So today, you grand old lady just grew one year older, didn't you? All of 373 years now. Phew, what a journey! A long way from the cradle-infant born as a small strip of land in what is today Fort St. George, sired by Davis, mothered by your own quirks and fate, blossomed as a lovely lass somewhere down the lane and pretending to be just as lovely even today, even after 373 years. Many happy returns, my Madras, I love you. I adore you. I shed tears of joy when you are praised. I cringe when you are besmirched. I cry when you suffer. I discover my courage to rebuke when you are ridiculed. I do all this because you mean so much to me. Despite all your faults.
And faults are aplenty with you. While no birthday child gets chided on her birthday, you are going to get an earful from me. You remember, I used to defend you to the hilt despite your occasional manifestation of ugly behaviour? Used to shout over the hill top that you are the best, the very best, way above other children? But that was for public consumption, this conversation with you is private. You have disappointed me, you have grown up to become unwieldy and unkempt. Since when did you start meandering away? Is there any hope still for your unabashed lovers like me, the die-hard tribe of Madrasis?
Perhaps you started withering away, when you turned 120. Or 250. Or 350. It does not matter at what age. But it does matter that the rot has set in within you and the rot is very discernible.
Starting with your infrastructure. You were okay with a population of about 2 million. You were good enough for another million. But you now are pulled down with your own weight of 6 million, obscenely obese and bursting at the seams. You took into your fold whoever came your way from all over India and the result shows in your girth. You are now fat, struggling to breathe and adding more calories by the day. You need to keep a watch on your weight, old lady, if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.
Your traffic is terrible. You have mindlessly let vehicles multiply by geometric proportions over the last few decades. The result is absolute chaos with deadly pollution and dwindling road space making you one of the worst cities for pedestrians. You need to keep a watch on your traffic health, old lady, if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.
And the volume of waste you generate! Again, a direct consequence of your overweight. You have nowhere to dump your waste and so you think it fit to turn your entire body into garbage dumps. Mounds of such stinking stuff greet one at every street corner, even at important thoroughfares. We have heard of garbage strewn cities but you take the cake, being a city situated right amidst an ocean of garbage. You need to keep a watch on your waste disposal metabolism, old lady, if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.
Ah, the traffic! Your people like to be called conservative, rule-abiding and even taking some pride in being timid. Rule-abiding? my foot. You have the worst traffic-rule offenders, I make no bones about it. No vehicle stops at the stop-line, at the red-light, unless the junction also presents a cop. And the cops have a very funny way of managing traffic. State buses are exempt from obeying traffic rules. So are two-wheelers. And cars driven by the wealthy and mighty. And bicycles. And government vehicles. Compliance is restricted to all other classes of vehicles (if anything is left). And so, my dear Madras, this is to remind that you need to keep a watch on your blood circulation, if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.
And there are other signs of terminal illness within you
- potholed roads. (perhaps you wished to make things easy for NASA for their Mars exploration-they could as well have used your roads for a perfect simulated Martian environment; the fools instead chose to spend billions in sending a probe to actual Mars)
- urine drenched walls ( I agree, nature's calls have to be answered, but I marvel at nature's special affinity towards Madrasis to call so often, that half of Madras's daily egress of the uric acid is done on the streets!)
- Buckingham Canal ( it once was a waterway carrying salt to Andhra? ever since I heard this story, every time I take salt, my hands involuntarily reach for the nose!)
- torrid climate ( well, there is very little you can do about this, but I will list this out all the same, such is my anger)
If you have the will, you can even now hope to get proper medication for the above ills but there is one devil that is slowly devouring you, that has no ostensible cure. Your Tasmac liquor shops. These stinking, vomit filled, pestilence-stricken hell-holes are typical of you. You are broke, have no money to buy medicines for the other illnesses and so you sell your kidneys and liver to keep your heart and other organs going. Fine logic. My dear Madras, you are doomed. There is no salvation for you.
Wait, wait, I have not finished, don't interrupt, let me complete. What? What do you say? Culture capital? Carnatic music? Coffee paradise? Cinema tradition? Don't fool yourself. These are for the suckers, without an idea of what you really are. I have also extolled elaborately on your these 'virtues', but that is to fool others. Don't try to fool me with this crap. Every city in India claims to be the culture and music capital of the country and so you too have a right to stake your claim. Your claim ends there, just a claim and nothing more. Aha, now what? Temples? Beach? Medicare? Education? But they are just a cloak to shield your decaying innards. Don't ever try to placate me with these, I know you better, what you have to offer in reality. I have lived with you and suffered you.
Yes, the final one. No, no, I have not forgotten. Your auto-rickshaws. What, you don't want to hear about them? Okay, I will rest, I will reserve the last one for my next bashing on your 374th birthday, assuming you live to see that one, that is.
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