Chennai Metro Roller-coaster ltd.

The Chennai Metro Rail project – the latest nuisance the government has to offer.  A project that will be finished ‘tentatively’ by 2013. But we will never know, considering the working speed and other criteria of the government workers.

Ok, this is how I think the project came about. Tamil Nadu, especially Chennai, has a large number of low grade government workers who can be found digging roads all the time. Electricity board, Water department, Public Works department, Internet and Telephone department; name any, they have this dedicated group of staff whose initial and almost reflex response to a fault is digging up the nearby roads. In order to provide better employment opportunities to these down-(in)to-earth people and to commemorate their digging skills, they must have been made to work on this project. After this metro rail project, a little birdie on the inside says that they will be made to work on an unclassified “Operation reverse red” where they will be made to dig to China in search of Bodhidharma’s lost sister. Mr. A.R.Murugadoss, your story for 7 am arivu’s sequel is here. As a royalty, I request you to pray not use Shruthi Hassan for the project. Seriously, you would have a ‘FAT’ chance with Hansika.

The project actually aims at creating traffic hassle-free Chennai by 2013 and it seems to be more of a psychological approach than a physical one. Half the roads are blocked with the construction process creating an artificial traffic hassle, forcing the drivers to take a detour, i.e. making them drive on the pavement. It is only a matter of time before drivers start using the sub-way to cross the street. If such aforementioned heights of lunatic driving are reached, the people will only be happy in 2013 when the construction is finally over and the traffic returns to normal. Or worse, it prepares them for future traffic hassles. Such is the far-sightedness of the project.

There seem to be more than one hidden agenda behind the project, like the one mentioned above. One of them is the testing of building strengths near the proposed underground metro rail tracks. Mind you, this project will be testing the strength of your building’s foundation if it is anywhere near the underground railway track. Crying “Building strong-u, but basement konjam weak-u” at a later point of time won’t work.

Also the railway track seems to run right beside the Kilpauk medical hospital and college. If necessary precautions are not taken, well, you know the consequences. But this can actually work in favour of the K.M.C. Those needing defibrillator for cardiac arrests can be moved to the building closest to the underground railway track and leave the metro railway to work its magic.

         Also, the metro railway track seems to cross stations where there are regular railway tracks. For example, Guindy, which is very near to the Meenambakkam airport, is getting a metro rail station. For all we know, there is a world class flyover and a regular railway station already in place in Guindy. What traffic hassle could have possibly been foreseen by the Government there? Also, a hypothetical case considered by some newspaper reporters where a plane starting from Meenambakkam loses its control and crashes over a train near the elevated Guindy metro rail station, the event coming to think of it, will be one of a kind: A mid-air collision of a plane with a train.    

Yeah, that is what it is. FUCKED.

            

            These apart, I had always dreamt of waking up, getting dressed and opening the door of my home only to find a train that will take me to my work place. Suddenly now, it seems closer to reality. 

Mankatha – A gamble worth the bucks.

   

     I had always dreamt of reviewing movies and really wanted to start the criticism process with a much hyped up movie. That is when ‘Thala’s 50’ came by. First of all, I am a big fan of Thala probably for the reason that he didn’t have any godfather when he entered the industry. He possesses immense acting potential which is very evident from his mega hits like Vaali, Amarkalam, Dheena, Mugavari, Villain and now Mankatha.

     Let us come to the negatives of this movie first. The movie is simply too crowded. Appa, ethana characters! At this juncture, I am intrigued by the following thought. Of all the spellings, Venkat Prabhu seems to have chosen ‘Mankatha’ for the title, which seems to be inappropriate. The movie is so full of men and should have been named ‘Menkatha’ instead. And most of them are really young actors, barely even 25. So, it would be even more appropriate to name the movie ‘Thala and the thiruttu pasanga’.

Ivanunga thaan avanunga.

     Venkat Prabhu seems to maintain an attendance register of his young cast which he uses in every movie and the attendance seems to rise from movie to movie. He chooses the storyline and then makes sure atleast 80% of the attendance is compulsory. One of the constants in his movies is his brother, Premji Amaren, who, in this movie, reprises the role of Prem, a geeky I.I.T. gold medallist who wishes to go for a job that pays him a petty Rs.60000 per month. Seriously, I.I.T. gold medal-kke 60000 thaan salary nna, appo enga gadhi laam enna aagaradhu? Also, why are directors stereotyping I.I.T. geeks as hackers? Thirundhunga da dei. The scene in the car where Prem gets totally drunk and yet hacks into a bank’s security camera system with only his laptop just by standing outside the bank’s office was so funny that I was the only one laughing out loud in the theatre during the supposedly serious scene. Best (mokka) kalaai of I.I.T. geeks by Premji.

