Yahoo: An Even Bigger Bargain

Shares have slipped well below Microsoft’s buyout price, and that presents a great opportunity for investors

AevaLo (How much?):  The L has a harsher ring to it but then you can still get it right pronouncing it otherwise.
Hand gesture: Close your fist and raise your thumb in a thumbs up sign and wiggle it up and down.

Aeppadi (How?)

Enge (where?)

Ponum (go?)

A typical conversation with an auto driver will go like this:

Auto driver: Enge ponum?

You: Mount road ponum.

You can judge the OK or NO just by the expression. Sometimes, the driver will shake his head and just go away. You know what that means. If yes, he will ask you to sit inside (Vukkaranga: Sit down). That is the trickiest part. You should not sit inside without discussing the fare. Here it goes

You: Evalo?

Auto driver: 100 Rs

You: Too much! Just say your price in Rs. For example, 60 Rs. Don’t add Tamil to it. Money knows no language.

You can get your bargain after some haggling.

Chennai is the hotbed of dravidian culture, and your kid might just be taught how villainous his brahminical ancestors were and end up feeling like scum.

Despite that, if you are still looking for options for your kids in Chennai, the ones listed in this website. However, do a check before admitting your little one. My nephew studies at St Michaels, Adyar, and from what I know that is a good place to be.

It is better to start your plans to move out of Chennai before your kiddo enters College. With the kind of reservation system in Tamil Nadu, chances of the poor kid making it to a decent college are few and far between.

http://www.webindia123.com/city/tamil/chennai/list_all.asp?action=Education-+Schools&cat=Education&dcat=Schools

As in the rest of India, Chennai loves cricket. The M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, popularly known as the MAC, is one of the oldest cricket stadiums in India built in 1916. The stadium is famous for its list of records including the first ever test match victory that India recorded in 1951-52 when they defeated England and the second tied tests that was India v/s Australia in 1986. The Chemplast Cricket Ground in the IIT Madras campus is another important cricket venue.

Although footbal is rarely played, Chennai has the The Madras Gymkhana Club, one of the oldest football clubs in Chennai founded by the British in 1884.
Chennai hosts the only ATP tournament in India. There are as many as fifteen coaching centers in Chennai, not taking into account the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association’s coaching scheme.
Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium is the venue for hockey matches and features a seating capacity of 4,000. The Chennai Veerans, a premiere hockey league team is based in Chennai. The stadium has hosted the Champions Trophy twice, recently in 2005.
The Velachery Aquatic Complex seats 4,000 audiences and hosts different kinds of water sports.

The Guindy Race Course for horse racing was set up in 1777. Motor racing events are held at the Sriperumbudur track for cars.

The Madras Boat Club was established in 1867 and it hosts rowing races. The city features two 18-hole golf courses — the Cosmopolitan Club and the Gymkhana Club golf course, both were established in the late 19th century.

Chennai has specialty hospitals for every bodily ailment. More than the hospital itself, you may want to check on the doctor treating you. Because of the reservation policy in Chennai, some of the doctors that are churned out every year might not meet any stringent standards, and if you happen to be under the mercy of one such, God be with you.

Ask any of your friends, colleagues, or people you can trust about reliable doctors before you fix up an appointment with them.

Most private hospitals are expensive and not worth the money you pay for their services. The redeeming thing is that at least some of their people can speak some English or Hindi.
For information on Chennai’s hospitals, check out the various websites using Google. Just for a list, visit the link

http://www.chennaivision.com/hospitals.asp

The Indian Express: Bad quality paper, terrible English, and some horrible reporting ensure that this paper does not face any worthwhile challenge to the Hindu.

The Deccan Chronicle: More of a tabloid than a newspaper, it has done especially well because of its pricing. Although the One rupee offer was supposed to be a one off thing, the price has stayed for quite some time now. The quality of news you get is cheaper than the cost at which it comes.

Sporadic reports of the Times of India coming to Chennai have made the rounds over several years now but the political establishment has successfully managed to keep it away lest it corrupt the innocent people of Chennai.

Musicians from all over south India (and some from the north too) make their presence felt in the many music halls. For a connoisseur of south indian arts, this season can be heaven. Because the festival is held in December and January, when the climate is more bearable, it makes the experience all the more wonderful. The entire list of performances is released by the Hindu, Chennai’s most famous newspaper unfailingly on Dec 15. The halls (or sabhas as they are popularly known) stock a few copies too. The concerts are free or charged depending on the artiste and the hall hosting them. You could also buy a season ticket, and that works out much cheaper especially if you are planning to attended multiple concerts (kutcheris.)

Of late, the presence of young people in the crowds has diminished for many reasons, the most notorious being the spread of western pop-music and the Tamil film music. Another significant contributor is the exodus of Tamil Nadu’s elite Brahmins who have patronised these arts.

The most famous halls (sabhas) where you could make your visit during this season are:

The Madras Music Academy (Cathedral Road): They have a range of singers and dancers from rank amateurs to seasoned professionals gracing the podium. The mornings are reserved for the newbies, the afternoons for those in-between, and the evenings for the stars. As you rightly guessed, the evening concerts are usually full, and come with a price tag. There is not enough parking space and you may want to get there early to beat the rest. Food is served at the premises, and is the reason some people make their way there even if they are not too keen on the music. Try out the puliyodarai (rice mixed with spiced tamarind) and the sambar rice. Of course, may eyebrows will be raised if you skip the curd-rice, an essential end to any Tamil Nadu meal. If you are there for breakfast, try out the idly, vada, dosa, or pongal. For a native Tamilian, such food combined with the music is all that makes life especially good.

