Chennai, The 7th Most Hated City in the World

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on October 19, 2009 – 4:28 pm -

After Krish pointed out Lonely Planet about some of the facts on Chennai, our beloved city, Lonely Planet did put a shabby effort to re-write the piece which does not look as miserable as it used to before.

Lonely Planet however, does have another interesting Article. They call it the Cities you really hate and they list a lot of cities and its anybody’s guess Chennai is on it too and it repeats again, like it did in the previous article…

We describe it as lacking Mumbai’s prosperity, Delhi’s history or Bengaluru’s buzz.

 

I’m going to merely repeat what has already been said before by many people on krish’s blog.

1. Mumbai’s Prosperity – Sure yes, they have bollywood. How come our Kollywood, the second most largest movie industry got ignored on this front? How come Chennai being the backbone of Indian automotive market got comfortably ignored? In Chennai, we don’t have Benz SUV’s running over people sleeping on the platforms and killing them at large and the driver walking away scot free. The poor get a little less poorer here some of the times and maybe richer too occasionally compared to mumbai’s “rich getting richer & poor getting poorer” as our super star rajinikanth would say. On one side lies five star hotels and Benz SUV’s (which are manufactured in sriperumbudur – an industrial town setup near Chennai) and on the other slums where people undergo untold pain and hardship. Ever heard of sustainable development/progress? That’s Chennai for starters. Finally, we definitely don’t have to worry about the underworld that bollywood is so famous for.

2. Delhi’s History – I will quote from Chandrachoodan’s words since i can never top him when it comes to Chennai’s History…

What history can Chennai claim? Besides being the first major city the British built in India, besides it 1000 year old temples and 500 year old churches and 200 year old mosques and ancient port towns and stone-age settlements, what history can Chennai claim? The city has absolutely no history, which is why even the Portuguese thought it not wise to give Santhome away as dowry to the British king, opting instead to give them Bombay. The city has no history whatsoever, which is why almost all of Independent India’s institutions had to be founded in Madras. The city has no history or why else would the British pioneer the architectural style of Indo-Saracenic, fusing Muslim/Persian styles with the classical styles of south India, in Madras?

 

3. Bengaluru’s Buzz – For starters, how about Chennai being the Second largest software exporter in India, behind Bangalore being ignored without any sort of hesitation? Secondly, how about Chennai being the backbone of the Indian Automobile industry with over 40% of production + distribution happening in plants setup in and around Chennai by Hyundai, Maruti, Tata, TVS and Mahindra. Answers where all those damn cars in Outer ring road (that clogs the narrow Bangalore roads and make the city hell to drive around) comes from, don’t it.

 

My only question here is this. “How do you hate a city?”

I mean i can understand if you are a foreigner and you are asked to relocate to a new city and you find the food and the culture and practices hostile and you hate life for that moment of time while you get adjusted to it or try and fit in desperately. I’ve been through that in Bangalore and i can accept that but then i eventually moved on and now i love that city and would not hesitate to move back if conditions favored. But as a “traveler” or a “tourist” how can you hate a city? I mean, if you get mugged or robbed or raped its one thing, still hating a city on the whole? I mean why would you even have an article that says “hate” on your site when your intent is supposed to be promoting factual, neutral and unbiased information about a place. I don’t get it, seriously.

The whole point of travelling, i feel personally is to experience. Its agreed not all experiences may be pleasant or something everyone would like. However, just because a few people wanted to play it too safe and never got to know the real local things to do and have fun in a place, does that make the place hated? Wow, this is possibly the first time im hearing such an idea.

Finally you also say…

Even the Movie stars are ‘not that hot’

As you put it and you even claim you are being kind. Kind for not being more sexist?