         As for the women in the movie, they are the perfect mix of sensuousness and stupidity. Trisha and Anjali have nothing to do other than crying and fooling around with their respective boyfriends. It is Lakshmi Rai who steals the show. She is shown to be sexy at first, scheming later. Scheming to the point of being stupid in the climax sequence where she is shown trying to seduce Ajith when there is a shootout going on outside. Seriously woman, do you think he is going to fall for such a cheap trick of yours? You should have run instead.

     Seri, we understand that you are trying to give Ajith the image of a mean plutomaniac who stops at nothing while trying to loot the money. That doesn’t mean he must sport a glass or cigarette every other scene. Or mouth foul words in the second half of the movie, for that matter. What is the point in censoring only a part of a bad word when the other part is audible? If I hear a(ny) part of the bad word, I know the word.

What the *beep* happened to me in the second half? 

     Killing off characters in tamil cinema is the easiest of things. Murders are done in public and the killers never really care. Ingeyum apdi thaan. Lakshmi Rai kills a guy in a resort and she doesn’t even care to fix a silencer on her pistol. But the twist is that no one actually hears the pistol noise and Lakshmi Rai and Premji are happily mouthing punch dialogues. Goyyale, evanaavadhu vaanga da !!

     Coming to the positives of the movie, Ajith and Arjun are on the top. It is so heartening to see Thala as the baddie cop, sporting a paunch and grey hair. He is no Robin Hood and steals the money only for the sheer pleasure of it. He is simply mean and menancing and people are sure to love it. Hats off Director sir, for breaking some norms that had been strictly followed in tamil cinema. Where else can you see a mass hero like Ajith getting slapped by a little known actor (Vaibhav Reddy, you slapped Thala twice in the movie!). As for Arjun, I would like to quote a dialogue from the movie. “ACTION KING !  I’m impressed. Gimme more !!”

      The next on the list is Yuvan Shankar Raja and his music. Pinnitteenga Boss. Awesome work. Songs are really a treat for Thala fans. Also, the story deserves a special mention. It gives equal importance to every small character, however mokka the character may be. This is no one-man show and that works as a plus. Kudos to the team. This movie is surely a bang for your bucks. Sit back and enjoy Thala 50.

Congratulations Thala for completing 50 movies. Give us more.

Rating: 3.5/5

Shopping hub of Chennai and its glitches.

“If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here”.

     These were the words said by a certain Urdu poet on Kashmir. Interview any random woman inside Saravana stores (or for that case, any other showroom in Ranganathan Street) and you are bound to come up with the regional version of this quote.

Ranganathan street in T Nagar.

     Welcome to T.Nagar, the supposed ‘shopping paradise’ of Chennai. Paradise alright, but only for the women who shop there. The place is simply uninhabitable by any other species on earth. Be it animals, rodents and well, husbands.

     Yes, you heard it right. The husbands who shop with their wives here are a breed of their own. The pitiable breed. They are second only to Hutch pugs when it comes to following their wives on the streets. You can identify this breed easily. They usually are found

1. hibernating behind a truck load of shopping bags.

2. in the billing queue rummaging their pocket for money, or in the freebie queue.

3. sitting on plastic chairs laid outside the shop while their better-halves are inside setting their purses on fire.

     Interestingly, back in the 90s, chairs laid out was not a usual sight. Instead we used to have the furniture section near the billing section, where people sit down on cushioned sofas and couches and waited, while the others billed. This was seen as a nuisance by the authorities especially after toddlers were found using their ‘excretionary’ power on the soft mattresses. Hence, they came up with this idea of ‘waiting sections’, usually near the entrance and they gave the watchmen, a pay rise. Now they had to keep an eye on who enters the shop and also teach the kids some public sense, which unfortunately their parents had failed to. These waiting areas are also occupied by people who don’t have enough knowledge about shopping and let others do it for them and also by husbands who want to escape their wives for some time and revive their teenage penchant for ‘bird-watching’.

