Seeking peace

The Officers' Training Academy (OTA) in Chennai is one of the premier institutions training both gentlemen and lady cadets to be inducted as Officers in the Indian Army. When it was set up in 1962, the Officers' Training School was charged with training cadets recruited under the 'Emergency Commission', necessitated by the Chinese aggression. Since then, it has trained over 20,000 officers of the Indian Army, and also a few from other countries. Because of its origin as a School for the Emergency Commission recruits, there was an air of temporary-ness around it until 1985, when it was conferred the status of a permanent establishment. In 1988, with the change of its name from OTS to OTA, it was accorded level-pegging status with the Indian Military Academy (at Dehradun) and the National Defence Academy (at Khadakvasla). Today, it trains cadets selected under the Short Service Commission and under the Women Special Entry Scheme (Officers).

Located inside a 650 acre estate, the OTA seems far away from the city, even though it is very much within the limits of the Chennai urban agglomeration. In any case, anything that is off Mount Road has always been considered as being part of the city, so the OTA has been very much a part of Chennai since it was set up. On Sundays, the cadets would head to the shopping arcades and movie halls, in small groups. It used to be very easy to identify them as OTA cadets; grey trousers, black shoes shined to reflect the sky, the crew cuts and the red-and-bluish-grey-and-black striped ties. It seemed unfair that the cadets had to be in their uniforms even on a Sunday movie trip; but none of them seemed to mind it at all. I'm not sure if the rules have been relaxed now, but I have not seen the Sunday uniforms for a while now. Maybe they're less stiff these days.

One of the best features of the OTA campus is the statue in the lounge area of the Cadets' Mess; even with this poor photo, it is possible to identify The Buddha from his posture. At first look, it seemed incongruous, but as one of the officers at the Academy told me, no one desires peace as much as army personnel do - only that they have to be prepared to kill or die for it, if need be!

Menagerie City - 5

The spotted deer inside the IIT Madras campus are reasonably comfortable with humans. Not that they can be considered 'tame', but they are not really wild, either. A large part of the IIT Madras campus is scrub jungle, an extension of the Guindy National Park. The deer certainly do not understand the boundaries between the GNP and the IIT and were used to moving across all the space they could. Recently, there was some talk of IIT authorities building a wall to ensure their campus area is clearly demarcated; I'm not sure if they went ahead with it. I hope that even if they have done so, there are enough pathways for the deer to move around freely.

Within the campus, the deer walk around unhindered; they do find their way into the living areas, too. At times it might be a problem for the residents. They may look gentle enough, but the more familiar they become with humans, the less nervous they get. Sometimes, they may go so far as to frightening children. With an average weight of about 80 kg, you really don't want to pick an argument with that kind of antler-tipped mass. This one, however, was not too keen on mixing it up with us in any way and moved away quickly.

There are so many of them around the IIT Madras campus, that when the Institute renamed its annual cultural festival, they chose the name 'Saarang' - another name for this spotted deer!

Free hiring

With about two and a half million personnel, the Indian Army is among the largest in the world. Even with that large number, the army faces a shortage of manpower at all levels. Recruitment of enlisted men is more or less an ongoing process, with regular open rallies at the recruiting headquarters. For many of the entry level soldier positions, the minimum qualification is a high school certificate - and there would be hundreds of thousands of such candidates, for whom a job in the army is a ticket to a steady income, not to mention some pride and honour back in the villages.

Where there is demand, there are middlemen. Young men desperate to join the army land up at the big cities every day. For many of them, this visit to the city is their first experience of a world beyond their village. As with any scam, this one too would start small; say Rs.10/- to fill up the form in a way that betters the chance of being selected; and would then go on to a few thousand rupees to guarantee a job as a soldier.

The army tries to warn them - with the Chennai Recruiting Zone covering the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, this warning sign has its message in 4 languages; English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu. One hopes that potential soldiers are not so daring as to chance the possibility of being taken for a ride!

Shop space

Ever since the Usman Road flyover was announced, there has been a tug-of-war between the residents of the streets nearby and the hawkers who had had their stalls on the pavements along Usman Road. Being easily mobile, the hawkers had tried to take up space along some of the roads leading into Usman Road. That riled residents, who had for long traded the inconvenience of entering through a packed Usman Road for the ease of shopping (not to mention the rising value of property, on paper) in the comfort that, even though the approach was chaotic, their street was calm. With the side streets already being used as public parking areas, chaos had reached their doorstep and the prospect of their walls being used as display shelves by the hawkers was the last straw.

In the days after the flyover was inaugurated, the Madras High Court has been kept busy: each time the Corporation proposed a new location - in one of the side streets - the residents have rushed to the Court, seeking a stay on the move; predictably, no one seems happy with any of the suggestions. Tempers are running high; no one has any solution. Sample this; one day last month, the police helped the Corporation officials enforce the movement of hawkers onto Pinjala Subramanian Street and then warned them not to open for business, fearing the wrath of the residents. The ward councillor too beat a quick retreat when he found that, as the sole representative of authority, he was being targetted by anyone who was agitated.

These bundles remain, seemingly marking a grudging truce - storing okay, selling not - between the residents and the hawkers. And the powers that be continue to ponder over a situation that does not seem to have a satisfactory resolution!

