Tales of Old and New Madras - S. Muthiah - Book Review

Tales of Old and New Madras by S. Muthiah

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Landing upon this book was a pure chance. I was randomly browsing through the Amazon's monthly kindle deals and ended up purchasing this gem for a cheap price. The book is authored by S. Muthiah the famous Madras writer and the man behind the organization of Madras Day celebrations in the recent years. This is not a book written in a single flow, but is a collection of 38 articles written by the author in various instance at various lengths. Strewn together, the book brings the stories of Madras from its founding days to the recent fiasco of the new Assembly building.

The first chapter starts with how Francis day got the land for Fort St. George by combining two villages back in 1639. To placate the Village headman Madarasen and the ruler Chennapa Nayak, he decided to name the fort as Madarasapatnam and the surrounding colony as Chennapatnam - the names of which has created controversies in the later years. After this interesting chapter, the book enters into a few articles on how rules were established in the settlement based on first reported Murder, a Rape Accusation and how Sheriffs were setup in the settlement. These chapters appear extended and creates a lull in the book, given the disconnect with the modern day.

After this comes the articles of late 18th and early 19th centuries, which are interesting. They cover pieces of famine relief (Cyclical rains seems to have been a eternal worry for the state), a few historical buildings, the Club House and the beginning of Engineering institute in the city. The author seems to have a critical remark of how the College of Engineering, Guindy has been let down off late, given how great it was an institute in the early days.

Then comes the tales of late 19th century which is the most interesting part of the book given that the city has attained a remarkable shape in this part and most of them remain intact today. These parts covers the tales of the Indo Sarcenic architecture of the old buildings, the formation of the Marina Promenade, construction of the Madras Harbor, the formation of Theosophical society and my most favorite part of the book - the Chepauk Cricket Stadium. It is indeed sad that the local cricket administrators have ignored the history of the ground completely in the name of modernization. How great it would have been to have an antique cricket museum or hall in the ground reflecting the long tenure of cricket here.

The book deals with various firsts in the city - Telephone Exchange, Bank, Movie Theaters, Studios, Newspaper, Magazine and looks into the history of how a few failed, while a few went on to become household names like Ananda Vikatan or The Hindu. The book then looks into the life of few famous personalities to have come from the city - the math genius Ramanujam and how prodiogious and unfortunate he was (he died when he was just 33), Kalakshethra founder Rukmani and how she found discovered and made Bharata Natyam popular, the Woodlands hotel founder K. Krishna Rao and how he setup the entire business, Thiru. Vi. Kalyanasundaram and his tryst with Labour Unions.

In the final part, the author briefly touches upon the major political events of the recent times - the death of CM Annadurai and MGR - their rise to power and in the process he covers the history of Justice Party, Dravida Kazhagam, DMK and ADMK. It is certainly indulging to read about the party in 1940s and 1950s and how they came to the current state.

The flipside of the book is that the author has just compiled the articles he has written at various points of time. This drives the lack of continuation at certain points of time and also lack of depth in some articles. The other effect is that certain portions keep getting repeated like there are lot of instances where the establishment of Justice party is meted out.

The book gives lots of interesting anecdotes all along. An entire chapter is dedicated to the rise of Indian English and how even the the Britishers had established a dictionary for that. The author keeps lamenting the fact that we have forgotten the Englishmen who established various institutions and facilities in the city. He is also critical of the modern day governments for not preserving the history. The author also brings the fact a lot of rules that forms the core of our country were actually established in this city in the founding days.

There is so much of history in Chennai, but so little a current generation Chennaite would know. This is a must read book for any History buff from this part of the country.

View all my reviews

The Indian Taxi Industry - The competition intensifies

Hi Guys,

It has been nearly 8 months since I wrote a post on the increasing competition in Indian Cab Industry and how players are pumping in lot of money to attract customers. While the discounts and free rides have come down, the competition is yet to settle and the major players are trying hard to attract customers and most importantly retain them. While attracting has been easy, retaining has been difficult. Let me provide you two scenarios that I faced along with my friend.

1. We go for a team dinner. Come out at night 10 pm. Check out Ola. The app says you will be charged 1.4X as it is peak time. Check Uber. No additional fare. Uber wins
2. We are working on a Saturday and want to leave around 5 pm. Ola has a discount of Rs. 50 on that particular day. We check Ola. Again the app says that it is peak time and you will be charged 1.4X times, meaning the discount is virtually useless. Again we check Uber. No additional fare. Uber 2 –  Ola 0

The point to be noted is that we checked Ola first before going to Uber. Ola had created that First Mindshare, but sadly they weren’t able to convert prospects to customers.

