Body to Soil, Life to Tamil. Long live Tamil.
Tamil is my mother tongue, But I cant write the language. I can read it, though only if I have to. My Hindi reading skills are supposedly better. I have read Kabir’s Dohas and short stories by Hindi writers. I do actually understand them.
I never wanted to learn Tamil in school. Simple reason I was not going to get value addition because of it. I studied french so I could show off to girls in other schools by asking “Parlez vous Francais?” With Tamil all I could do was read some awesome literature which is among the best in the world. But which girl wants to talk to a Tamil speaking guy. Had I studied Tamil and had I described to a girl how beautiful she is in Tamil she would have given me a weird look and moved on to the guy with the fake fucked up accent.
Anyways I was wondering about how the government has forced people to have company name boards in Tamil also in view of the World Classical Tamil conference happening in Coimbatore. If your name board does not have Tamil there then down it goes or you better cover up the board because English or any other language in which your company board is written is a dirty language. It is a language that the illiterate can’t understand. A lot of criticism has been doing the rounds. I say keep it simple. Write it in whatever Language the company feels is appropriate.
I am sure We can display door numbers prominently. I am sure everyone understands numbers. Place the door number for any address prominently with the street address on every house/office. (For us door nos. are a miniscule thing that we put on the pillar adjoining the gate). So once we have the address system right we should not have a problem with the Tamil, English, French, Dutch. You get an address and you find it. It is really very simple. Anyone can find it. you don’t have to be an university educated person. Also display street names prominently in English, Hindi and Tamil at the corner of every street. Please make sure that politicians and film-makers don’t stick their brilliant faces on top of those. Now all that would make life easy right. Instead of going around bullying people to bring down what they have spent money on.
And for God’s sake Chamiers Road is easier to say than Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar Salai. I am glad that he was not conferred any honorary doctorates or the road would have had a Dr. in front (BTW I think it is the lengthiest name for a road in Chennai). Just like Greenways road has been renamed Dr. D.G.S. Dinakaran Salai.
Stop imposing people with what they have to do. No one likes it. Especially not us Indians. We will realize what we are missing after a while. Just like I realized that I can hardly read Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki. What a story? I had to read it in English. The Tamil version is supposed to be awesome. I understand it because no one, not even the best English to Tamil translator can do justice to Shakespeare’s works!
Now let me try and read Ponniyin Selvan in the way it was meant to be read. In THAMIZH! Nandhini here I come!!! 
Also do read mollamaari thambi’s and jalsa paiyyan’s take on this. Also check out #brandsintamil
And of course please do visit the Ulaga Thamizh Semmozhi Manadu
Of Chennai Traffic
Well nothing can be done with the reckless way that people drive on Chennai roads. It is becoming worse these days. No concern for the fellow road user has been there for quite a while in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
I don’t claim to be Mr. Perfect Driver But what I witnessed last night was a show of power, Show of I am BIG, show of I give a shit of you cars and bikes.
So Yeah It was three lanes and one bus in each of those lanes and they were having a bloody race. The MTC bus (Route no 54) decided to get to the car lane and over-take the other two. Problem was I was driving my car and I was fast being cornered by the MTC vestibule bus (Route no. 18) and the and Route no 54. Now there were cars and autos and bikes behind me, honking themselves to madness. All because three bus drivers had decided to race on Mount Road (Anna Salai). I literally rolled down my car window and yelled at the vestibule bus driver. The conductor and passengers heard me yell and asked the driver to stop. and the bus stopped right in the middle of the road and meanwhile I moved to the adjacent lane and zipped off cursing the MTC drivers, The Chennai City Traffic police and ofcourse road users in this city.
We are a set of people who get really aggressive everywhere. That’s what the system teaches us, be first, be aggressive or you will be left behind. Trample a few people and get to the top. We are people with a crowd mentality because we are one huge crowd. Actually second largest crowd in the world!
I have wondered if we get the crowd mentality, aggressive nature from our days of oppression under the British Raj. But then if that’s true why cant we leave our past behind. Well we cant leave our past behind because our present is hopeless and our future is bleak, unless we step back and chill down a bit.
Follow the road rules, they are pretty simple.
