Festival time in Mylapore

I would love to see you at the 2009 edition of Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival 2009, January 22 to 25.
If you and your family, your relatives and your friends are there, then this will truly be a community-driven fest.
There are over 40 events.
But the events, their colour or their scope do not really make this kind of a Fest.
The visitors, the people do.
They are the ones who give life to a Fest of this sort.
And when a Fest embraces all those who run their lives in the neighbourhood which is our venue, then life gets better.
The panju-mithai wallah, the man who whips out that gooey pink sweet off a rattling oven may well be there.
The bioscope wallah used to keep his date after he got to know that this Fest was as colourful as the arubathumoovar vizha. But I didn't spot him last year.
The narikuravas will be there with their beads and chains and all - their strength is going big, big, big.
They lead the hawker business in Besant Nagar!
And the bajji makers, be they across a janal, on the street or in dingy rooms will be happy to entertain the stream of Fest visitors.
I wonder if I can ask police officer Sunil Kumar who heads the City Traffic Police to manage the Mada Street traffic and encourage a test model during this Fest.
Perhaps make the Mada Streets 'one way' only?
Not because this regulation is what we as organisers of the Fest want, but because we and many others feel that a better regulated traffic zone in this area will hugely benefit many people - hawkers, big stores, residents and visitors.
Can the people of the Mada Streets take the lead and show to this city that a heritage-stopping zone can be developed only if we put our minds to it?
What do you think of the idea? It is not a new one. But it needs to be on the agenda.
See you at the Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival 2009.