You seem to have this thing for rating a movie star based on looks and sexuality and nothing more, probably. While looks and sexuality are a major part of a movie star, which i completely agree on.. its not everything. I can agree with the fact that we brown and black skinned Tamilian’s are not as appealing and sexy compared to the white skinned north Indians. That’s the only way i can put it. I fail to see it in any other terms. I do agree our heroines are fat and yes, we like them that way. We prefer them to anorexic women with oversized implants whose silicon in the breast weighs more or less their own body weight, they diet so hard like “oh my god if i don’t eat one more meal i may die of starvation” looks. We have this fetish for some oversized women and i certainly do not deny that. Why else would Shakila be the most famous porn star in the country? Oh wait, did i say country? Wow, yes that includes my north Indian friends who are truck loads in number that love some shakila porn on their comps and always keep asking if there is something new, quite embarrassingly.. one has to admit, being south indian.

Nevertheless, if you knew who Trisha, Simran, Asin, Shreya are and if you ever looked at how our women swoon to see topless Surya or scream on seeing our Superstar Rajinikanth who is loved for his charisma on screen and Ulaganathan Kamalahasan’s exceptionally directed movies and acting skills, you would not really have made that naive statement. I guess sweaty Cleavages, almost nipple revealing clothing and always bare bodied hero’s of the north is what you are fond of, probably. I will admit, i get excited too, looking at deepika padukone or aishwarya rai’s [who by the way entered the movie industry via a “Tamil” kodambakkam (a place in chennai) film] frame but i do snap back to reality and don’t get carried away. There are to many lovely pairs of women’s bosoms and i cant be stuck with a few all the time. After all, variety is the spice of life. However when it comes to the movies, we like the usual masala flicks like any indian but get very serious about quality performances, script, story-line, sequencing, editing and playback which are all things we fight and argue about over a cup of filter kaapi at saravana bhavan or karpagambal’s mess. If you wanna know more on this read this too. If you still aint satisfied, i invite you to karpagambal’s mess where i will treat you to the world famous in chennai filter coffee and masala dosai to discuss this matter seriously with another 20 of us chennai’ vasi’s (fuck chennaikers) who will fiercely debate the issue with great passion.

I know, if at all i have any chance some Lonely Planet writer will drop by and put a politically correct statement in a decent manner (unlike the flair with which i use expletives and im so infamous for) stating some stuff which obviously will mean “that’s what people think abt Chennai, its full of shit so get lost” kind of remark that was already posted like this in Sharanya’s blog.

But hey, its a blog and unfortunately it happens to be mine. We are a democracy and everyone has the freedom of expression (unless you are messing with the real baddies in which case thou shalt be wrong) to say what they want, so there goes my 23 minutes of ranting on a random blog no sane person on planet earth would waste time reading or comment to result in futile results.

Tags: Chennai Sucks, Hated Cities, Lonely Planet, Madras
Posted in Chennai, country, crib, media, opinion, rantings | 23 Comments »

When the Rupee can Fuck Off…

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on August 31, 2009 – 5:56 pm -

I had some nice fun catching up with Reva and Gautham this sunday. We met up at a very upscale coffee place in a book store.

While we were catching up on things and discussing my north india tour et all, i noticed something i’ve noticed shit loads of times before. I thought i would write about it today.

I’ve always had the habit of calling things in straight forward terms, for example what happens in every religious book off all religions, what other people would call culture, i would call sexism.

On a similar note, i noticed something which in my opinion can only be called Treason. I’m of the opinion that i live in india and we indians use the Indian Rupee as our currency for all sorts of trade activities within india for all indian goods of indian origin, made in india. I hope that makes things clear.

Now what i did see was books displayed and one or two of them books had “now at a new reduced price of US $ 45” or something along those lines. This is not the first time i see stuff like this on window displays of shops. While it is acceptable that exclusive items that are not available in india but made available exclusively by an isolated entity like a shop where in a seperate Indian version/edition of the product is not available the quotation of foreign currency might be unavoidable.

However what seems to be happening is people quoting american/european currency for the heck of it to give something a posh “im an imported good” feel to it when you turn to the last page of the book it perfectly quotes a indian version print and the local printing press’s name as well, this practice of quoting dollars on goods as completely ridiculous.

I don’t get it. Do i agree with the fact that almost all indian made products or consumer goods suck in quality? Yes, i certainly think so. I myself use much of foreign made consumer goods for quality and health reasons much but that does not mean that i have to read a US dollar price tag (regardless of the fact i may be paying dollar equivalents in rupees).

