Monday, February 16, 2009

ABYTE OF LIFE

FARHAN AKHTAR

on Imraan Khanand competition

FREE CIRCULATION

Vol. 3No. 29

FUTURE FRAGRANCES

A scent that smells like Lord’scricket ground

0610

Their own masters

These are stories of people who have dared to think beyond salaries and placements, oflosers who have thought out-of-the-box, of friends who have fulﬁlled dreams even in themost non-conducive of environments. Thanks for helping First Innings complete a year.

He’s sailed from Burma to the Great Barrier Reef off Australia ona 5-ft yacht. He’s been through the Second World War. And he’s99 years old. An encounter with Colonel Edward Patrick Manning.

OLD MAN AND THE SEA

PAGE 4 & 5

P H O T O S : S . S . K U M A R A N D R . R A V I N D R A N

PAGE 03

Criminal khaki duo

Last week, a constable attachedto the City Police Commissioner-ate in the city lost his motorcyclethat was parked on a police sta-tion premises in the Avadi limit. Apparently, two-wheeler theft is aregular affair in the limit and issaid to be masterminded by twocops who have deployed men tocommit the crime.

Chain-snatchingmenace

The rise in chain-snatching in-cidents in the city had driven thecity’s top cop to call a suddenmeeting with his subordinates.He has ordered cracking the whipand is known to have given a ‘big dose’ to some ofﬁcers under whose limits the crime has seen asteady rise in the last twomonths.

Poor guardianangel

A guardian angel lady cop at-tached to a police station in thecity, who recently helped an ail-ing person at Chennai CentralStation, is seen as a demon by hercounterparts in the Railways.The reason, according to them,is that she offered help in anotherpolice limit and walked away with the honours (she received anaward for her act). So every timeshe reaches the station to board atrain to her home in Avadi, shereceives an angry stare from therailway cops.

Where are thebikes?

The rise of two-wheeler theftsin the city has turned yet anotherheadache for the khakis. Reliablesources say that per day there area minimum of three incidents of theft in the city.Some bikes are seized by mo-torcycle ﬁnanciers on non-pay-ment of EMI. However, theremaining 75 per cent of the bikesgo untraced.

Of chain snatchings,lost two-wheelersand the rareguardian angel

ERGO

Monday, February 16, 2009

NAMMA CHENNAI

LANKANCAUSE

early 25 years and 70,000 deaths later,the civil war in Sri Lanka mercilesslycontinues, with hundreds of thousands ofcivilians now trapped in the fightingbetween the government army and therebel Tamil Tigers.The offensive that was meant to be finalhas now lasted for five months,transforming the situation into ahumanitarian tragedy.The Alliance Franchise Madras is screeningtwo documentaries on the ethnic conflict inthe island nation followed by a paneldiscussion on February 16 and 17. “BurningMemories” by freelance journalist S.Someetharan traces back the destruction ofthe Jaffna Public Library in 1981 thattriggered off the conflict.“Lanka- the other side of war and peace”by Kashmiri filmmaker Iffat Fatima bearsfirst-person account of victims of thehumanitarian crisis.

Marathon Man

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Shiv DanSingh whowon theChennaiMarathonat MarinaBeach inChennaionSunday.

PHOTO:R.RAGU

Monday, February 16, 2009

dventures of World WarII, the task of rebuilding the death track in Burma,the obstinacy of the seaon long voyages and preciousacquaintances with towering figures of Indian history are justa few moments from 99-year-old Colonel Manning’s past.Edward Patrick Manning,born in Ireland in 1910, is oneof the oldest sailors alive. Hehas made India his home andresides in namma Chennai with wife Madhulika, who runs herown real estate consultancy.Before starting, Manning makes it a point to remind youto speak louder. A conversation with him is unexpectedly inter-esting, with traces of his Irish wit showing up quite often.His first encounter with India was in the 1940s during Second World War, when he came hereas part of British Royal Engi-neers. He was directly recruitedas Officer Cadet in the BritishIndian Army. Eleven monthslater, he was acclimatised to theIndian Army at the QVO Ma-dras S&M at Ulsoor, Bangalore.During his tenure Pat (as he’sknown among friends) lent hisservices all around the country and strengthened relationships with the powers-that-be then.By the time he retired in 1945,he was enticed by India and de-cided to live the rest of his lifehere. When given an option tostay back or return to England,he chose his adopted country. Ask him why and he sweetly an-swers, “I was smitten by thecountry. Moreover, Mrs. Gand-hi asked me to stay here. I con-sider myself an Indian now.”