Colours of friendliness

Autorickshaws are India's unique contribution to the world of vehicles. I can't think of a similar vehicle in any other part of the world. Though the tricyles of Philippines (pictures from Butuan and Manila) come somewhat close, they are modified two-wheelers rather than 3-wheeled vehicles designed specifically for public transportation. The similarity comes more from the attitude and traffic sense of the drivers, apart from the function that the vehicles perform. The autos - or ricks - across India are painted black with a yellow stripe around the middle of their body. It is only in Tamil Nadu and in Andhra Pradesh that these vehicles are painted highway yellow with a green - or black or red - stripe. I'm sure the colour of the stripe has some significance to those in the know, but it does not seem to have any connection to the attitude of the driver or the accuracy of the fare meter. Auto drivers across the country have their own definition of customer service and friendliness, besides independent interpretation of how the official rates have to be compounded when picking up a fare.

Chennai's autos have earned an especially bad reputation. Visitors to Chennai arriving at the Chennai Central or the airport will be completely thrown off whack by auto drivers who appear to be militantly uni-lingual, speaking Tamizh and refusing to understand any other language. And the rates, of course are doubled or even trebled - if you are a first-time visitor, you could not have imagined a worse way to be introduced to the city. It is not as if the autos in other parts of the city are saintly; only that you have a better chance to haggle over the rates. There cannot be anyone in Chennai who can claim that the overwhelming majority of their experiences with auto drivers has been good; at best, there is a grudging acknowledgement that one can get lucky sometimes. Many efforts have been made to counter the notoriety - regular reports in the papers about honest auto drivers, movies showing them as regular guys, encouraging women auto drivers - but they've not succeeded in any significant way. Chennai's autos are a law unto themselves.

One of the most visible efforts is the introduction of 'Tourist Friendly Autos' - identified by their lighter colour and the tourism related pictures and logos on their body. Begun about 4 months ago with a batch of 39 specially screened (and trained) drivers, this initiative of the Tamilnadu Tourism Development Corporation (TTDC) has grown to include about one hundred autos in Chennai and quite a few in other cities also. The TTDC has a list of the first 39 on their website, but they seem to be quite wary of adding to that list!

Let the festivities begin!

For most of India, late-August / early-September marks the beginning of the festive season. Last Friday was the start of the 11-day festival of 'Our Lady of Health' at Veilankanni, which is celebrated all over Tamil Nadu. Yesterday was the start of the holy month of Ramadan and also the first day of celebrations leading up to Onam, a festival in Kerala. Today is a holiday to mark Vinayaka Chathurthi, the festival honouring Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. And then, at the beginning of October, there is Navarathri, followed by Diwali. Each of them is celebrated over a few days so there is a lot of good food, cheer and celebrations to look forward to.

Vinayaka is probably the most prevalent of the deities in the city. There is a belief that if your house is at a T-junction, a small statue of Vinayaka (or even a tile with His image) must be placed in a way that it looks down to the foot of the 'T', so as to deflect any ill-luck that might come up that road. Add to that the numerous clay idols that have made expressly to celebrate the Chathurthi and there is a glut of Ganeshas all over Chennai. There are pujas at each one and if you pause there, you will be given a leaf-plate with some prasad; kozhukattai or modakam, typically, as it is Ganesha's favourite food. And then you can have a bit of suspense as you taste it, because it comes in both sweet and savoury forms.

On Venkatnarayana Road, there is a space just outside the JYM Kalyana Mandapam (Marriage Hall) where a group of devotees build a large Vinayaka every year. When they started the practice, it was a clay-and-papier-mache idol: like any other, only bigger. But for the past few years, the materials have been varied - can you find out how many vegetables it takes to make a Vinayaka?

Power holiday

It is always good to be in Chennai, but once in a while, one is slightly embarassed about the 'privileges' the city enjoys. Embarassed not because those privileges are undeserved, but because the context of those privileges needs to be explained to non-Chennaiites who bristle at the 'unfair' treatment they receive. Right now, it is the issue of power-cuts; normally a power-neutral state, Tamil Nadu has been hit by a combination of factors leading to power availability falling by almost 20%. Power thefts and transmission losses are constants; the official line is that erratic rainfall and lower availability of uranium for the nuclear plant at Kalpakkam are the main causes for the current shortfall.

This shortfall has led to a power cut being imposed all across the state. Factories have been asked to declare an additional off-day each week, as a 'power holiday'. Rolling blackouts have been imposed in all areas. The first such power cut regime came into effect in mid-July; within a week, it was withdrawn for most consumers. Since yesterday, the cuts are back with a vengeance - Chennai will have blackouts for 1.5 hours each day; the suburbs of Chennai will be powerless for 3 hours a day. The rest of the state, though has to suffer through 5 hours without electricity. That creates strong resentment against the city dwellers and there are several demands for more 'equitable power cuts'. But with Chennai generating roughly 4.5% of India's GDP (and about 40% of Tamil Nadu's), longer power cuts in the city will have a huge knock-on effect - and a longer recovery time post the crisis.

The picture is of a substation in the city, just after a new transformer was installed a few weeks ago. Maybe this one too needs a good spell of rain for it to start working!