GREEN GRACE an eco-friendly residential project

This is the place we call Green Grace

Where there are no shades of Green to face

Where houses into homes turn

With the joys of family in the heart burn

A score and more familes live in harmony

Celebrating life in occassions many

Rain drops we collect afresh

To feed the earth to refresh

Precious water we use twice,

Once for normal use & the other to flush

Light washes our homes till late,playing with air

To fill our homes with health & care

This is the place we call our home……….

Where corners are filled with forests, bringing the birds & bees

All chirping and buzzing on local trees

We create  solar sun power

Make hot water to bathe & shower

Cars are led with a lighted path

To park in its place in the dark                                              

Local flora covers our garden

With watering not a burden

Climate change the world says ,

Numbered are the  water days

Here we act in Grace keep it real Green

To give the future young life pristine

This is our Green ,in  the place we call Green Grace , our home

www. ssgreen projects.com

Nostalgia ------ Bus day 27D

Its been a long long time since I travelled in public transport bus in  Chennai. But in my college days the bus was our lifeline.

To give due credit the Public transport in Chennai was one of the best and is still is in this country ,of course after BEST in Mumbai.

I used to be staying in Vepery with my aunty and going to my college in Royepettah.My classfellow and dear friend Viji lived in Ayyanavaram.

The bus route 27D used to start in Ayyanavaram and its destination was Foreshore Estate those days . It went via Kellys turning right near the tank in Purasawalkam.The bus route was through some important roads, passed  two popular girl’s colleges Stella Maris & Queen Mary’s. So the bus had students from those colleges who lived in Ayyanavaram & Kellys, which attracted a lot of boys to that bus route whether their destination was on that route or not! So the bus had a certain attraction to it.The bus was invariably full, with a lot of students footboarding.

Viji my classfellow and dear friend, took 27D at Ayyanavaram and I caught up with him at Purasawalkam tank,( after taking a bus from Vepery) and somehow managed to squeeze myself into the bus with an occasional hand from Viji inside the bus .Certain day’s it was too  jampacked, at which stage I would take the next bus which was invariably 23C and intercept 27D at some place. There were times when I took an auto to catch the bus at the next stop.

There were lot of regulars in the bus,one among them stood out ,a dusky tall girl whose presence filled the bus at least for us.The day she did not come the bus seemed forlorn.But not surprisingly enough none of us tried to befriend her. It was the 70’s , and we did not have social media!!

Surprisingly enough even the bus drivers & the conductors would know the regular student commuters and would slow down to allow the regulars to embark or get down even out of bus stops.

I still do not remember how the idea started ( probably my friend Viji will clarify) we decided to felicitate the driver/busconductor of the bus , by having a Bus Day. To the best of our knowledge, nobody had done this in Chennai.

We put together our meagre resources and some donations form our regulars to buy a dhoti for the bus driver /conductor , some sweets for the commuters, and painted a poster to hang in front of the bus with a garland.

If memory serves me right, we stopped the bus in Cathedral road , gave sweets to all in the commuters in the bus, felicitated the driver & the bus conductor, with a lot of cheering from all . Of course the commuters from other passing buses looked on with interest as they passed by our bus bemused.

( unfortunately we did not have camera phones those days to record the event or had Newspaper reporters or TV crews to record such an unique event)

I do not know whether this Bus day happened in the immediate  years following what we did.

Over the past years  in Chennai ,there seems to be a revival of the Day, but Bus day’s  seemed to have  turned unruly , with students hijacking buses and  putting commuters into trouble . The police are said to be against this, and have warned the students.

Every time I go to Chennai &I see this bus route winding its way to its destination , my mind is filled immediately with the time we celebrated a Bus Day.

https://youtu.be/y3KEhWTnWvE

Nostalgia ----- College Days - WUS

In a recent comment on the whatsapp, Sashidharan my classmate in New College mentioned WUS in the passing, and all those memories came flooding back. I was in my 3rd year of College doing my Bachelor’s Degree in English. I do not know why it was called Branch 12 in Roman letters! 

