Care Walk - 2013...

                                                                   Care-Walk - 2013                            

As regular readers of my blog know, I often walk the streets of Chennai as part of a photo walk group – which has these regular walks scheduled once a month- to document the changes of our rapidly evolving city and to preserve the memories of what was once there and will be no more. This month’s walk was special as it coincided with the celebration of Madras Day and hence the walk was associated with the local British council for a charitable purpose - cancer relief and called as Carewalk-2013.

The walk was flagged off from the premises of the British Council Library at Mount Road (Anna Salai) which is right behind the Madras District Library – the Devaneya Paavanar Library- the place where a thousand civil servants were made in those pre-coaching center days for a lot of civil service aspirants used the library as a study point for preparing the civil service exams. 

The British Council Library on Mount Road

The British Deputy High Commissioner Flagging off the walk

The Assembled group of photographers

The library’s second floor had a fantastic collection of old medical books- which was my attraction point- and I had spent many pleasant hours in the past- going through the old textbooks and reading up the changes in medical treatment with every new edition. Many times I was reminded by my friends that it was totally pointless towards scoring good marks in our exams- to learn about historical medical treatments now out of fashion- but I have always been fascinated by history and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a lazy summer afternoon- especially as the reading section of the library was fully air-conditioned- a luxury in our hot summers. And if I got bored of reading medical stuff, then there was always the British Council Library right next door with a fantastic collection of general books- and an especially good travelogue section- my favorite kind of lazy read. Anyway, that’s more than enough about books and libraries; let’s get back to the walk.

The Devaneya Pavanar Madras Public Library

As I said the walk was flagged off by the British Deputy Commisioner from the lawn of the library. We had a slightly latish start at around 8:30AM compared to our usual 6:30AM start but on the plus side we had a police escort throughout the walk which meant that not once was our organizer Ramasamy N. (of Chennai Daily Photos fame) had to stop and explain to random cops why we were walking around with cameras so early in the morning. As I have mentioned in my previous posts - the early morning patrol cops are the “Alert Arumugam” types- and they have never failed to stop the photo walk group at least a couple of times on every single walk to enquire and check our ID’s- as if Al Queda terrorists openly walk about in groups photographing street signs and shop name boards. Don’t they now do it direct on Google street view? Anyway Ram Anna as he is fondly called by the photo walkers has the unenviable task of dealing with the zealous cops every time. And so it was a pleasant surprise to see that for this walk the British High Commissioner had arranged a police escort for us on the entire route- making Rams’ work easy and allowing him to concentrate on the thing he loves- capturing images.

The Erstwhile Anand Theatre under the Metro Rail construction debris

The 30 year supplier of Cd's to Chennai

Sonna Puriyudha?

Did you know that a Xerox gives a "DITTO" copy?

The 3-way split of Anna Salai

 The walk started off from Mount Road and passing by the now defunct Anand Theatre- a once prominent landmark for the city’s film buffs- and skirting around the dug up roads for the upcoming Metro rail project, we turned into Greams Road. As one of the history buffs in the group- Chandra Choodan or CC as he is called explained- the road started off being called Greame’s Road in honor of an erstwhile prominent resident Mr.Greame, of Irish origin. With time the “e” was lost and an “s” was added to the name by the local corporation officers- and hence Greams Road. But this contraction of the late Mr. Greame’s name doesn’t seem to be the end of the story – as I saw quite a few shop name boards with creative spelling of the original street name – Indian ingenuity at its best.

Is it Greams Road?

Or Grimes Road?

 After passing the mid way point of the walk at the designated – TAFE workshop- a place where almost all Chennai car owners would have service their cars at one time or another, we turned back into the opposite side to pass the MRF showroom with its distinctive “Man bearing Tire” display in imitation of the mighty Atlas of Greek Myths. From there we crossed over to the other side of Mount Road into Peter’s Road and the Thousand Lights Mosque- which gives its name to the Thousand Lights Area behind it. As we were there on a Sunday and a non-prayer time we could enter the mosque and enjoy its beauties without inhibitions- a first time for me and a few others too. After photographing the minarets and domes of the Thousand Lights mosque – the walk was officially ended and we broke up to go home for breakfast and a long lazy Sunday.