     There is a belief that “you cant cross any street in the shopping areas of T Nagar without getting your feet stamped atleast 12 times”. We now know that this is not true, atleast wholly. The myth hasn’t entirely faded though. You do get stamped, pushed, scratched and shouted upon a lot number of times. Infact, a world class transport system exists here. All you have to do is fill up a free space created from time to time on the road and crowd will carry you. When you reach the shop, just grab on to the nearest pole or something and avoid being carrying away. There is yet another way to reach the shop in the shortest possible time. Just follow any really fat, bossy lady (the place is full of them) and she will make the way for you.

     Parking is the herculean task here. Partly because it takes quite a talent to wade the vehicle through the crowd and involves maximum clutch work. And also, the driver needs to have a knack of spotting free parking spaces. And please don’t think your vehicle will be safe in here. As you enter the parking lot, a sign board welcomes you with the following words.

‘The Management is not responsible for any loss, theft, or DAMAGE to your belongings.’

     The seriousness of this disclaimer sinks in only when you get back to the vehicle after shopping, and find your rear-view mirror broken. You might threaten to sue them but then they promptly point their finger to the signboard and say “Cant you read?”, adding fuel to the fire.

     Such similar attitude is shown by the salesperson inside the store. Shuttle them more than four times and they are bound never to return back to you. If they do return back, try and notice their facial reaction. They shrink their faces like there is a bad stench in the air and talk to the wall behind you, even if you are standing right in front of them.

     One of the things that makes people come here again and again is the long list of offers. Be it discounts, freebies, or the special aadi sale (i will elaborate on this shortly); people here are mad about all these. During special seasons of the year, we see hoardings here blaring ‘flat 50 % off’ or ‘5 to 60% off’. This is where a master marketing stratregy comes into play. I prefer to call it the ‘Font play’. If you carefully notice the hoardings, the words ‘flat 50 % off’ will be written in big block letters and below that would be written some phrases in miniscule hand. I will enlist few of the phrases that go here, and you yourself would notice the trap laid bare.

1. on selected items only.

2. on purchases above 5000 Rs.

3. on select brands (or) branded items only.

     Else they go for the ever dynamic ‘Conditions apply’ phrase. Not much people reading the hoarding care about this. I once wanted to know what really were these conditions and questioned a store authority about this and he just stared right back at me, as if I had asked him for the name of the President of Uzbekistan. Anyway, most of the people realise these traps only when they are in the billing queue and by that time, it is too late.

     Now that you have chosen your stuff and paid for it, you might think that the shopping is over. Until you are made to stand in the next queue for the freebies. Yearly and monthly calendars for the next year, big jute bags (with plastic handles that breaks if you load it with more than 5 shirts !), low grade suitcases are some of the freebies given away by the store. If you think you were done with the ‘conditions’ in the previous queue, you are wrong, for they have just begun. For example, in certain shops, they give jute bags only on a bill of more than 2000 Rs. If you think you are being a smart alec by buying yourself a wrist watch for 2000 bucks and demanding a jute bag, you are wrong AGAIN. They strictly dont give jute bags for electronic items. And thus the conditions go on and on.

     Now coming to the ‘aadi sale’ i had mentioned earlier. This falls under the category of ‘year end sales’. As the name suggests, this is a desperate measure to push away the unsold stocks of the previous year, so much that they give heavy discounts on these stuff. Once I wanted to buy this shirt that I really liked, but it costed 800 bucks and I couldnt afford that much for a single shirt. After 3 months I came back during the ‘aadi sale’ and voila, I got the same shirt for 200 bucks. Such is the awesomeness of ‘aadi sale’.

     But beyond all these setbacks, one thing that makes this place a real shopping paradise is the variety here. Ranging from watches to washing machines, lamps to laptops, everything is present under one roof. This is what makes the shopping here special (and also quick) and this feature is the real crowd-puller. T Nagar rocks !

Superstitions: Mystic and mindless.

Hello people,

     This time I will be venturing into the universal topic of superstitions. A lot of them exist all over the world. Most of them are not superstitions at all, mere co-incidences. I will try to reason out some of the common superstitions that prevail in India now (Tamilnadu to be precise) and also give my thoughts on it.

1. “It is bad luck when a black cat crosses your way.”

On my way to cross yours.

