Though hundreds of thousands visit chennaionline.com, every day, every week, every month, only some have the time and the inclination to post their views/comments. Therefore, it is very important we recognize/acknowledge their efforts.  

I thought I should respect the aspiration of Narayanan Sambamoorthy and so this piece.

I would start with my experience at the Chennai International Airport, when I left the City. These days, convenience of the departing or arriving passengers is a casualty of the growing security concerns. They don’t allow your vehicle to stop anywhere near the departure terminal. Even the old, the infirm and the disabled have to find their long way into the crowded terminal. Even before you could unload your luggage from your vehicle, the towing van of the City police is there loudly calling out the number of your vehicle, asking you to remove it. The fact is that but for the tow-van, three cars could halt there conveniently.

I am not for once suggesting that security aspects be ignored. Not at all.  The convenience of the passengers need not suffer. That is what I found at the busy Terminal Five of the O’Hare Airport in Chicago.  One could easily park the vehicle till all luggage is loaded and all passengers board.

Another visitor of Chennaionline wanted me to throw some light on the incident ‘your good friend Mr A Natarajan narrated to you’ which is conspicuously missing in dateline. Should I not oblige him?

I would abridge a long story. After a Public meeting in the early sixties, the organizers requested A Natarajan to take care of Arignar Anna who was the Chief Guest. Mr Rajagopal, a good friend of Anna also accompanied them to Hotel Amin in Royapettah, a restaurant that Anna chose. Natarajan, being a vegetarian ordered just Idiyaappam. He finished his lunch in no time. He went to the owner of the Hotel at the Cash Counter and told him that he had only ten rupees with him and in case the bill exceeded that amount, he was willing to surrender his Rolex wrist watch. The Hotel owner was inflexible. So, Natarajan went out to the nearby Newspaper stand (where he used to glance through the dailies everyday – a place which RM Veerappan also used to haunt daily), with the request for a small hand-loan of fifteen rupees. Though the shop-owner was initially reluctant, he readily came forward to oblige, once Natarajan mentioned Anna’s name.

Of course the total bill was only fifteen rupees! When Anna was told about this, he remarked: ‘Rajagopal would have taken care of the bill!’

I will try to dispatch this column regularly – based on what I get to read of happenings in Chennai.