No bottle cleaning needed

It is surprising how something remains un-noticed for a long, long time and then, all on a sudden, you start seeing it almost everywhere you look. This flower was also one such. I don't remember having ever noticed it until a few weeks ago, while on a walk to the Nanmangalam forest. It looked very nice and it seemed to be an ideal plant that could be grown along boundary walls of houses. Since then, I've spotted it in a couple of other places and for the life of me I can't figure out how I could have missed this flower.

Yet, the flower had some more mystery for me. It was pointed out to me as a bottle-brush flower and so I googled for bottle brush flowers. Of course there were a lot of results, but none of them matched the flower I had seen. They were close, but not an exact match and that was gnawing away at me. It was only over this weekend that, thanks to Dr. Bhanumathi of the MNS that I learnt that I was way off: the bottle-brush flower belongs to a completely different genus altogether and this one was closer to the touch-me-nots rather than bottle-brushes. In fact, it is sometimes called the sickle-bush and is considered a pest, because it is very hardy and its seeds can lie dormant for up to a year. In some parts of the world, unchecked growth of this plant has caused large tracts of agricultural land to become unfit for cultivation.

After getting to know all that, I guess it is good thing that I haven't seen it too often - I will now be happy for us to enjoy the beauty of this flower in small doses!

Open air movie

Chennai has only one drive-in theatre, Prarthana, on the East Coast Road. As I passed that way close to showtime last weekend, I was convinced that I have to either arrive at Prarthana an hour before the show starts or just leave my car somewhere else and walk to the theatre. The rush of vehicles trying to get into the theatre was unimaginable. And with vehicles trying to jump the queue tempers seemed to be on the boil all around. I don't recall it being this bad when I last watched a movie there, about 3 years ago.

The other option for watching a movie in the open, is to head out to one of the Clubs in the city. Almost all of them have a weekend movie show for members and it is usually a recent film that's screened. For a reluctant movie goer like me, it is a good option to go to the Madras Race Club and catch up on a recent Tamil, Hindi or English movie over a couple of drinks. The movies are shown old style, with at least a couple of changes of the film reels on the projector, when the screen goes blank, and folks use that time to refill their orders of drinks or snacks. When there are friends around, it is nice to continue sitting on the lawn after the movie over a slowish Saturday dinner. Yesterday, it was difficult to resist the temptation to go, for the movie was 'Jaane tu ya jaane na' - we arrived early enough to make sure we got good seats.

A movie here comes with a small drawback, though. The Club is right under one of the landing paths to the Chennai airport. As the aircraft comes from behind the screen, you might not get distracted with its light; but when it roars overhead, you can be sure that you'll miss a couple of words from the dialogue!

Either way, it's ok?

Someone had asked if the change in the city's name from Madras to Chennai has sunk in deeply enough. There can't be a short answer to that; there are many institutions in the city which, for various reasons, continue to carry 'Madras' as part of their name. One such institution is the University of Madras, which recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. Hopefully, it will continue to retain the same name for a very, very long time. I believe it must - and so must the other institutions, else we run the risk of forgetting the Madras that was for the Chennai that will be.

Beginning with the Senate House, the University today occupies several buildings along the Marina. Even though it is very clear what it's name is, there are many who are confused about it - thankfully, the word 'Chennai' does not enter into the confusion. Several people refer to it as Madras University, which probably gets the point across, but is an obvious misnomer - or am I being too exact about it?

It seems to me that the person in charge of putting this fence around one of the University's buildings also had a similar confusion. Luckily for him, he could play it safe and cover both options by just turning a few of the grills around!

Abashed greeting

It has been a few weeks since the Beijing Olympics got over, but for some people, the euphoria over India's performance at the Games goes on. Granted, it is the first time that India had won more than 2 medals in the Olympics, but the level of celebrations seems to be a bit overboard at most times. Of course I was keyed up enough to hand out sweets at work on hearing that Bindra had clinched India's first individual gold, I did feel wretched when Saina lost to Yulianti, I did cheer when Sushil Kumar rode his luck for the bronze, as when Vijender got through to the semi-final and I felt sorry for Akhil - the last especially because I had grandly predicted gold for him. And I certainly respect the hard work and single minded focus that our sporstpersons have, and continue to, put in.