     Now this is a superstition which had been in existence for a long time. It is because of the Indian mindset of associating anything absolutely black with bad luck. Like the case with the tamil movie “Sigappu Rojakkal” where a black cat is shown to be the embodiment of villainy and evil. But a black cat is like any other, only with a lot of melanin content in the fur. And the black cat doesn’t really intend to cross your way. If you keenly observe, it might just be on its way to snack or to meet the opposite sex. Stop him and you might just be depriving him of all the ‘fun’ he was about to have. That will add to your list of sins.

     You probably would not see a black cat during the winter season because that is the time they are busy with ‘other’ work. It is the summer season in which they are found restless and there is a reason behind it. Remember the concept “Black bodies absorb heat the best.”? Fourth grade physics. This must very well apply to black cats too. Since they feel too hot, they move about here and there and chances are fat that they come in your way. So, next time, when you are about to leave your home and they cross you, take it as an indication that the weather is too hot and try staying back. Give these black guys (no racism intended!) some credit and respect, for, they are your well-wishers. If you are really pissed off with the cat, get a box of Agsar white emulsion and paint him with it. That way, you will do a world of good for the cat and also take your revenge. But make sure this news doesn’t reach Manekha Gandhi or the Blue Cross.

Yup. She is the woman.

2. “A lizard falling on the human body will have certain outcomes according to the part of the body on which it falls.”

     This one is real fun. It is called ‘Palli dosham’ in tamil and its effects are given in the ‘Palli panchanga’. You might think what effect a small lizard falling possibly can have on you (Of course, other than shock, irritation, nausea, and in some cases, throwing up)? Well, our ancestors beg to differ. If you have ever checked out the backside of a daily calendar, you might have seen a space dedicated for this ‘Palli panchanga’ thing. It contains the list of body parts on which the lizards fall and its corresponding effects. I will give the following link for reference.

Palli panchanga

     Many of the results specified in the above link have no relevance whatsoever, to a lizard. For example, the lizard falling on your lower lip is said to result in a financial gain for you. Like the lizard was on its way to steal money from your dad’s pocket and fell on your lower lip en-route, hinting that there is a fat share for you in the loot. 

     And also what if the lizard falls on your ‘thighs’ first and you do a small jig to throw it away, during which it lands again on your ‘left arm’?. Referring to the link, falling on the thighs indicates ‘loss of clothing’ and falling on the left arm ‘may bring shame to you’. The message is clear. You didn’t wear your underwear. How did the lizard ever know that?

     Science says that there are millions of small hair called ‘setae’ on the feet of the lizard, which aide them to walk on the wall. If dust gets in between these hairs, it fails the intermolecular Van der Waal forces of attraction between the wall and the setae and thus can make the lizards fall. That is, if you see a lizard fall down from the ceiling, you can infer that the room is dusty and it is high time you cleaned it up.  If the room isn’t dusty, then one of the possible explanations is that the lizard had met another cute one and had fallen in love. Pun intended.

Classy.

     As a citizen of India, you need to learn the art of co-existing with these creatures. If they fall on you, throw them away and continue with your business and let them with theirs. If you still feel the urge to reach out for the nearest daily calendar, get all those calendars in your home and burn them. 

3. “New work must be started on auspicious days and hours.”

     This is more of an Indian sentiment, which is slowly turning superstitious. I consider this, the biggest mistake made by Indians. I don’t intend to hurt anyone’s sentiment, but I think auspicious days of the month are meant for starting equally auspicious works like marriage talks etc. But there are some people who go a bit overboard. They check the auspicious time for starting almost any work. Be it waking up in the morning, taking bath, eating breakfast and all the other daily chores, barring some exceptions like nature’s call: version 1 and 2, because these are processes that won’t wait for an auspicious time.

     There was this uncle I knew, who used to run a shop near my home. He was a freak who made it a point to run his business only on the auspicious hours and the auspicious days of the month. He didn’t work on Tuesdays, Saturdays, Sundays, and the days of the waxing cycle of the moon. And for the other days of the month, he had reasons like Ashtami, Navami, Ekadesi, Pradosha etc. Effectively, he worked for 4 days a month and had to shut down his business in a year. And still, he blamed his ‘Shani disha’ for this. God save such people.

     I am at dark as to why this superstition is still being followed in India. A line needs to be drawn between these sentiments and essential activities. I cannot dictate terms but I can request you to please give the least priority to this superstition.

4. “Rain is expected in a drought-hit land when a donkey and frog are married.” and related superstitions.

