madras day

Chennai is celebrating "madras day" this entire week.Birthday celebrations for a great big city has to spill over to atleast 7 days. Initially the concept of madras day was vocalised by the local newspaper, Adyar times.Vincent d souza, its editor said 'hey, why not celebrate the spirit of chennai as a community festival. He is passionate about community participation in local festivals and has been a pioneer of sorts in starting his now famous neighbourhood newspaper.
Last two years it has been fairly low key, but this year, i am pleasantly surprised to see that it is occupying significant newspaper space and also AIR waves!Yesterday there were series of programmes in FM Rainbow channel. Planned to tune in, but what with umpteen distractions could not do so. Will definitely be more prepared next year, is this year's resolve.
Muthiah, the historian of chennai is also putting up some public meetings, exhorting students to be interested in this heritage city. City tours of historic spots have been planned.Randor Guy the detective old hand of tamil cinema, is planning a lecdem on Chennai as it appeared in movies.I am planning to be there this saturday in ps high school.
Did read up a few interesting articles about what it means to be a chennaite."Chennaites are a unique species; they would like to have the fan on even when the ac is cooling the room quite efficiently".Touched a chord there!So i am a quintessential Chennaite!