In Dependance

The roads of Chennai witnessed a a new phenomenon a couple of weeks ago. Children of ages ranging from 5 to 10 swarmed the major signals of the city, which is quite common. But for a change they were not offering to wipe the dust off your windshield, or sell you clothes that could, or pointing at the 2-year old, starved baby on their hips and then extending their arm out in the universal gesture for help. Now they were holding out items which everyone felt compelled to, and were even proud of buying and displaying, and they parted with their money for the same with a broad grin. A grin of the same intensity with which they would've scowled at the same shabby-haired, ragged 6 year-olds if they had simply asked for alms.

For this time they were buying Indian flags. Pin-up varieties, stand-up varieties that you could place on your dashboard, stick-on varieties you could paste on your doors. For we are all Indians and are very proud of proclaiming that we are, especially on Independence Day.

So, there is a point to Independence Day after all. It makes the fight for survival of the 100-odd shabby-haired, ragged 6 year-olds around the city easier. It's not much, but the flags would've got them through the week. And something else would get them through the next week. And then something else. And so on and so forth, getting them through enough weeks, at least till Republic Day.

Flying Lap

The Circuit of Kottivakkamheim is a 4.2 km street circuit, and one of the oldest on the Chennai Traffic Grand Prix calendar. Actually, it was not even a circuit originally. The history goes that there were first all the houses and buildings and the 15 temples all along the route. With the odd Onyx (or Neel Metal Falanca, whoever gave the lower tender) dustbin thrown in along the way. And then someone realized that it would indeed be a good idea to have some sort of opening in between all of the above mentioned buildings. You know, sort of so people could get from Point A to Point B. And viola, the opening became a regular, Grand Prix-fit road, and thusly Kottivakkamheim was born. Of course, as births go, this one would have probably been called a Cesarean.

A flying lap of Kottivakkamheim starts with the First Main Road straight, before breaking down into 2nd gear, 30 kmph into the right and then the left leading into the Second Avenue. This sweeping, 3rd gear right turn is also the widest part on the circuit, and sets you up very nicely for the Signal, where you break hard down to zero kmph. This novel part of the circuit tests not how fast you can go, but how patient you can be. For the true test of a Jedi, is not in how fast he can be, but how he can choose when to be fast. Anyway...

From the Signal, you take off into the MG Road straight, up through the gears till you hit 4th at 70 kmph, and then flat out up the hill before breaking to a near stop at the Vannandhurai Bus Stop chicane. Though originally designed as a right turn, an inspired act of median-placing ensures that this turn is as challenging as it's more illustrious namesake at Spa-Franorchamps. You climb up a gear into 30kmph as you negotiate the tricky gravel (and sand and bricks and mortar and old papers and vegetable peels and discarded slippers) traps on either side of the circuit to ease into the Anna Street Ascari chicane.

The Anna Street Ascari, named after the 7-time Chennai auto-driving champion, Annatha Ascari, is unique in that it's simultaneously a left turn, a sweeping left-hander and then a right turn, all rolled into one. Holding on to third, at 40kmph before breaking into the blind right which forms the end of the chicane requires driver control of the highest degree. For the back-marker in front of you, that is. Because if he's not going to cooperate, no amount of standing on the horn will make you go any faster than 20 kmph through this tight part of the circuit.

Safely negotiating the chicane leads into the longest unbroken sequence on the Grand Prix calendar, full 2.6 kms down the Kalakshetra Parabolika. Going up through the gears into 4th, this part of the circuit is not for the faint-hearted. With enough pits (as in, the depression kind, not the refuelling kind) strewn along the path, an overtaking maneuver is pulled off only with inch-perfect slipstreaming and acceleration. On a clear piece of track, this narrow but fairly straight piece of circuit can be taken flat out at 70 kmph, before one slows down for the final chicane at the Marudeeswarar Temple complex. This second gear, 25 kmph chicane (if the Maami does not choose this as the opportune moment to cross the circuit to go towards home of the Lord) leads into the East Mada Hangar straight. Another part of the circuit where the car in front of you determines your speed rather than your own driving skills. Especially when the car in front is not a car at all but a Corporation Garbage lorry which leaves behind an oil(y) spill behind it. So, this always-yellow flag part of the circuit is a strict no-overtake zone, as you trundle along at 35 kmph in a part that would usually be a straight horsepower shootout.

Out at the end of the straight, you break into La Rascalasse, a tight, sandy right-hander which has floored quite a few two-wheelers in its time and is often referred to as the most expensive spare-parts dump on the circuit. This first gear, 20 kmph turn leads into the home straight as you go up through the gears to top speed, and past the start-finish line.

Or to be precise, into the office. Where one has to come to a complete standstill, if one is to not bang into a wrought-iron gate.

Circuit of Kottivakkamheim
Lap Record: 12:34.53 Anand Natarajan, Novafax (2008)

Ta da!

Much more readable, isn't this?

Irrespective of whether there's anything to read in the first place.

Soiled Shirt

The little boy wouldn't have been a day over 8. He had a round face, with equally round eyes and hair that fell all around the round stopping just short of the eyes. He was uniformly dirty, a common situation when you're from one of those million families all over India where the one pot of water a day is better used for drinking than other unimportant tasks like bathing. His T-shirt had once been a light cream in colour, but now it was closer to brown. The brown was in patches though, unlike the uniformity of the dirt on his body. Possibly an effect of the previous day's rain which had washed down the stains, leaving areas of different shades of brown over the shirt. He had stepped out of his house, if it could be called that, in search of his mother. His little round eyes spotted her in the shop across the street, and like all kids his age who spot their mother after a search, started running towards her without a care in the world.

The Toyota Innova on that street clearly did not belong there. It was one of the automobile industry's greatest coups to convince Indians that there was such a thing as a city-friendly SUV. And SUV is not city-friendly. It is most certainly not side-lane, cross-street or gully-friendly. However, these are the most common connecting sections that are found in India, where first the houses are built and the remaining area is called the road. As a result of all these reasons, the Innova on this little street was finding the transit very difficult indeed. Hence, when the driver saw a sudden stretch of nothingness open up in front of him, he gunned the engine. And if there's one thing an SUV can do, it is accelerate. The car gathered speed, the driver intent on making up the most ground in the least time. Totally oblivious to the little boy running towards his mother.

The boy heard the roar of the engine too late. There was nothing he could do except turn away and cover his face instinctively with his hands, the commonest reaction when a human is face with any kind of threat. The car also had no option of slowing down, and even if it did, it didn't look likely the driver would take it. In a moment of blurring motion, the car dropped its left tires, both front and rear into the puddle left by the previous night's rains, covering the little boy in a mixture of water and mud, and sped on.

The boy looked up after the car passed, and gingerly ran his hands over his face, collecting all the mud and grime left there by the Innova. After satisfying himself that his face was clean, he rubbed both his hands straight down the middle of his shirt, to remove from his hand what he had removed from his face. Thus completing the transfer of the mud from his face to somewhere it would be less noticeable, the boy merrily ran on towards his mother and jumped into her arm.

After all, it was only one more patch of brown in an already soiled shirt.