Yaaawn.

Ever since my last outrageous dream-slash-nightmare only to not remember that in full after I woke up, I told myself that as soon as I wake up from a similar experience, I would note it down and may be start a chronicle of sorts. Today was one of those days, and I thought I'd give you a glimpse as to what is happening inside my head, even when I am not aware of it.

Ok...so I have to skip the first episode, as it is, well, between someone and me, so I'll jump to the  next one.

This one, is straight out of a Spielberg Movie. So I was in this airport with my friends in Chennai. But this ain't the Chennai airport. In fact, even the best of the international airports I have seen don't come close to whats about to happen inside this airport. First of all, like all dreams we have no idea where were we before the airport episode. Second, I have no idea why are we there; we sure didn't receive anyone at the airport. On a passing note, two guys I knew loooooong time back were just coming back to Chennai from abroad. Weird thing is neither of them were in US and neither of them stay at Chennai. But it is a dream, so anyway. And then, the most outrageous thing happens. From the top, something like small satellites drop down, dozens of them. They don't fall on the floor at once, but hold themselves in suspension until the people underneath them clear, and then gently fall on the floor. Now my friends immediately look to hold on to something, and so does everyone else. Before I ask them why they do that, the entire airport stretch elevates, something akin to an open bridge when a ship goes underneath. This makes the satellite-like things to go to the corner, or almost, until the floor is held inclined. And when everything is settled, people just went to one of those satellite thing, opened it and took something. My friends and I went to the one near us, and we opened it. Guess what was in it? Apparently, it contained the food that we ordered (in the distant past of the dream that is now very vague). I was like.."whoa..cool." And of course, I went on to gorge on brownies (no guess needed to know who ordered that one!)

Now back to reality, I woke up to my alarm at 6:00 AM. Feeling just so lazy after a long day yesterday and decided to go back to sleep...just for a little while. And now the part 2 starts..almost immediately I went back to sleep.

So I am back at the airport, but somewhere at basement here you have this hugeee shopping complex (Chennai airport would be so cool if it were this) and I seem to have lost my friends. As I am going through the shops, there this flagrant transvestite, who starts to hit on me. I was like running away from him/her, and before even I realize I am being stalked and chased. I start running away like crazy, I get out of the airport apartment and then fly out to the streets. It is about 8 PM in the night I guess, judging by the thickness of city traffic. As I am in the process of searching my friends, I see them at the end of the street where. Before I call out to them, one of my friend (Ram) calls out for me "Riaz Gaffooooor." Weird, why would any of my friends call me using that name...but again it is a dream. And then suddenly, one guy who was in the vicinity, catches the shirt of my friend and asked, "did you mean RIAZ GAFFOOR? I am searching for him, where is he?" And at that moment I come to the scene, and this guy takes a piece of log that lay nearby and says, "I have been searching you for so long." Before I even comprehend what the hell is happening, we are surrounded by couple of dozen people armed with all sorts of non-ammo tools (Chennai style). I was like, dude why?, and then he says, "remember sometime back you threw a ball back in this street to a group of people who were playing. The ball you threw hit one of our friend's arm and that lead to a blood clot which lead to a complicated heart condition with which he now has to live for ever." I was like, dude. Now I get a flashback within my dream (oh yeah!), and I now remember what I did. Coming back to my senses --in the dream that is-- I asked to talk to the person whom I apparently inflicted the injury upon. That person came -- I swear I had seen him before -- and said to him, "Man, I didn't mean it." He was like, "yeah it is alright, these guys are just making a big thing out of it." He then talked to the crowd and all was well.

Not sure how much had elapsed after that, now I was somewhere, I think it was in one of my friend's place. We are planning a birthday party, and we are in the process of inviting the rest of the gang. And then flash forward, I am reading Business Process Management, which incidentally happened to be the last one I read before going to sleep.

And then I wake up from the slumber, it is now 7:00 AM and I hurry to get ready for a long Monday.

It's definitely a different feeling to jot down what I had dreamed about. I feel that there are so many of my characteristics are evident from most of these episodes, like how much I miss my friends and hanging out with them. Rest, I have no explanation!! 1 to 10 on outrageous scale, this one is probably at 3-4 ish level. I have had 9s and 10s in the past, and I wish I had remember more of them for they would have made some of the best stories.

