spencers plaza - a trip back in memory lane

Spencers plaza the past

Spencers plaza is one the largest shopping malls in south asia. Situated in the heart of chennai, this shopping malls has a collection of top foreign brands as well as indian brands. With centralized A/C this place used to be the most important hang-out spots in chennai.
It is (was) one stop shopping mall in chennai where People from all classes (rich, middle and poor) can buy something and everything. With Satyam cinemas close by, most people would follow up a movie in satyam cinemas with a visit to Spencers..

Spencers was a hanging spot for me right from high-school days. If we decided to hang out, the first place that comes to our mind was spencers plaza. It had a little for everyone.
When it comes to food, It was an one stop place where we can taste variety of cuisine.Right from the pani-puri shop located at the entrance of the food court, to pizza corner that used to follow that and the cookie man; spencers would be able to feed people from all walks of life.

We had the historic Landmark book shop. It was a one stop place for latest books, music cds,kids-toys, movie cds etc...
In Spencers we also used to get a variety of gadgets ranging from Chinese gadgets like music stereos to FM players to the latest sony cameras and latest leather footwear..

After a little bit of google search I found out that Spencers plaza has its own history..read this, an article in hindu newspaper about the history of spencers. Spencers plaza was Chennai's first departmental store in 1895. In 1984, a fire broke out and it was reconstructed subsequently as spencers plaza.

Spencers plaza the present

Today I visited spencers with many of my old friends. I was totally shocked to find spencers plaza empty. All the shops from third floor have been removed! ya, the place that had food court is gone!
The whole of the third floor has been converted to a parkng space! There is no landmark, no cookie shop too...:( The new food court opened in the third phase, second floor has only a handful of eateries! With hardly 10 people in the food court, the whole place looked deserted!


I am really saddened to see the current state of affairs in spencers;, that too in a city like chennai, where people give lot of importance to historic things. Spencers had long been the heartbeat in chennai and now it is reduced to nothing more then a museum. I hope spencers plaza fights through this period of uncertainty and reclaims its position of the best shopping plaza in chennai!!

Annagiri- the new phenomena part2: middle class

It is a fairly straight forward question..why is the middle class supporting anna hazare? why are people from different religion, caste etc come together to support anna hazare? The reason is fairly simple... outburst of frustration caused mainly due to the virtual absence of any governing body in the country..
Indian middle class is the largest contributors to the Tax paid to the government. They do not have an option of not paying taxes, it is directly cut from their salary...and in return what do they get? even basic amenities like clean and hygienic water, smooth roads, public transportation are not provided by the government...I am not against the government using tax-payers money for the benefit of the poor, but at-least provide the middle class with these basic amenities..ya, you lay roads every year, but come one rain, the roads are all gone..what is left is stone and soil..and we have to face the agony of travelling in poor roads all winter...there is also the added hazard of stagnant water and its related diseases. But the government is not bothered about all this..
The poor have been poor all their life. The government policies are aimed at short term benefits. be it NREGA or any other scheme, they are meant to provide the villagers some form of employment. The money they earn is only sufficient for rozha khana...And in effect the poor are dependent on the government all their life..

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There is another aspect of the Indian youth that I would like to highlight here..

why this sudden momentum? were things fine 5 years ago? was there no large scale corruption before? remember JP Narayanan + Indira Gandhi + Corruption = Emergency..?? remember Bofers..Corruption has been a phenomenon throughout 60 odd years of independence....2G, CWG etc are just additions to the list...
The answer lies in the IT revolution...till a decade back, middle class indians are mainly employed in government firms like railways, incometax, PSUs, banks etc..that is the educated people of this country were mainly dependent of the government for its salary..but the last 10-12 years have seen large number of education youth work in private industries...
anna hazare is just a phenomenon that people could connect with..the people of this country do not only want to fight corruption or black money etc.. The people also want better infrastructure, better roads, better transportation, better healthcare facilities etc..It is a fight for their basic rights...
Dont be surprised if you see more such anna hazare's and protest in the future...

Annagiri- the new phenomena

I have been following the annahazare protest and its the buildup for the past two days. And definitely it is not anymore an anna fast! Just look at the crowds that have come out on the streets in different parts of the country, it is clear that the people of this country are frustrated with the no-action policy of the government.

These protests makes me ask a simple question? Is it only corruption that this protest is about? Is it only the fight to gain our democratic rights that the protest is about? It is definitely much larger then that...Looking at the way the government has responded to the various scams that have been committed in the last two decades, people's anger has been growing!! Let it be 2G, CWG, Adarsh or the yet to come out Krishna-Godavari gas scam the government's response is to save the guilty.
People are frustrated with politicians in general. The politicians are looting people in all levels. It starts from captation fees that we have to pay for our kids to get admitted in pre-schools to get a seat. Ya in chennai the captatition fees for prekg varies is 40K-120K. And guess what many politicians, film-stars have started their own schools. If we do not want to pay any such illegal bribes we need to get our kids admitted to government schools. All of us know the quality of education we have in these government schools.
the next level is in college..May it be medicine, engineering, arts, science etc, most of the private colleges are owned directly or indirectly by politicians. My cousin scored 1138/1200 and 199/200 in PCB and still couldn't land a seat in any medical college in tamil nadu. In SRCC, Delhi this year the cut off was 300/300..ya, a phenomenal 100%..Till two years back we had 6IITs, 7IIMs, 17 NITs..now this number has doubled..but a little bit scanning the net, you will realize most of these new colleges do not even have a campus....what can people do? how can a common middle class family bear such fees...this is why people are forced to take bribes..
a traffic policeman in chennai has to stand in hot sun all day 365 days a year..and how much do they get paid..a paltry 25K/Month..how can he get his son/daughter educated? It does not make sense..he is forced to take bribe to pay the bribe and fees....I am not justifying this traffic police, but what other way does he have?
Today If some IAS officer wants to maintain law and order in his/her constituency, he has to directly confront the local politicians....for anyone who is following what is happening in madurai, tamilnadu for the last 5 years he will understand what I am trying to say here..

The way forward is much more then lokpal..the whole political class needs to change...I am not a great fan of rahul gandhi, but still I would like to see him take up leadership roles in the present government..the next step would be to ruthlessly punish the corrupted culprits...scams like 2G, CWG etc needs to be investigated by fast track courts and the guilty should be punished asap...even the scams of the past like bofers scam should be investigated..thou this may lead to some top names go behind bars, but ya this will also bring back faith in the political class...here in the present opposition needs to wake up..they cant continue playing politics with the issue of lokpal..they should have their views made public...

Perhaps in the interest of democracy things should change as soon as possible..

I would like to finish with the argument that it is no more about anna hazare..but it is about the people of india adopting annagiri....jai hind...mera bharat mahan...