Those were carefree days .Frayed jeans , kurtas ,Kholapuri chappals ,a pretty good mop of hair and influenced by the Beatles. I used to live with some classmates in a place called YMIA ( Young Men’s India Association in Royepettah) a sort of small rival to the mighty YMCA.( that would be another story. Now back to WUS.) 

 • WUS or the World Unversity Centre was set up with funding from Nederland.The WUS Centre was established as a wing of the University of Madras, thanks to VN Thiagha Rajan, a former WUS headquarters general secretary in Geneva. University Development • Connection between university and business • Arts and Culture • University and human rights 

All this I know now because of Google ,but I came to know about the WUS from my dear friend Viji ( Vijayanallendran) my classmate – more about him later) when he casually mentioned that his grandfather Mr. TD Ayyasamy retd Secy of TN Public Service Commission had taken over this Institution as the Secretary. He also mentioned that it was a hostel for Professionals, Research/Post Graduate students & foreign students who were doing various courses in the Madras University. 

I asked Viji whether he would put me up to his grandfather for a place in the hostel inspite of the fact that I was an undergraduate . Viji put it up to his grandfather and I did meet him ( the details not clear now),but viola I was admitted & the rest is history as they say.But it did cause heartburn among my other classmates whom I stayed with. 

WUS was(is) situated in multi storied building on the Spur Tank road in Chetpet Chennai, a quiet place (now a congested place).Perpendicular to the WUS building was the road leading to the famous Don Bosco school which opened into the Egmore road and further down to Greams road connecting to Mount road. 

The WUS complex looked majestic in those days where not many high rises were constructed. It had individual rooms. There were many foreign students, so the Hostel had a mess catering to these students and the costs were higher, and definitely beyond my reach, with the limited allowances I got from my father who was a Naval Officer and that time posted in Cochin. I clearly remembered a Buddhist monk in saffron robes from Thailand, during some research on Buddhism,There were two girls from France who were studying French , and an assortment of other students . The place was not filled up yet.Though I accosted them occasionally, did not become friends with them. 

Of course I was awe stuck with all these senior people who were doing higher studies/research. I managed to befriend a Susai Benjamin ( Benji) . He was a tall & lanky person with a goatee. He was doing his PG in the Madras School of Social Work , and was his leftist ideas reflected in the posters which hung in his room. He would occasionally speak on the benefits of communist philosophy quoting Karl Marx. He along with his friends ran a student newsletter, and he would request me to get some advertisements for it. ( Much later I came to know he migrated to Australia and became involved in politics there) 

One of my most memorable time was spent in the library,which was just being set up, books kept pouring in from all over and I was co-opted into sorting out the books to be later put into the the racks duly labelled. I spend a lot of time sorting out the books and in the process came across a gem of a book “Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli. It is a political treatise written in the 16th century although it is relatively short, the treatise is the most remembered of Machiavelli's works and the one most responsible for bringing the word "Machiavellian" into usage as a pejorative. I still remember I would patiently go through it trying to decipher the teachings of the master. I had the great opportunity to read many other lighter books having access to the books being a volunteer. Viji’s house was not too far from the hostel and we would spend many an evening together. 

The result of staying in WUS was that I had to go down to a bus stop on the Egmore Road to catch a bus 23C ( pretty popular bus because it went past three women’s colleges! Every day, I would see three young girls also waiting there. They were students in the SIET college and soon I struck friendship with them, which in those days was not that easy. Our friendship was a light banter and occasional pulling of the leg.Viji too joined us in the same bus and became friends with them and the days went by pleasantly.

 So the sudden opportunity , which my friend offered me ,to stay in WUS gave me a different perspective of life , especially interacting with the inmates from various countries and listening to their stories and expanding my horizon. It was from WUS that I made my journey into the Indian Army.

 But then it’s a different story. P.S . Viji you are welcome to correct me /add to this