Chennai Coastal clean-up 2

“When the going gets good, the good gets going.” True to these words, Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) conducted its second Chennai Coastal clean-up campaign on Jan 9, 2011, cleaning up the entire Chennai Coastal line from Marina beach to Injambakkam with more than 500 volunteers, covering 15km of beach, and collecting more than 800 garbage bags. The purpose of this campaign was to spread environmental awareness – again – to the general public and to preserve our natural resources. Volunteers assembled around 5am on Sunday at 11 locations across Chennai city and were transported to 15 different beach zones where CTC organizers coordinated 15 different groups during the cleanup operation between 6 and 9am.

After the cleanup operation the volunteers were dropped back to their respective assembly points.
There were volunteers from all walks of life -- students, NSS volunteers, professionals and our very own fishermen – assisting CTC in this massive event. 55 NSS volunteers from Anna University, 150 employees from Nokia, 45 software professionals from HP, 72 NSS volunteers from Coromandel, 14 students from the Anna Violet College and a few members of the Tree Bank joined hands with about 200 CTC volunteers, collecting 800 garbage bags in two hours. Event sponsors BioTec Bags and Madras Cements Ltd provided with bio-degradable garbage bags and gloves respectively.

More than 8 months ago, on May 16th 2010 CTC conducted the first-of-the-kind Chennai coastal clean-up campaign covering the same 15km stretch from Marina till Injambakkam. In spite of the tremendous environmental awareness it created with general public, a reconnaissance mission by the members of the CTC in December found the Chennai coasts badly in want of another massive clean-up effort. So when the idea was put forth to the members of CTC for a second campaign, the volunteer count quickly touched 300 in just two weeks. Buoyed by this response, the organizing committee -- already armed with experience – went into overdrive to plan and execute this campaign in little less than a month’s time. Considering the scale of the entire operation including people management, logistics, official clearances, this campaign is no mean feat – even for the 10000-member strong Chennai Trekking Club.

When asked about the need for such an initiative, Hari Balasubramaniam, CTC member and one of the official photographers of the event, opined, “most of us live in an oblivion world that simply does not care about Mother Nature and more importantly, one of the most important ecosystems offering livelihood to a few million people in the city of Chennai…so the need for another herculean effort, to get the conservative Chennaite awake on a sober Sunday morning to clean the backyard of one of the most beautiful ecosystems in the world.”

In addition to the large-scale coastal clean-up campaigns, CTC also conducts clean-up campaigns targeting specific beach stretches with 30-50 volunteers every few weeks. The Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) is one of the largest and most active trekking clubs in South India (10.000 members). It's a non-profit group run by volunteers who organize treks across India during nearly all weekends of the year. CTC also engages in social treks taking out underprivileged children on 1 day treks. More information can be found at www.chennaitrekkers.org.

CTC’s SAVE TADA campaign on 8th August

Photo Courtesy: ChennaiTrekkers.org

Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) is organizing a massive clean-up activity “Save Tada - 2” at Tada waterfalls on August 8th 2010. Tada is at a 2 hour drive to the north from Chennai city and is a favorite spot for families and trekkers. However, rampant pollution due to plastics and alcohol bottles has severely dented the beauty of this once pristine jungle. Also, Tada bas become an abode for anti-social elements. Visitors have been perpetually harassed by drunkards, who find Tada to be a safe haven for alcohol consumption and gang robbery.

CTC is planning to clean-up the entire Tada stream, including an 800m intensely polluted stretch. CTC is also collaborating with Forest Department officials to find a permanent solution to the problems created by pollution and anti-social elements. As of now, more than 250 individuals have registered to volunteer for this massive clean-up activity. CTC will provide garbage busting gloves and bags for volunteers to enable safe collection and disposal of wastes.

Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) is a 7000+ member non-profit group of trekking enthusiasts. The club is run by several passionate volunteers who organize various outdoor activities such as treks, biking, cycling, and environmental awareness campaigns. It has completed more than 230 treks, both within and outside South India.

