Radio

One of the biggest sources of happiness for me these days is derived from driving in the road listening to the radio. I consider myself privileged to be living in a city where I understand the local language, know quite a bit about its culture and most critically - enjoy the city's music. The buzz of a new day greets you in the morning - and aptly so. Tuning into Radio One's (94.3) breakfast show with Suchi is a tonic for me early in the morning. Her voice, delivery, class and charm are unmatched in my opinion and she keeps me glued to that channel when songs are not playing. Humor is available in liberal quantities in some of the channels targeted at the masses - Suriyan FM (93.5) most notably and it is pretty enjoyable - and more enjoyable than I initially thought. However in terms of content and presentation of programmes in the morning session I am very impressed with Radio City (91.1). The morning hosts are extremely efficient with their words, and hardly rant on for more than necessary. Particularly impressive in her RJing is Chinmayee for Aaha FM (91.9), and I wonder if she has a role in selecting the songs played during her show - the songs are of a higher standard than other channels. Imagine - they played "Isayil thodangudhamma" at 9am one day.
Overall though there clearly seems to be a focus on peppy and popular music in the morning session - and that is reflected across Channels. Features like traffic update, city news add to the nativity - much to my delight. The evening programming is more content based and targets specific segments of the listeners. Of the evening programmes - Rahmania hosted by Rehana is impressive but gets too repetitive given the limited number of songs that can be played. Songs like Aadi paaru mangaatha can be heard almost daily - this makes it irritating at times.
Anyway - here is a quick summary of my rating for each channel :

Mirchi (98.3) seems to have lost the plot a bit. I do not get any associations attached to the channel these days. The RJs are not of the highest quality and the programming is not unique.

Aaha is good in patches with its Breakfast show with Chinmayee and the Rahmania show. The programme after 9 pm that plays Ilayaraja songs is very good too. Otherwise - its positioning doesn't seem too clear to me.

Suriyan FM is a truly mass channel and it scores with its clarity in positioning. They stick to playing popular music and are good at it.

Radio One seems to give me the feeling that Suchi is wasting her time there. It seems to be a mass channel like Hello FM 106.4, but might never match Suriyan FM.

Hello FM has a big problem. It has the channel at 106.4, and is too far from other channels. Also adding to the difficulty of getting there are some government channels and one english channel after 98.3 Mirchi. Programming and content are OK - it is another mass channel and nothing more.

BIG FM (92.7) is impressive. Its content seems to be engrossing. However, I need to listen to them a bit more to understand how they are different from Mirchi of the past.

The clear winner in my opinion is Radio City. They have a youth focus and are very sophisticated. Their programming on VDay was fabulous - the top 150 love songs were pretty spot on. The channel intelligently shares content with their other city stations and has English music hours and Hindi music hours like Aaha which also has a Hindi Music programme. All in all, an intelligent channel.

Coupling Railway tickets with city events

An interesting and pretty useful idea has been implemented in Melbourne. Melbourne's local rail/ tram/ bus service provider Metlink's tickets are a very useful thing to have. One could use validated tickets to enter sporting events at the MCG like the domestic T20 tournament. I could also have watched the Victoria vs. India game at the Junction Oval for free by showing a valid Metlink Ticket.

I think this idea is pretty powerful as an incentive to use public transport and can be tried out in India. I do not know if such a scheme exists somewhere in India yet. Think about it – if someone wants people to use public transport (mind you – I believe trains as public transport should be encouraged as it doesn’t suffer from any other disadvantage apart from crowdedness in peak hours and coverage) - shouldn't they incentivize it too?

Let’s say Chennai wants more people in the IT highway using trains rather than board some of those company buses which make the OMR (IT Highway) as clogged as Mumbai’s train stations in the morning and evening peak hours. It obviously should improve the rail connectivity and I believe that is partially complete and will only keep getting better. Assume they do that. Now, IF we also assume that locals are satisfied with the IT Highway Railway connectivity and frequencies, what incentives do they need and firstly, why will such incentives work for the locals?

The IT junta are typically youngsters, and have much more spending inclination and capacity than the Tambaram-Beach train passengers (Target audience will be interested). It will also promote awareness of the events on store, and thus a lot of people who did not go to such events because they did not know of it might end up visiting those events.
It means walking for a few extra 100 ms to get to the office as compared to their conventional means (company bus/ bike/ car) - people have to get incentives to tide over the lack of enthu to take public transport.
Positive publicity effect for the IT Highway train system, it should be promoted as happening and trendy. Vending machines on train stations, online booking, tax benefits/ automatic deductions from conveyance allowances can be good incentives too.

Now, what are the events that can be tied to the Railway Card?