     This, by far, is the funniest and craziest superstition in existence in India. Whenever the monsoon fails, they go for this crazy ‘coupling’ thing. How the hell do they expect it to rain when a donkey and frog are married? If it rains by chance, it is because God is sitting in his living room, crying at the sight of the newly-weds.

The bride.

     By the way, I have a question. What if the monsoon didn’t fail, on the contrary, it flooded the area?  Will the flooding stop if the frog applies for divorce?

     In some areas, men replace the frog. This is further more pathetic. Anyway, donkeys make a terrible wife and that man will have to marry another woman. Imagine the plight of that poor girl. She will be married to a jackass husband who has an affair with a donkey. That is not a pretty sight at all.

     I could go on and on about the other superstitions that prevail in India and in the world. But I will stop here as I think I have enlightened you enough. Humans are the only race bestowed with good reasoning capabilities. Before following any such superstitions, find their utility value. Also find the rationale behind these superstitions and make a firm decision whether to follow them or not. The rest is in your hands.

Thank you for your patience. Comments are welcome.   

Love in 21st Century.

Hello again.

     This time, I will be talking about love in the modern scenario. I had been giving a lot of thoughts on the topic of my second blogpost and zeroed in on this. We are in an era where long distance relationships are the order of the day. This is very well understood by the Telecom industry and they are making it a point to connect the whole country (frequent digging of roads is the proof!). Not that the total country is covered, but you are never more than 1 km away from a telecom service (now, don’t ask me if the telecom service “works”. That will be the topic of a separate blog post).

     Okay, statistics apart. Now, let us see some common (and funny) ways people 'fall in' love these days. There is this one guy whom I knew for a long time. He is a perfect example of a lower-middle class teenager. He watches a lot of movies, sleeps late in the night, wakes up late in the morning, boards crowded buses to college and travels only on the footboard. It is in one such bus travel that he met this girl. She didn’t commit any crime other than being cute (which, by teenage standards, is a crime!) and had also got this guy his ticket, since he was standing a bit far from the conductor. After sometime he gave the ticket back to the girl. The girl threw him a questioning look and flipped the ticket. He had scribbled “I Love you” on the backside. The girl scribbled something and gave him back the ticket. Eager to find whether she had given her phone number, he flipped the ticket only to find “Congratulations. You are my 100^th ticket.” written on it. That is the last time he proposed to some anonymous girl.

     Such an impulse to propose is the product of watching lot of Indian masala movies. It is this media which promotes a lot of non-practical ways in which love can happen between two persons. A rich girl will fall for a poor ragamuffin. Sounds like a story just about right for Rajnikanth (in the 1980s). But does that happen in reality now? No. Maybe because rich girls today wear sunglasses all the time, which are peculiarly shaped like car wind-shields, barring them from looking at ragamuffins along the road, let alone look at the person in front of them. 

     Such love stories can have a successful ending only in movies. And it is solely possible only because Rajnikanth can hit 50 baddies at the same time, escape gunshots and grenades, punch through walls and save the heroine in the climax sequence. If you are not able to comprehend with what I say and think such things still exist in reality, try punching the nearest wall. That is when reality hits you 'hard'. Quite literally.

     There are a few others who act like they love someone, only to use their services. It is sad that most people under this category are women. This statement may sound a bit partial, but I bet some women will accept this too. Anyway I am not targeting all women out there, only a select few who behave in this manner. They usually are pampered rich women who are used to getting lot of attention from parents right from their childhood. It is only natural of them to expect the same attention from their life partners.

     So, they start their 'Suyamvara' from the time they get their first proposal. Then on, they are constantly in search of the perfect nutcase; one who would go out with them at any time, spend money for them without a question, wish them on their birthday, clean their car garage for them, soothe them when they are sad, and laugh with them on their extremely silly jokes. To be honest, these are only a part of the qualification that these women look for. The whole list runs for pages and is supposedly said to be archived in the government vaults under the tag 'strictly confidential'. It is so confidential that even the Government doesn’t know about it.

     And the guys who go behind these women are in my words: ‘Sore losers’. Get a life, guys, and try to know when she is beginning to use you. Expect something from her too. Stop spending for her. Stop running errands for her. And most importantly, stop gifting her with teddies. If you think boyfriends gift their female counterparts with teddies, think again. Have you ever seen their rooms? It is filled with teddies. I leave it to you to infer something from it. I know you are not stupid enough to call 1 + 1 is not equal to 2.