Regardless of how much shit i have in my country and how it may suck im an indian and im proud of it. When i buy something sold inside the indian border, i would want to be quoted a price in indian currency.

I just cannot accept blindly giving head to white skinned fanaticism. Its racism at its simplest form and communicating in a foreign currency inside the country, regardless of what country you are in is treason. Retailers please get this fact. I dont care if you bill me twice as much just because you sold it in an a/c showroom with a please and thank you. I will cough it up, in RUPEES.

Tags: consumerism, dollars, Racism, rupees, sales
Posted in country, crib, daily life, incident, opinion, questions, rantings | 1 Comment »

Brahmin Bastards? Thank you Indian Politics.

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on April 25, 2009 – 8:42 pm -

Attended a Wedding of a close friends sister. Anglo-Indian Wedding, had much fun. Drank wine, ate cake, good food. What more does one want in life?

Of course met two of my friends from my first job whom i’ve not seen for ages. All 4 of us i.e., my friend [friend#3] (who’s sister was getting married) then my other two friends and myself were standing in the queue to meet the couple, wish them and leave for food.

General vetty discussion goes on. Suddenly discussion is like between the 3 of them. What was i doing? As usual gaping at the colorful disco lights & regretting why i did not bring my camera. So the conversation is like…

Friend#1: “Fuck this dude, once upon a time Anglo-Indians used to be respected like shit man!”

Friend#2: Yeah man, every where i see i could only see Anglo-Indians. Nowadays though its so hard to spot an Anglo-Indian.

(I’m stupified by how everyone wants to see people from their community all over the place and if they don’t they feel victimized and offended, sigh!)

Friend#1: Yeah man, all because of these Brahmin bastards (or i heard bitches?)

…uncomfortable silence from all 3 and i jump into the scene…

I try to lighten up the situation.

Me: Guys, i just heard Brahmin, i was not sure if it was bitches or whores? Nevertheless, im an atheist mother fucker. Why do i even give a fuck.

Friend#3: Sorry dude, no offense meant.

Friend#2: Yeah dude, Varun Gandhi is a fucking dick head.

Friend#1: Yeah man, BJP sucks. Congress is secular given any day compared to anyone.

Me: Yes, the congress is just as secular as much as im gonna pull a monkey out of my ass now.

 

***laughs out from all, we shift topic to hot women on the dance floor***

I don’t know why i felt to post this. In fact after typing so much i feel this post has no direction except the fact that im once again realizing, we as indians are so fucking divided. I have this feeling that we shall never come together and we shall never move forward. My doubts are being re-assured when i go out of india and see how people are committed to the law and order situation and how sincere they are in what they do.

Fuck all Brahmins, yes they are bastards. They rode on the sudhra’s ass for 1000’s of years brutally, bitches. No questions when it comes to that but then was it only the Brahmins who did that? What about the portugese slaughter of brahmins in the olden days, what about the massacre of sikhs across this nation when indira gandhi was killed, what about the genocide of pundits in kashmir?

I’m extremely disappointed today, that’s all i can say. We’re divided and we’re divided like hell and there ain’t no fixing this shit if people don’t start using some common sense. I’m very very disappointed. Christians hate brahmins, Muslims Hate Brahmins, Hindu non brahmins hate brahmins and what about brahmins?

Brahmins hate everybody..

Tags: anglo-indian, brahmins, conversation, religious bullshit, talk, Wedding
Posted in country, crib, daily life, happenings, incident, opinion, personal, rantings | 69 Comments »

The Safe Road’s Awareness Project

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on March 15, 2009 – 5:48 pm -

I thought i would write what we discussed today so that we can stay on the same page. The Safe Road’s awareness project is all about one thing. Making people realize the importance of safe and quality roads. Roads are a critical component of our public infrastructure. Roads are fundamental to our everyday survival. No matter who is in power, what government is ruling, the requirement of safe and usable roads is a fundamental need.

Sadly, as far as Chennai is concerned we have seen our roads deteriorate big time, especially post the last rainy season due to the floods. What’s more ironic is the effort that we see from the government body(s) to repair and restore such roads which is hardly visible.

