N. Ramaswamy is a trigger-happy young man. He has to carry his camera with him wherever he goes and when an image grabs his attention he clicks. Clicks many times.
And he looks at our city differently oftentimes.
Ramaswamy has a web site called ChennaiDailyPhoto where he posts all his photos, on a daily basis.
One at a time, with pithy captions which are informative and commentative.
Nowadays, Ramaswamy even takes his son on his perambulations and the little one has also been taught how to look through the lens.
Ramaswamy joined hands with Yocee, a web site for Chennai's children to host a Photo Walk for kids for the 2010 edition of Madras Day.
The children liked it so much that Yocee's Revathi decided that for the 2011 edition of Madras Day, they would host two walks. One on Saturday that will take the group though the old parts of Royapuram in north Madras, and one on Sunday that will be through the leafy neighbourhood of south Chennai, alongside the Tholkappiya Poonga (Adyar Poonga).
Collaborations of this nature are what makes Madras Day tick.
In a corner of the Adyar neighbourhood is Yellow Bus, a space for young children. The lady at the wheel of the Bus has been among the first to draw up a dozen and more events for Madras Day.
This year she took another step. She has collaborated with a students group at Besant Theosophical School and an enthusiastic artiste to produce a villupattu production on Madras that is Chennai.
If the show strikes a chord when it is first performed next week and if the school managers permit, we believe this show should make the rounds of a few campuses during Madras Week.
Voluntary collaborations and proud citizens is what makes Madras Day special.
We are just hoping that even as she strains every nerve at the budget session of the Assembly, chief minister Jayalalithaa will also do her bit for this city - start the process to have a Heritage Act in place.