AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 163 of 332 and dear ones. In the yesteryears cow dung cakes (called locally as VARATTY) used to share equal space along with these posters on the compound walls but over the years these have vanished. The new type of posters which have made their way in to the city with the advent of IT, are the ones announcing crash IT courses – Java, C +++, Animation etc and these posters have found an exclusive space only for themselves on the distribution boxes of the Electricity or Telecom Departments. One does get to see compound walls free of posters and these are the ones which are prominently marked as ‘STICK NO BILLS’. With the Metro Rail coming up in a big way, there is abundance of space for pasting of posters. Kilometers of big steel barricades, along both sides of the Metro rail, put up by consortium of builders who have undertaken this project are a huge bonus for those who want to put up their posters. I am sure when the Metro rail is inaugurated these steel barricades will disappear and then the pillars of the Metro rail will be put to good use for pasting posters. Graffiti Wall posters have limited life period and also there is hardly any income to be earned by the building owners for having their walls pasted. Here innovation is the key. A regular income can be earned by letting out this space for graffiti to sycophants of political leaders who are only too willing, to go to any length to shower praises on their masters. I am told that no political party has a monopoly over their space and there is a system of advance booking of this space. Hero Worship People of Chennai by and large are religious but a religion here, bigger than Gods are the film Heroes. Release of a new film of their favourite hero is enough for the diehard fans to put up huge size banners in front of the movie halls. Here fans go to the extent of even performing milk Abhisekam to cut outs of their heroes. This phenomenon I have not seen in any metropolis outside Chennai. Auto Meters Chennai is the only place where the meter in an auto rickshaw is just a show piece. Come, what may, the auto drivers of Chennai will not switch on their meters. Having used to this culture, I need to pinch myself to believe that the meter is