Kalakshetra (Besant Nagar): Hosts artistes from a wide variety of Indian dancing styles. Bharatnatayam and Kuchipudi however are more predominant.

Narada Gana Sabha (Cathedral Road): Situated a few hundred meters from the Music Academy, the Narada Gana Sabha is more spacious and offers the same rich experience as the academy.

Krishna Gana Sabha (T Nagar): Although located slightly on the inside, it is a great place to be especially if you are one for ambience and all that.

There are others like the Mylapore academy (or something to that effect), the Nungambakkam academy – almost one in each locality paying their tribute to the many artisans that make their way. Some of the temples host the festival too, and combining spirituality with music can be a heady experience.

Apart from south indian classical music (Carnatic), bharatanatyam, and kuchipudi, a few artistes from the north-Indian tradition (hindustani) also make their presence felt. These concerts are few and far-between, and if you do not look up the list very well, you might miss the concert of a lifetime.

The ears of Chennai’s elite is well-tuned to all forms of music, and they are appreciative of it irrespective of the language and nationality of the performer. Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali, and Farida Khannum have performed to full-houses here. Farida Khannum, I remember was taken aback by requests for some of her more popular numbers

Reasons to not live, work, or settle down in Chennai

1. You cannot for your life stand the humidity or high temperatures.
2. You are a Brahmin or from the upper-castes. There are no higher schools of learning who will entertain your children here unless they score 9.99999% and even then…
3. You are a broad minded person and trying to be a citizen of the world.
4. You need a clean climate and a city (and people) that do not stink to the heavens.
5. You want to get into an auto-ricshaw without having to muster up your abusive skills.
6. You do not want people questioning you about why you cannot speak proper Tamil.
7. You want your children to live in a cosmopolitan set up
8. You are willing to forgive a city’s bad infrastructure for the other benefits
9. You need decent rotis and dal for your daily survival
10 You want friends from other states in India
11 You want to ogle at hot chicks and guys and not ladies smeared in yellow paste

There will be many more to this list. These are ones that I could think of immediately.

You note, of course, that movies occupy the top post. Movie is religion here and the film stars are the unofficial Gods. Some of them, and yes, even a Muslim actress called Khushboo as a temple devoted to her name. I hear that the temple got ransacked after the poor lady spoke up in favor of pre-marital liasion. So much for the spirit of Chennai’s tolerance.

The current undisputed star is the aged Rajanikanth. A marathi bus conductor who made it big in Tamil Nadu, his fans do not mind spending all their income and more just to get to see his movie on the first day. In other parts of the world, his movies would be laughable but by some strange sense of logic, and most of his fans acknowledge that, it is style over substance. Most times, he is taking on bad guys by the dozen while flipping his cigars or shades. There is nothing that is impossible in these movies except that one can actually sit through them without reaching for the nearest pain killer. In a state frustrated with Gods, he has been an ideal replacement. He does pretty much what the Gods do in mythologicals.

The heroines are quite an array but most of them are ‘imported’ from other states in India, especially the north. The fascination for a fair-skinned damsel runs riot in the Tamil hormones and the only concession that they have given the lovely ladies is that they are now allowed to be slim. You heard that right. Those of the yesteryears apart from applying oodles of pancake had to give themselves that exta-padding in all the right places to get the buxom effect well. Fortunately, the girls today do not have to endure such torture. The only thing that they have to bear is to act with fast-aging dark-skinned heroes whose seductive looks would scare even a scarecrow.

Now, most chief ministers here have emerged from the filmi studios unlike the other sons of the soil in other states. Fame in filmdom is an assured ticket to political stardom. Of course, by then, you need to have aged sufficiently and spoken in favor of Tamil and all that, and kept all those gory details of extra-marital liasions under wraps. The current chief minister has three official wives, and rumors are rife that there are many more unaccounted. Such harems are spoken of in amused and often awed breaths. Like most parts of the world, it is an unacknowledged thing that the number of women in one’s life speak volumes of manhood. A woman can do that but you know already the names she will be called.

Of course, Tamil Nadu’s moviedom (or Kollywood) has its redeeming points. Apart from the highly gifted A R Rahman, Kamal Hassan, and Mani Ratnam, it also has some of the best cinematographers in the business. Most of them have now upgraded their resume and work for Hindi movies with the same fervour. Surprisingly, quite a few of the people who have made it big are those from other states, and this is something that is not unique just to the movies. M G Ramachandran was from Kerala, Jayalalaitha is a Kannadiga, and Tamil’s most vocal proponents are from Andhra Pradesh.

Tamil movies do especially well in the state because mos of its denizens understand just one language. Of course, the modern Tamils are more into English movies, the language they proudly claim as their own.

Gold, steel and Kanjeevarams (silk sarees laced with Gold thread) are things the women hold close to their heart. There are any number of stores renting or selling these and all those savings finally make it to these shops who are more than willing to grab them.

Much like other parts of India, the women sit glued to the tear-jerkers that make their way to the idiot-box post 9 PM. Most serials deal with the mother-in-law daughter-in-law mahabharat and quite a few of them are produced by the queen of sob-stuff, Ekta Kapur. This lady sure knows where her money is. The people in serials are as much, if not worse, than their counterparts in the movies. Being lean and well-maintained is something that is alien in general to the men-folk of this state. The women just follow the example, like dutiful pativratas.