Save Tada campaign is one among the series of environmental awareness initiatives undertaken by CTC. The first Save Tada campaign was on November 1st 2009. More than 230 CTC volunteers spent the entire Sunday collecting more than 2 tons of garbage. CTC also ran an online petition to curb the pollution and unsocial activities happening at Tada and collected more than 1200 signatures which were presented to the forest officials. CTC has also organized a massive beach clean-up activity on May 16th 2010 covering a 15 km stretch from Marina to Injambakkam. More than 900 volunteers collected approximately 5 tons of garbage in a span of four hours. Small scale beach-clean up activity has also been happening every weekend at a predetermined beach involving both CTC volunteers and public.

If you interested in registering for this event, please visit CTC’s website at http://www.chennaitrekkers.org to find additional details about this campaign.

Get...set...Green.

"To clean or not to clean. That is the question." ... asked by Chennai Trekking Club. And 880+ Chennaiites, Indians and citizens of the world answered..."Let's clean!!!"
Chennai coastal cleanup was an initiative by Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) to clean up a 15 Km Chennai coast from Marina till Injambakkam on May 16th 2010. The entire initiative was organized by CTC, a non-profit amateur trekking club, with meticulous planning that spawned over an entire month with help from its volunteer members.

The entire stretch was divided into three zones viz North, Mid and South fronts with 5 teams in each zones. Each team had a catchy name too such as Sand Storm, Chennai Ridley, Beach Warriors (my team!!) and for a French touch, Les Balayeuses. All of the volunteers were asked to assemble at one of the predetermined 11 pick-up points across Chennai around 5-5:15 A.M in the morning. From there on, each went to their respective locations. Each team had two leads who gave specific instructions and tips as to how to proceed with the clean up. My team Beach Warriors was allotted Palavakkam beach area. All of us were provided with a pair of gloves, and colored garbage bags to segregate degradable and non-degradable wastes.

And with just a glance at the beach, we found that it was plastic, plastic and plastic everywhere. Paper cups, water bottles, liquor bottles, gutka and chips packs, and plastic covers accounted for over 75% of the waste we collected, and this is just at Palavakkam. I am pretty sure that this would have been the pattern throughout out entire stretch. Around 6:00 A.m., We all started off with gusto to pick up as much garbage as possible before the unforgiving May Sun started to melt us. The reward of our arduous work was right there before our eyes; the pristine beach. Really can't help to think that with periodical cleaning and maintenance, how beautiful would our coastline be!

The volunteers distribution were across age-groups, professions, and in fact, countries. Around 8:00, we had almost cleaned up our area, and rested for a little snack. At the same time, the garbage truck came to load the garbage, an illustration of the clock-work precision organizing by CTC. One point should be made here. While collecting garbage, we carefully chose to put degradable and non-degradable wastes in separate bags. However, everything was dumped together into the truck causing dismay among the volunteers. On a small talk with the corporations folks, I found that all the garbage was to be taken to Perungundi dumping area and were to be burnt irrespective of the type of wastes. A very livid picture portraying how much there is to do in our city, in fact in our country, for a proper waste management.

With a prior Sunday appointment nearing, I bid adieu to my fellow volunteers and proceeded towards Elliots Beach (Besant Nagar), the final rendezvous point for all teams. Breakfast was being served on the beach for all volunteers, and I helped myself to couple of idlies and vada. I had a chance to catch up with Peter, the man at the helm of CTC. He said, "When we started this initiative and sent out an invitation mail, we got over 20 volunteers in the first day. Then it became 80, 100, with eventually garnering over 600+ volunteers. We also had participation from corporates such as TCS, Nokia, Logica, Vodafone etc and student bodies such as Scouts and IIM-B, snowballing the overall count to over a thousand." After everyone who wanted to assemble had assembled, CTC gave a vote of thanks to all the CTC members, corporates, Police, corporation and the people of Chennai for making this massive initiative a resounding success.

I personally felt very happy that I was able to do something tangible to make my beloved beach to look amazing, albeit for just one day. A very sincere thanks to CTC. Metaphorically speaking, this initiative is a proof that how all of us can come together to weed out the crap spoiling our system. And, all it requires for you to say is "I care", and mean it. We did, and we made a difference.