Stick no Bills?

Few days back when I was walking to a nearby shop, I saw a bright white compound wall with bold black words shouting “STICK NO BILLS”. During my return from the shop, I took the same route but I couldn’t trace this bright white compound wall. I looked around to check whether I took the wrong road, only to find a guy at the fag end of the road busy completing the assigned task. Yes! Sticking posters. He neither bothered about what was written nor about the wall getting spoilt. All that mattered to him was to finish sticking all the posters given to him in any possible space that was seen.

A foreigner started taking pics of him and requested him to pose for his Nikon. His joy knew no bounds  He, in fact gave a live demo of how a poster is stuck and the foreigner was happy to learn the art quickly. He too did a big favour and stuck a newly released tamil poster and showed a thumbs-up as a sign of his victory 

Our inclination to stick posters was clearly visible when I found “Happy Birthday Rocky” stuck everywhere along the roads of Adyar and Guindy. Birthday wishes through posters and banners might be common but this was weird. Rocky was a dog  The irony was that an old woman dressed in rags who must have been starving for days together was seen sitting near that “Happy Birthday Rocky” poster. But still, what to do… We (a major section of society) still prefer spending money for printing and sticking birthday wishes for Rocky rather than for feeding the needy.

Another set of posters that irritated me are the small hoardings that are placed on the OMR road depicting disgusting accidents. It makes us feel sick to see that early in the morning… A man who’s head is crushed etc etc… I understand its a measure taken to make people stick to traffic rules to avoid such mishaps. But still, early in the morning, seeing such pics depresses me to the core. So, my friend has a note of all the locations of the posters and ensures that I don’t turn that side   Such posters are uncalled for… As people who break rules will continue to break them in spite of such warnings. It only affects the others who travel by that way especially there are many kids who take that route. I wish something is immediately done about such posters.

There are many accidents that are caused due to these hoardings. There are cases where the hoardings have fallen on the vehicles, hence causing accidents.

Sigh! But why do we actually stick posters? Initially, it was the most popular way of advertising when the exposure to media was less. But now, that’s not the case. Social networking sites, online reviews, forums, print media, TV, etc. give a lot of attention and the publicity is phenomenol. But still we stick posters just for cows to eat them (I learnt not only donkeys but even cows eat paper unlike described in my 2nd class science book).

Its our city, our responsibility. We cannot litter on the road and then complain that my city is unclean. Reforms should start from each one of us. Avoid sticking posters and spread the same to your friends. Lets make our city a better place to live!

A Bit of this and a Bit of that

We go to a chaat shop to honour our rumbling tummies but as soon as we reach there, our taste buds establish its superiority. Choosing sev puri over bhel puri can be a complete injustice towards Bhel puri  We keep looking at the menu…Tadaa! Mixed chaat comes to our rescue… A bit of this and a bit of that! Sev Puri happy, bhel puri happy, tongue happy, tummy happy… Everybody happy 

So why this story… Nothing much.. just a justification for choosing this title!  It has been long since I posted (long when compared to my regular post intervals)… Meanwhile, whenever I find something interesting, I make a note in my mind to blog about. So what happened was that too many thoughts piled up and I was in a dilemma to make a choice! So now what you are about to get is a mixed chaat post 

Note: There will not be any link between the previous point and the next point. It is going to be some random order in which my brain pops out the thoughts… I am not sure whether it will follow First-In-First-Out or Last-In-First-out (I remember stack and queue concepts  ) or Middle-In-First-out (#PJ alert)… Bottomline: Its in some random order.

 Talking about out, me being a cricket buff, was reminded of the ‘Rajinikanth match’ that happened few days before. CSK vs RCB match in chennai, where we (CSK) had to take 2 runs of 1 ball. 2 runs was taken and we won with 1 ball to spare  Nothing but a Rajini movie… isn’t it? This was followed by a series of tweets, FB posts and trolls. Completely entertaining!

 IPL se Koi nahi bachega was so apt… All shops have started cashing in. IPL T-shirts, Dhoni bats, Sachin’s shoes, Dravid’s cap… Errr… ok… enough! So apart from these usual seasonal business promotions, I was surprised to see a vegetable shop making its share of IPL profit. This shop had different placards dividing its shop into a mini India. CSK placard had Dhoni and Raina poster and all the yellow vegetables and fruits were grouped here… So was with RCB, KKR and others. Gluncon D was placed in RCB and when I asked the owner he replied, “Gayle irukaru la ma… Avar dhan IPL oda glucose” (Gayle being the Glucon D of IPL ). Innovation at its best!

 Something that pissed me off in the recent times was the lack of bus etiquette. I understand everybody is very tired, having a beaten-to-death kind of energy… But still, it cannot become an excuse. I find people keeping their legs right royally on the seat which is in front of them irrespective of whether a person sits or not… If they are in the first seat they keep their legs right behind the driver’s seat. Its very irritating to see as well as to keep telling them that your leg is touching me. Some people ignore and let them keep, while others (like me) point it out and are greeted by a king-dethroned-expression. Sigh!

 Adding on to the above, judge a person and not their profession. I talk with almost all people whom I see daily… I travel in a bus for almost 4 hours everyday, how on earth can I be without talking to my driver anna… Same is the case with people working in  pantry, cafeteria, housekeeping… anywhere. When I talk to these people just like I talk to any other friend of mine, I find people giving me a look that says “Disgusting! How can you talk like this to these people?”. Telling a simple “Thanks anna” when a driver stops at my stop or when a pantry helper hands over the bottle of sauce is not going to demean me in any way!

 I found two people talking too loudly… Initially I thought they were arguing about something. But later I realised , they were discussing about which is a quality school to enroll their kids. I could very well see that they were neither from an affluent society nor had a literate background. Incredible India!

I had many other thoughts, but as of now nothing else is coming to my mind  This reminds me I should hereafter squeeze in sometime and blog as and when I get something to post about, owing to my poor memory!