A Sojourn in Serendib
The late Chief, who is always watching over The Man from Madras Musings, must be having mixed feelings. On the one hand, this tract is not about the city that the Chief chronicled but about the country that he loved. And so MMM is sure that while the first instinct of the Chief had he been around in corporeal form would have been to reject this but then, on second thoughts he would have not had the heart to do so and have approved of it. And so Chief, this passage is dedicated to you, with many chuckles from MMM’s side about the way you said Kalambu for Colombo and the sing song way you spoke Tamil, on the few occasions you did.
MMM had been to the emerald isle down south a few times even when the Chief was on this side of the divide, but the most recent one was by far the most comprehensive tour of the country that MMM had even undertaken and sadly, the Chief is not here to listen to MMM relate his experiences. And let MMM add here that he remembered the Chief at practically every town and location.
One of the first things that strikes the visitor from Madras that was Chennai when he/she crosses the strait and makes it to Serendib is the short distance. A mere 45 minutes and you are in a foreign country. It is almost a disappointingly brief journey with no jet lag to make an excuse out of. And when you throw in a two-hour check in and emigration process at our very own Chennai airport, it becomes even more anti-climactic. The next aspect to strike you is the greenery. No wonder the place was known as the emerald isle. Whoever named it that way was inspired.
But these are nothing compared to the next two aspects that struck MMM. Civic discipline seems to be a creed in that country which is just a hop, skip and jump (some would say leap) away from us. Just cross the water and you are in a land where there are no piles of rotting garbage and no stray dogs fighting over them. That brought to mind something that an animal lover from our city once related to MMM. In that person’s view, the root cause of stray animal proliferation is not the animals themselves but the manner in which we cast high, wide and plentiful, our rubbish. This was completely absent in good old Serendib and the few dogs that MMM saw were emaciated, no doubt owing to lack of a balanced diet from rubbish bins.
And before the animal lovers make a rush to beat up MMM let him assure them that he is an animal lover himself and is at this moment sheltering a cat and her freshly delivered litter. (Oh, that explains it, he is a cat lover and therefore a dog hater MMM is sure must be the new interpretation.)
The next aspect is traffic discipline. The streets in many of the cities were just as narrow as ours and as full of vehicles of various kinds. But everyone was patient, there was no honking and above all, not a person tried to break lanes and force their away ahead. And yet traffic moved. Contrast this with the manner in which we behave here.
Lastly, there was a complete absence of posters – none of the political, cinematic or religious kind. The temples and shrines that MMM visited were marred by none of the chaos we see here and yet the crowds were heavy.
It seems to MMM that our political lords and masters, rather than dangling Singapore as the holy grail before us, could simply crane their necks, see what is happening next door and implement some of it here. But then that would not be so glamorous, would it?
The G Cars and Their Tyranny
Returning from his vacation, The Man from Madras Musings was entertained to a cacophony of car horns at the airport itself. A VIP was arriving and naturally required around 50 cars to escort him/her home. Waiting for his more humble and single conveyance, MMM could not help but muse on how the biggest traffic violators of our city are the very people who are supposed to implement the law. Who will guard the guards themselves is an old Latin phrase and it perhaps applies most to our city.
MMM is not sure who hit upon the idea of painting the alphabet G on government number plates but whoever it was, must have been a genius for in one stroke it lifts all such cars above the purview of something as lowly as the law. Adorned with the G, these vehicles and more importantly their drivers, violate every traffic regulation with impunity. Consider the facts – if you have a G number plate you can drive on the wrong side of the road, and the policemen will salute you. You can do the same if you are a gig worker too but then you do run the risk of being hauled up by the law.
With a G number plate, you can have darkened windows so that the hoi polloi need not get to see who is inside. This incidentally is prohibited by law. Likewise, you can also sport a revolving light on the top, against which too there is a law. And then you can have a chauffeur who uses just one hand and one leg. The hand presses the horn and the leg the accelerator. Most G vehicles don’t need a brake at all.
Government cars are also blessed with horns that are in a volume range by themselves. They are loud, incessant and demanding. You can make out a G vehicle horn anywhere on the road. There is a certain impatient and arrogant tone to it that seems to declare that the personage in the vehicle has no time for such things as traffic lights or pedestrians. Out of my way, these vehicles seem to thunder. MMM can understand one or two government vehicles being in a hurry but surely not all of them can be so all the time. If so, then our Government must be truly nimble footed, which is not the experience that MMM has had of it.
A couple of panjandrums with whom MMM has made bold to share his views on these G vehicles say it is the drivers who are at fault. But surely, whoever is being ferried about can also educate the driver on what is acceptable and what is not? MMM is fairly certain that these hair-raising car drives are as much the driver’s doing as it is also the passengers. If only government cars were to begin obeying traffic rules, the rest of the city will also fall into place.
Tailpiece
Reverting to the theme of the first story in this column, The Man from Madras Musings is happy to note that our city and the country to the south have one thing in common – crazily worded signboards as the picture alongside will attest.
– MMM