But as a collective, the chest-thumping that has gone on about 3 medals is slightly disconcerting. Especially after having seen the berserk behaviour of Indian cricket fans who go to either extreme depending on the team's performance, I shudder to think of what would happen if India were to bring home, say, 30 medals from London 2012. Would the energy be dissipated across the 30 medal winners? Would the celebrations be ten times as riotous? And what would happen if 2016 sees us drop back to 5 medals? The mind boggles.

Maybe the people behind this congratulatory message were also assailed by similar thoughts, which could be one reason why they have chosen to 'singular'ly congratulate the medal winners!

The technology motif

On a recent holiday, I had a chance to go up to the 5th floor of the Sanmar Group's Corporate Office. It was a nice view of the Radhakrishnan Salai flyover from up there; dominating the scene was one of Chennai's new office buildings. It is difficult to believe that it has been almost four years since the stately old house at that spot was demolished. As I go down the flyover, there is split-second lag before reality replaces memory and then I look up at this 13-storied building rather than look down for the imposing house that used to be there.

Though it was named 'India House', it was better known as 'Vasan's House', after SS Vasan, a one-time owner. Vasan having been a film director, it seemed a natural progression for the house to be used, after his lifetime, as a set for movies and TV serials. It was over 70 years old and with every shooting schedule, it probably took longer to recover, until it was no longer a viable proposition to be hired out. Its gates were shut after the last unit left sometime at the end of 2004; sale - agreement - construction followed and in 2007, Acropolis opened its doors to host quite a few IT companies.

Its first owner, the entrepreneur C.Rajam used the money from the sale of 'India House' to set up the Madras Institute of Technology; with the latest sale, 'India House' has made way to a Technology Park!

The Tamizh Pope

No, George Uglow never had the words "Habemus Papam" said in reference to him. He was Pope only in surname, though he was indeed a Christian missionary. He came to India before he turned twenty - and like many others, stayed on, fascinated by the country and its traditions. He had a flair for languages and very soon, he was fluent in Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamizh. In return, he taught Latin, Hebrew and English at various schools, mainly around Tuticorin, which was where he was based.

He translated several ancient Tamizh texts into English, including the Naladiyar and the Thirukkural, but ever a punctilious scholar, many of his works were published when he was well into his 60s, after he was sure that he was a master of the language. And he continued publishing his translations, lexicons and guide books of Tamizh until he turned 80; it is said that he finished his translation of Thiruvachagam on his 80th birthday and with it, considered his "life's literary work" closed. He kept his word and there were no more major writings from him in for the last eight years of his life, though he continued to be an active leader of the church almost until his death in 1908.

That's why you find this statue of Rev. G.U.Pope standing on the Marina, unveiled along with many others in January 1968, to mark the World Tamil Congress in Madras.

Porky colours

It is a wonder how anyone who grew up in Madras could ever get around to eating pork. When I was in school, the only pigs we saw were the ones that lived on the garbage dump at the 'Lake Area' near Valluvar Kottam. The stink of the garbage could be smelt one bus-stop away and if you were game enough to look at the mounds of muck, you would see an army of pigs gambolling through them, blissfully content with their surroundings. The only feature that distingushed them from the piles of black filth was their mobility. If they stood still, they would completely merge into the background, for their hairs and skins were blackened by constantly rooting around the garbage.

It was therefore a challenge to any butcher to sell pork. Buying it in the form of sausages or ham from Spencer's was the chosen mode. As pork gained popularity, other 'cold storage' outlets began to stock it, but even then, it was always the processed meat. The only shop that I have seen selling fresh pork is this one near the Saidapet bus stand on Mount Road. For RGS, the positioning was, and continues to be, important. This shop does not sell any old pig; it is 'white pork' that is sold (and it says so even more explicitly, 'white pig meat', in Tamizh).

This shop came to mind after a question at the Madras Day Quiz - What are the ingredients of Chinnamalai Pork Curry? This shop is close enough to Chinnamalai to have been the bespoke supplier of the main ingredient of that dish!

For the record, Chinnamalai Pork Curry (as described at the quiz) is made with pork, mango, brinjal and drumstick!