Even if roads are repaired the quality of the repair is so bad that it makes little difference. An apt example would be the brand new road leading to NIFT and IT Expressway from Ascendas. The road has been laid recently but its not flat, there are so many variations on the levelness of this road and major drainage lines which are risen above the road level and the new tar laid over it to accommodate it leading to a huge hump like a mountain that is dangerous when driving in the night, since streetlights don’t work consistently here.

So what can we as small timer citizens do about this? Well, for once we can get our act together and make people vote. We can highlight this issue to everyone on the roads and make them approach their zonal/ward office to lodge a complaint about the poor quality of roads. We need to capture the attention of the common man to make him act.

So how can this be done? The idea is simple but is not without risks:-

1. Get a can of red paint/paint spray.
2. Spray a circle around potholes, road problems, ditches, uncovered manholes, illegal speed breaker… you name it.
3. Take a picture of this.
4. Have an exhibition of these images.

The red paint will get people to notice the problem. It acts as  deterrent and people can stay away from potholes and other problems on the road. Flyers can be handed out to educate people on what they can do, where they can lodge a complaint, when we paint the roads.

Sounds as easy as it may, as good as our intentions are it is not without problems we can do this. The law may find the red circles as a nuisance issue. More importantly, this may bruise the ego of politicians/govt. which may lead to potential issues/problems.

No process is without its risk, change does not come easy. Our forefathers died in the process of getting us freedom from the British. I think its just to say we can risk being yelled at or be questioned for mischief if we can change our roads, make them safe and create awareness.

We will have a meeting to discuss this on the coming Saturday 21st of march, 2009 at "The Madras Terrace House" at 6 PM.

Tags: awareness campaign, india, movement, road safety, roads, safe roads
Posted in country, idea, statement | 3 Comments »

Rang De

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on October 8, 2008 – 9:09 pm -

An interesting project to have a look at and support.

Share this: :

Posted in country, daily life, money, video, world affairs | No Comments »

Reality Bites!

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on October 2, 2008 – 1:46 am -

Apparently the latest publicity stunt is recruiting Kapil Dev into the Indian Army. Captain Suresh pinged me on this.

Right after a great party at a club in a happy mood i find this news a bit inspiring and pissing me off at the same time. Kapil Dev wants to serve in the army, wow! Nice read, call it a publicity stunt which it fucking is, its still nice to hear and is inspiring.

On the flip side, we have screwed our soldiers so much in the Sixth Pay Commision. We have treated them so shoddily that we need celebrity stunts to inspire people to serve in the army. I met a friend today evening who works for the hotel industry and he was telling me how Malaysian Tamil’s crib about who will change this country for the better and how they feel its an impossible task.

I feel for once he is right. For a country that cannot respect the guys and gals who are waiting for the bullet to their head, india is fucked.

Today is October 2nd. I gladly say "Fuck off" india. i’m tired of your indian’ism.

Posted in country, crib, debate, emotions, incident, opinion, personal, politics | 2 Comments »

Words of Wisdom - #1

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on August 21, 2008 – 3:10 pm -

Dilip says "the day nobody honks like they’re cumming at the speed of light when the traffic signal counts under 12 for green, that day india is civilized."

Posted in comedy, country, crib, daily life, funny, india, opinion, personal | 1 Comment »

Black and White

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on August 19, 2008 – 3:24 am -

We had another Photowalk and another whole day of fun last Sunday. While taking the underpass to little mount across the railway tracks i was shooting pictures and these two Muslims girls came up the stairs and i thought i should probably stop shooting. But then i thought, if i stop shooting i would be blatantly supporting those Islamic terrorists who are scared of women.

Yes, those suckers are scared of women, they are so shit scared that they piss on their pants everytime they think of a woman or when their mom or sister calls on them "where are you?". Why else would they hide the beauty, the essence of womanhood and the freedom of one human being to visually identify themselves. Forget the fact of public or private identity, lets discuss identity on the whole. So if i stop shooting because these Muslim women should be treated like fairies while Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Jain women should be winked at and called names just like how young boys and girls play their love games of their age, that would mean i’m considering special treatment for Muslim for Muslim women. Why, because i’m scared they may come kill me? Is that it? I even heard someone behind me whisper "dude, don’t even think of it" and i dropped my 50mm body and went in for the 24 - 70 heavy lens and pointed the lens right at this girl and shot like 5 frames.