     The evolution of love in the modern times has given rise to a lot of jargon: relationships, break-ups, living together etc. (which made me think that love in the 20^th century was comparatively less confusing and easy). Perhaps the most important of them all is the term 'Dating'. It is also an intriguing topic. I too am at dark as to what exactly happens on a date. This is what Tamil Comedian Vivekh had to say about dating (loosely translated in English).

“Two people, who want to know each other, go to some resort in Mahabalipuram and spend some time there. They eat out of the same plate, share the same bathroom, and sleep on the same bed and return back to their respective homes the next morning, saying nothing ‘really’ happened between them.”.

     Now, it is the rich dudes who are more into dating. “Shall we go on a date?” is the next dialogue they say to a girl after getting her phone number. In my opinion, save the money you spend on 5 dates and you could buy yourself (or poor fellows like me) an Android mobile phone. It will stay longer with you than the total number of hours you would have spent with those 5 dates. Get your money’s worth, man!

     I don’t say that true love doesn’t exist in the present era. It does exist and it doesn’t expect anything, just constant care and sharing of life space. It lies in understanding the other person and also the situation around both. This is precisely what was done by our parents and the generations before them. This is how they were able to live together for a very long time. Guess we ought to learn a thing or two about living a contended life, from our forefathers. 

     Thank you for your patience. Your comments are welcome.

Auto-rickshaws: MTV of Chennai.

Hello people...

     This is my first blogpost and I will start with something  lite. Please do not mind any grammatical error. I will be talking about auto-rickshaws here, particularly the ones that ply on Chennai roads. As to the acronym MTV, its expansion shall be revealed at the end of this post (keeping with the norms of “elements of suspense”). But you may scroll down and check it out anytime (darn the scroll bar!). :P   

     First, let us see the reason behind shortening the name “auto-rickshaw” to just “auto”, particularly in Tamilnadu. In tamil, “attu” means “to shake”. Since auto-rickshaws here are the shakiest vehicles ever to be found on earth, we nickname them “auto” out of sheer love for the vehicle.

Now, there are three types of auto drivers in Chennai.

1.

2. Bad ones.

3. Devilishly evil ones.

Searching for the first option (the good ones)? Well, what is the point in talking about statistically negligible group of people.

    The most unused item in the auto-rickshaws is the electronics meters for calculating the fare. There were times when the driver’s hand went to meter even before touching the clutch. But now the drivers seem to have changed to a more manual approach i.e. bargaining. If you want to bargain with the auto driver, you need to pull yourself to a dominating stance. Start from 50% of the fare that he quotes and slowly increase it to 70%, in a voice that is half-troll and half-banshee. That ought to do the trick.

     The following will be a sample conversation between the driver and the about-to-be-passenger (loosely translated in english).

Driver: Where do you want to go, Sir?

Passenger: Anna nagar.
D: Ok. How much will you give me? 
P: How much do you want?
D: Get in, Sir. 150 Rs.
P: No way, it is after all 6 kms from here. 
D: Sir, petrol prices have gone up. We guys are poor and are struggling to meet our expenses.
P: I don’t want your lame stories. 80 Rs., Is that ok with you?   D: Give me 100. Now, don’t bargain for a petty 20 Rs.

     After this, you will be forced to either pay 100 Rs., or call it quits and reach your destination by a less costlier means (though, not before having your whole family damaged by the auto driver).

     The lives of these auto drivers aren’t great either. They have invested heavily in the vehicle and meet with financial crisis often. These financial problems are broadly categorized into yearly, monthly, daily and hourly. Yearly crisis is usually for the repairing of damaged auto parts and maintenance cost etc. Monthly crisis includes paying rent, bribe to the concerned authorities. Daily crisis includes the petrol drink for the auto and ethanol drink for the driver. Hourly crisis happens rarely and includes more bribes to the traffic policemen and also pan-parag for the driver. In short, these auto drivers are forced to be ROBIN HOODs in unbuttoned khaki uniforms, only that they get a small percentage of the total loot. And  that makes the autos, the (M)oney (T)hieving (V)ehicles of Chennai. 

Orampo - The coolest movie ever to be made on Chennai autos. 

Thank you people for your patience. Do post your comments. Your views are welcome. :)