The upcoming IPL. They can enter into a percentage revenue kind of agreement with the Railway network, the network pays a fixed sum to the Stadium/IPL authorities, and entry can be initially restricted to a particular stand for Railway pass holders (initially we can restrict it to monthly pass holders only). Based on the crowds, and financial feasibility – it can be opened up further.
Hockey League – something that so needs viewers.
Any BCCI Tournament (the T20 National tourney, Challengers, promotional events etc.)
Movie theaters ? – very ambitious idea – but why not try it at select screens?
Music season cutcherys – the cultural awareness on Chennai’s music season can be increased and it might just revive the culture of youngsters appreciating classical music.
Rock shows/ Unwind center concerts – Cash cow kinda thing.
Still need to think a lot more on this idea. I will appreciate your feedback.

The Arbitest life update ever

1. My TVS Victor, purchased in August 2004 finally crossed 10000 - today somewhere in Perungudi - near that Grundfos junction.
2. The Shatabdi express evening train that leaves Chennai for Bangalore at 17.30 hrs on all days except Tuesdays is value for money. Infact it is the ultimate joy ride. The food served there is excellent - and that it is sumptuous is an understatement. It starts with a Frooty equivalent. Then some fresh sandwiches and samosas served with sauce. And then some good hot tea/ coffee. And if you were starting to get disappointed you were going to not be served dinner, this is Indian Railways afterall, At 8 p.m you get served a very filling dinner which has decent variety as well. (Rice, Channa, Cabbage poriyal, Chapathis, Salad, Curd, Paneer Butter Masala. Wow!). And I only had to spend 550 odd bucks against the possible 1500 + bucks if I had decided to fly. Makki missed travelling with me on 22.08.07 from Chennai to Bangalore.
3. I am now one of those unfortunate souls who have watched 28 Weeks Later on a rainy night in a deserted Pseud Multiplex. KKKKK
4. I have re-started Bowling in the alley, and averaged a healthy 137. That an alarming loss of form caused the 3 week hiatus makes the return to form even more delightful.
5. Vasu-Seth movies must be banned from occupying all screens of a multi-theater complex, Even if the theatreplex is bang in the heart of a Vasu-seth-max area. Mukka and I raced through the traffic from the edge of TTK Road to Ega theatre to find "Partner" and "Heyy Baby" greeting us. KKKK again. We decided to drive back home and watch Chennai - 600028 instead. That I decided to say "I could do with one" to an imaginary voice over asking "Drinks" ala Daniel Balaji in Kaaka Kaaka was the clincher.

Such is Life. Arbit. And as a throwback to the days when we used to write proofs for geometrical axioms/ theorems, I finish this post with a - Hence the post.

Madras Male - the quest

There has always been this huge love I have had for the Chennai city. I remember fondly peeking out of the Bus window when I came to Chennai from Hyderabad during 2003-04. I used to be so fond of the city n the people here that I used to rush home twice a month from Hyd. And once the bus hit Mount Road, I absoulutely had to peep out and check out the latest hoardings - Who's Pothy's new model? Which tamil movie has occupied the pride of place in those mammoth hoardings close to the Thousand Lights signal? (I still remember this amazing 'Ulle Veliye' cutout that was put up by the creative genius Parthiban in this spot). What is the latest Amul hoarding near Spencer's signal? What is the latest Chennai Silk hoarding? Who is the new Prince Jewellery model? All these questions may have been of trivial importance to others, but I absolutely had to know it.
Similarly, I still always stop my bike whenever I see a major movie's poster to see the theaters it is running and quickly do an analysis of how it is distributed. Whether it is a good movie for the distributor could be figured out from that actually. These were all things that I absolutely had to do each time I hit Chennai.
Now that I spent the summer of 2006 and 2007 here, and seem to be destined to stay here for some more time, I am using every opportunity to live the city to the maximum. BK and myself went on this crazy drive from Sterling road to Ega all the way to Sangam, and from there to Pantheon Road, Mount Road and then to Satyam, all in the quest to know our city better. And that's where I got the enthu to blog on this topic. I embarked on a similar trip, once I finished watching HP 5 in Devi.
The rear exit from Devi leads to this really crowded street - I wanted to see where this goes, since it seemed to run parallel to Mount Road. I thus decided to persist with it till it reached Pycrofts Road, where I took a turn and took this real long drive there, to see fond memories of Chepauk return - when I saw the Bell's Road, Pycrofts Road junction. How the 'D Stand' used to be in Bells Road, and the Victoria Garden Road used to be the road to take for the costly Pavilion and Terrace stands. I was instantly nostalgic and decided to circle Chepauk, and then hit the Marina Beach Road. I was reminded of how I used to get down at the Station opposite the Marina beach -and relegiously follow Dad's instructions to reach Chepauk. Now that I understand the city better - these past memories seem even more amazing. I then braved heavy rain to drive all the way to Santhome and then figured out intuitively that Teynampet had to come in that direction and finally hit home through Pondy Bazaar. One big joyride it was. My clothes were dripping wet at the end of it, but it seemed more than worth it.
The quest to be the quintessential Madras Male is well on. And I am more than happy about it.