The Chinese Triads are here ?

A prayer for every ill -on specific days

Atlas Reborn- Tyre man of MRF

Welcome to India- where guests are God

I have my "EYE" on you

The immortal Tramp - Charlie Chaplin- evergreen humor man

R.I.P.- A grave headstone

The Thousand Lights Mosque

The Minarets of the Thousand Lights Mosque

Interior of Mosque

A stained glass window

View through a window

 

P.S. the second walk for this madras month celebrations is scheduled for next Sunday and would cover the Nandambakkam area starting from MIOT hospital. Do join us if you are free that today.

Our Leader - Ramasamy N - of Chennai Daily Photos

A new walker - rings the bell

Chatting up Strangers

Chatting up Strangers – In the Triplicane Photo-Walk, July 2013.

 Yesterday I talked to a dozen strangers and a dog. I am not kidding, I really did. It being the third Sunday of the month I had gone to Triplicane- one of the oldest neighborhoods in old Madras as part of a monthly heritage walk where we walk the streets and take pictures of anything which catches our fancy. It’s an eclectic bunch who turn up for the photo-walk every month- a mixture of seasoned photographers, newbie’s with their first DSLR's, heritage lovers and historians and people who are just along for the exercise and to enjoy the early morning streets.

The photographers during the walk specialize in different things - some look for architecture-old heritage buildings and stuff, some specialize in taking portraits of people on the streets - walking about and doing their stuff, some interested in the busy early morning activities -the paper delivery kids or the tea masters, some in documenting the street names - which keep changing with every change of government and there is even one guy who shoots (with the camera of course) every stray dog he meets.

And people like I, who do a mix of all these things together because I don’t have a niche as such and just click whatever I fancy at the moment. But in my (admittedly brief) experience - the hardest hobby of all is shooting personal portraits as most people are either suspicious or shy or a combination of both when it comes to posing for photographs by strangers. Well, to be fair to them wouldn’t we hesitate too, if a random guy walks up to and asks to shoot our picture?

And that’s the reason it takes great skill to convince them that their photograph is being shot for a harmless purpose. And the best way to convince them and put them at ease would be to chat them up. But there's a catch in it. As we walk along as part of a large group and the group is in constant motion, the only way to stay in touch and not fall too far behind the group is to make sure that we chat up a stranger and convince them in a couple of minutes (all that we can afford) to share their life story with us and to pose happily for their photographs. And believe me it’s not an easy job.

Which is why I count my dozen men (and dog) as a well rounded figure of achievement. Especially when you consider that they include people as diverse as a fish-monger, a butcher , a milkman, a metal worker, a laundry worker, a carpenter, a sweet shop owner, a flower shop owner, assorted busy bodies who walk up to inquire what we are doing and even a man on a bike with a dog. When I chatted up the man he introduced to me his dog (named Dilson) a mastiff which he had taken to the nearby beach for its morning walk/run and was now taking home. And finally both, the owner Dilshad and the dog Dilson happily posed for their photographs to me.

And that’s what I meant by screwing up the courage to talk to random strangers on a whim. You can learn surprising things once you get past the initial awkwardness of starting a conversation. Like the fishmonger who explained to me that he used separate sharp knives’ for separate varieties of fish depending on their scale types. Like the butcher who carried on our entire conversation in good grammatical English and giving me his mobile phone number offered to home deliver choice cuts of meat to my house. Like the milkman who spent 100 seconds of our 120 second conversation decrying the modern habit of going in for packet milk which was slowly driving their tribe out of existence. Like the laundry owner who explained that his landlord was the Nawab of Arcot and had been so for the hundred years his laundry was functioning from the same premises. Interesting little tidbits like that is what I look for in such talks.

And here are some of the pictures of those who posed for me….

And that reminds me of an online conversation I was part of in a blogger group recently where some guys were talking about how difficult it was to approach and talk to a strange girl (in a public space like a train for instance) who was reading an interesting book they had read too. As I said there and repeat again here, I have never found such situations difficult because when I walk up to that girl the only thing my mind’s looking forward to, is having a long conversation and not a long relationship. As long as you are clear in your own mind about the topic on hand, you need not be nervous about chatting up anyone. Do I make sense?