Pat the sailor

Pat’s romance with the seastated at the tender age of ﬁve.“Sailing was not in my family but I was mesmerised by theblue of the sea. The sea was my playground. I always enjoyedbeing in water, except during bath time” he smiles.Pat took up sailing profes-sionally at the age of 32 and af-ter more than six decades he isas much in love with the sea.One of his most adventurousand indelible one-month seavoyages was from Burma to theGreat Barrier Reef in Australia.“A 5-ft yacht was all we had. With no passport or visa inhand, we sailed for one monthfrom Burma to the Coral Sea without a hop. We carried somerare edibles from Burma to Australia.” he slowly recalls. When asked about the year of the voyage, he quips, “I was ve-ry young then. If I rememberedall the dates, I would have writ-ten a book.”

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He once sailed from Burma to the Great Barrier Reef on a 5-ft yacht. Now, at 99, Colonel Manning is one of the oldest sailors alive. And experiences fromWorld War II make for an even interesting recollection

VIPASHA SINHA

If I rememberedall the dates, Iwould havewritten a book

Old Man and the Sea

Pages form his past

Towards the end of thewar Colonel Manning wasassigned to raise a campto accommodatethousands of Britishsoldiers being sent backto England. Finally, hestayed back in Rangoon tohelp rebuild the railwaysand he stayed on inBurma Railways. He wasinstrumental in theinstallation of the railwaystation, marshalling yard,tracks and also theengines in Burma duringwartime.The Barrackpore SailingClub was one of his mostsigniﬁcant initiatives. Hebecame a member of theTamil Nadu SailingAssociation right at itsinception.

he cafeteria of Cybernet-Slash-Support resounded with laugh-ter, some giggles and mostly unrestrained laughter of women.Barathi of the admin team lookedexceedingly happy because shehad just kicked an “eve teaser”(woman dressed as a man) in theright or rather wrong place whiledemonstrating a self-defencemove. Though a mere demon-stration, it was essentially thepulse of Sakhi, an initiative by theFacilities Management Group toempower every woman em-ployee of CSS.The Sakhi meeting kick-started with the unveiling of the bannerproclaiming the powerful womanby Vishu Priya amidst thunder-ous applause. This was followedby a brieﬁng by the core Sakhiteam on theirplans to encour-age the personaland professionalgrowth of wom-en employeesthrough leader-ship, education, etc.,as well as addressing and providing solutions topersonal as well as workplace is-sues faced by women.The question about what Sakhimeant elicited many interpreta-tions. Sakhi was inner ‘Shakthi’, amother who takes care of herchildren’s needs, a friend whoencourages sometimes with just anod, and many more. And wom-en gave free reign to theirthoughts, coming up with inno-vative suggestions that can be im-plemented by Sakhi.The ones who losttheir seats in themusical chairsheaded to thehealth camp for afree dental check-upand a fat check-up.The only disappointment was echoed in the voice a woman who kept insisting that“My fat percentage can’t be over35. Do I look fat?”“Do you really care?” askedGiovana as she broke into a salsa with Ibtissam melting hearts and,hopefully, some obstinate fat andShakira crooned ‘Wherev-er…whenever’ to DJ Sushma’sbeats.

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Namitha Jayanarayanan,Cybernet-SlashSupport

Sakhi,

OUR BEAUTIFUL FRIEND….