Regional players like Fastrack and NTL are also hitting back strongly at the new entrants targeting the Peak Time gimmick and over reliability of technology. When people thought that the regional players are out of Business, I think they have their own set of customers – Old timers without a smart phone, pre booked rides (Ride Later is very poor in Ola and Uber doesn’t have one), etc. Now, these players are also getting smarter and are rising their service levels.

The cost side of the Business is reducing as the driver acquisition is no more a high priority. When I went to Bangalore a few months back, had a friendly chat with one of the drivers who has tagged himself with one of these services. He said the company has stopped giving additional incentives for staying with them. For every km, a customer is charged Rs. 10. The service provider gives him extra Rs. 3. The commission is 10% which is Rs. 1.3. So in effect the service provider is making a loss of Rs. 1.70 for every km a customer rides. This is to keep both the customer and driver happy. He said before tagging himself with the service provider, he was riding for a travels which paid him Rs. 8 per km. So, he is getting at least 30-40% more and he is also getting more rides per day.

With introduction of peak time charges and increasing number of rides, I guess these players would no longer be pumping in money. Recently Ola has reduced their charges in Chennai by about 20%. The reason given is that there has been optimal usage of fleets leading to ‘economies of scale’. A quick search reveals that Ola has around 13000 Cabs in Chennai against Fastrack’s 4000. Uber’s figures remain unknown.

The other issue faced by Ola and Uber is the reliability of the drivers. A viral news spreading in the Social networking sites questions the authenticity of the fares as the drivers might start a trip well before they arrive at your place. This might be happening at a few places, but it raises a big question about the credibility of the Cab services.

A few months back, Ola and Uber looked very cheap and affordable. The customer acquisition phase is nearly over as the customers are used to the new age players by now. The key now is to retain the customers without affecting the trust. It is the trust factor that the new age players seems to be losing.

Competition is also good for the end customer as they get the best out of it. While the dust might have settled, the road ahead doesn’t look smooth. Lets see if someone can become a market leader, or if the industry would remain fragmented.

Happy Reading!

The Root Cause for Bus Footboard Accidents

Hi Guys,

A few days back there was a grave accident in Chennai where four students were killed in a bus accident. They were travelling in the footboard and a lorry crashed into them. It was a very shocking incident. It was a hot topic for one or two days and then it was forgotten.

The next day there was an article in Times of India about how the Transport Corporation operates fewer fleets due to lack of man power (2400 buses instead of 3300 available). Yet, their revenue never decreased. It is said that revenue increases when there is less availability of buses as it leads to people swapping buses after a short duration. On the day of accident, the bus had 120 passengers.

The next day High Court issued an order that schools can detain students travelling in Footboard. Most of the students don’t travel in footboard for fun. They travel as they don’t have any option. We should look into the backdrop of the problem and solve the root cause.

During my college days I have observed as to how the public buses are so crowded just before the school and college timings. General advice given is ‘Why don’t students catch the bus early?’ How early? I have seen most of the buses very busy for a long time in the morning. Yes, some problem does lie with the students for waiting till the last minute. In the afternoon very few people travel in most of the routes and yet there will be lot of buses. If you notice closely, the number of people travelling in Footboard is more in the morning than in the evening (as there is no Time Pressure).

Five days after the accident took place, I was travelling to Chennai around 8 am. It was the same route (OMR). It was a Saturday. Yet, I was able to see the bus full of passengers. There was no one standing in the footboard. But there were lot of school students and office going people. From the amount of people in the bus stops and the usual number of buses in that route, it was obvious that there was too much demand and too less supply. If it was the condition on Saturday, then what about week days when more schools and more offices are working.

The students don’t have any other option. The number of buses should be increased. Asking schools to detain those students doesn’t work practically. Will the schools accept students coming late? Never. The whole concept fails there.

The sad part is the whole issue is forgotten within a few days of the incident. It is so sad. Everyone blamed the students for the mistake and the Transport Corporation or Government officials never even bothered to look inside the case.

Hope something better is done and future accidents are avoided.

P.S: Didn’t finish with my usual style of Happy Reading. It’s not a happy one.