.Then which state are you back to. Your original state of happiness”

“Sounds interesting. But what about the people who are pure evil. Who try to screw you every time ?”

“Now thats brings me to the other theory that you are God. Watch Anbe Sivam movie to get a hang of this. When you are God you don’t have to prove anything to anybody. Now imagine you lost your speaking and touching ability and you became invisible. How do you prove your existence to others.”

“Why should i prove.Even if i am not able to prove,I exist.Nothing can deny the fact that i exist.”

“Exactly.Thats the way you should think about yourself.You dont have to prove anything to anybody.”

The train now reached chrompet station.Shiva had to get down.He feels the conversation could have lasted for a lot more time. He now has more questions than answers. But the prospect of finding the answers all by himself is exciting for him.

He says the final bye to the Nahar and gets down. Feeling he is the God.