On the Mint food Trail- Street food Festival of North Madras.

I had an affair today, yep I confess, it was an affair, a rocking glorious affair with food. Wondering how it came about? It all started when I happened to see an invite for a food walk from a facebook group I belong to. I was intrigued with the concept of a walk just for sampling  the street food and decided to join in immediately, although I had absolutely no idea what to expect there on that day and didn’t know anyone else who had registered too. But hey, what’s life if we always do what we are comfortable with, shouldn’t we step out of our comfort zone now and then and have a little excitement? That’s the motto I live by and I almost never say no to new experiences even if they give me the scare of my life. After all, I don’t have a wife/kids/family/commitments or any other reason that my friends use to avoid doing risky stuff. If I can’t do it now, when will I ever do it? So after this big build-up let me move onto the actual food walk.

After bantering for a week on the event page with the organizers Madam Pratibha Jain and Tanmay Chordia, Saturday finally came up. As my luck would have it, events were conspiring against me all day with work piling up. But I put my foot down at last, told them at the hospital that there was no way I was going to be there from 5pm to 7pm as I had informed them earlier itself and then I made my way to Mint Street, the venue of the Food Trail start-up point, dressed in Red as Aditi Jain had specified earlier.

When I reached Kakada Sweets the assemble point- there was already a large crowd of people milling about waiting for the organizers to declare the meet open. I finally found Aditi, after asking around, and she, would you believe it, was wearing a maroon Kurta, after specifying to me particularly about wearing Red. Well, she was busy volunteering with the group then, so I let her go, intending to have out the color-code issue with her later. Tanmay Chordia, my FB friend, joined us then and taking charge of one of the groups he made a push off from the start point. I joined the next group, spearheaded by Bhavna Nahar and we hit the sugarcane stall outside Chotu-Motu, which has awesome fresh sugarcane juice, all natural and so sweet. In the hot and humid evening (for it rained later on) and after the long walk up Mint Street, the sugarcane juice was the perfect appetizer.

We next hit, Ajab Mitha Ghar, for some kachoris and hot, hot jalebis.  Pooja bought us all a plate of jalebis gratis and after sampling the taste, we all ordered a round. And then we reached Maya Chats, where Bhavna vouched that the Masal Kachori with Mint chutney was something to die for. So then it was Kachori time for me and yes, it was tangy, spicy, sweet all at the same time and the mint chutney combo rocked. Spot on Bhavna.

The next pit stop on the tour was at Maharaja Ice Cream for the original Rajasthani flavored Malai Kulfis. Pooja, our ever smiling guide bought a plate of kulfis and passed it around for tasting (thanks again Pooja, you rock) and nobody who tasted it could escape buying a large plate of kulfis for themselves. It was perfect. I savoured a stick of malai kulfi and was tempted to order another immediately. It was a battle between my tongue and my dieter’s conscience, especially as the final highlight was still to come.

Having conquered my temptations, I went along with Pooja to the last venue on the food trail, the Pani Poori stall outside the Jain temple. Pooja vouched that if there is a better pani poori being served in Chennai anywhere, she was yet to find it. This was it. The original of originals. Pani poori heaven and my, did the group gorge. The pooris were disappearing as fast as the guy could make it. And the more I tried to stop myself, the more I felt tempted to indulge in one last fling. 

Fortunately, for my waist line, Pratibha Jain, the organizer turned up with the last batch and leaving them to sample the goodies I made my bye-byes and promising to return for more (part-2/3/4 and all-like a bad action movie), I bade everyone their my adieus and made my way back to the hospital and neglected duties. I hope my patients were a bit understanding if I wasn’t really very attentive today, it was all that chat food working its way up my system.

So, there it was my first affair with north Indian food, courtesy the Mint food trail. Like all affairs it was brief and glorious while it lasted and the aftereffects will be seen only when I step on the weighing scales tomorrow.

(P.S. a big thanks to all the volunteers- Pooja, Aditi, Tanmay, Bhavna , Tara..you did a fantastic job)