Impact of this year's edition of Chennai Sathamam, I mean, Chennai Sangamam

In this year's edition of Chennai Sathamam a.k.a Chennai Sangamam (my view of the previous edition is available here), Rock music and Sufi music - two of the most unique contributions that Tamil culture has given to human society - were included in their lineup. And since Elliots Beach still retains its urban appeal, the Rock music shows all seemed to be set only there. Needless to say, we have had a very quiet time in the last one week.

And this time around, the organisers advertised that the grand finale was also going to be held at the same beach. What this meant was absolute chaos in Besant Nagar. The traffic was way more than what this small neighborhood could handle. My street became a parking lot. One moronic SOB also parked his car right in front of my gate, thereby ensuring that the gate became a wall. I waited patiently for that scumbag to return and vented out mildly; mildly because he had a youngster with him, who was taller and in much better shape than I was.

And then the fireworks started. This resulted in the cat that is roaming around my house to take refuge under my new sofa!

I really pray to God that something happens to this goddamn event and it gets canceled!

I saw a lady rise up from the middle of the road

An incident happened last week or the week before. I was driving my car and was on my way home.

Near Tambaram Railway station, you can always see lots of people crossing the road at various points. The point to be noted that for a good stretch, the GST has pretty big road dividers - regular concrete medians that are like 3 feet tall.

However a small portion of the road does not have this type of median. The police have placed the standard metal dividers in that stretch.

Naturally, people have a tendency to use the gaps between two such barricades and cross the road. But what I saw that day was really scary.

I was near this stretch and around 25-30 feet in front of me, I saw this apparition in the middle of the road. Upon keener observation, I realised that it was a lady. The interesting thing was, it looked like she was emerging from the tar road. Just when I neared her, I found this big gap between two of these barricades. Since it was at a lower height, she had actually crawled thru this gap.

For someone watching this spectacle towards the end of the show, it looked as if she she was rising up from the earth. But alas, she was only a human being (theoretically that is).

And I took a picture of the gap more than a week after I witnessed the above mentioned theatrics. Its a pity that I couldn't capture the event itself on camera.