She stopped at me, stared and then went away like nothing ever happened. I hope she liked the treatment of being looked upon as a normal woman. Sad for her if she considered me to be a womanizer, i don’t think i’m much of that. Her clan in Saudi Arabia definitely are.

I found it today in black and white. On o ne side of the steps i found french women who had a drag at a local tea shop and were chatting upto a bunch of locals with camera’s and having a blast. On the other side of the step i find women, from the same genetic pattern treated worse than sheep. I mean, we don’t cover our sheep’s face when it goes out in public, why women be considered more cheaper than sheep.

It’s all there for us to see in black and white. We can look at it and call a liar a bluff and laugh our ass off at anyone over 15 still pray to santa for gifts and play the good boy or we can pretend they are being normal and let them talk to their imaginary creatures in their heads and let them get away with things, which otherwise we would place them in prison for a very long time.

Posted in country, crib, daily life, debate, dogma, flickr, islam, opinion, rantings, religion | 3 Comments »

Pehli Nazar Mein can go fuck itself!

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on August 16, 2008 – 3:53 am -

I was sitting at this pub last night and they were playing desi night and the song was "Pehli Nazar Mein Kya Jadu Kar Diya" and i thought, "what an amazing number!". I’ve heard this before on a couple of friends/colleagues caller tune and i did not like this song much but listening to it in a club in full quality was like Christmas for me and it made it, i became a fan and i downloaded this album today (RACE) and listened to it.

I was trying to see how the video for this fantastic number would look like and i found more than what i was looking for on youtube. I know i may be late by weeks or months and this is old news but still……

You may download the Original Sarang Hae Yo from here.

In the wake of copyright infringements that haven’t really made me a happy person and knowing how the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 and its amendment, the last one being almost 9 years ago in 1999 (after which the Internet changed everything and its existence this act is oblivious about) being such a joke, i just thought i would let the few people who listen to Hindi music and probably love this song, its stolen…

It’s someone else’s hard work that’s been lifted just because you are a brown man here and your vague laws protect you from prosecution…. i feel it very unfair and very painful. I don’t know what i can as an individual do. I took off this song from my MP3 player and i updated it with the Original Korean song, i care not if i don’t get the language. To feel love, words are not a necessity. The though i think is enough with the wonderful feeling.

I’m thinking i will spread this message to everyone i know so that they are listening to a thief and this is stolen shit. If that sense of guilt could help, i guess that makes my day.

Posted in "copyright violation", country, crib, daily life, debate, india, opinion, video | 2 Comments »

A few good men…

Written by Dilip Muralidaran on July 31, 2008 – 12:27 am -

These folks were around the munusami temple under the tree in the NH45 road. We had wiling models for some portraiture and had a lot of fun. The most interesting thing about village people is that they will readily talk politics and you can call anyone an ass and get away with it.

We were talking about whom to vote for this election in the state of Tamilnadu and who would probably win and who would go to jail after winning etc., Gayathri was scared of all this talk and was screaming that someone is going to get killed and be on the 7 o clock news with all this political trashing talk. The fact of the matter is I love to do this every time I’m around villagers. There is an awesome thrill in it, in getting to hear their perspective of things.

You can have everything you want here in the city but there is nothing more charismatic to the adrenaline pumping arguments and reasoning of a villager on some random politician or the government. 3 large grey goose on the rocks cant buy this thrill, I can tell you that for sure.

Of course, this time Ashwin decided he needs to take a pic with these amazing guys. On second thoughts i guess i should have gotten a pic too but then ashwin will agree with me if say that we will drive to this place again just for shooting portraits of these folks.

Canon EOS 400D with the Canon EF 50MM F/1.4 USM. Aperture Priority, F/11 at 1/30th of a second.

Posted in comedy, country, daily life, friends, funny, happenings, india, politics, street photography, world affairs | 2 Comments »