CHENNAI 4/20- THE TWIN ATTACK

April 20th will go down in the history of Chennai as "Black Day".Chennai was bleeding from head to toe with a few ruptured ribs and non functional bones, thanks to the unprecedented riots,arson, vandalism, mob fury,burning of buses etc. The arson started just a couple of minutes after midnight.More than a 100 are seriously injured and public property to the tune of crores has been damaged. IT companies and BPOs were forced to shutdown,because they operate only in night shifts.Pubs anyway close by 11pm, so no damage was reported.The total loss due to stoppage of operations is said to be atleast 500 crores, but the actual figures could be much higher.

In a double blow that will put Hiroshima-Nagasaki twin attacks to shame, Chennaites got the shock of their lives when The Hindu and Hotel Saravana Bhavan(HSB) simultaneously tweaked their policy by 1%. Call it coincidence or conspiracy, but the shocking fact is that 2 such incidents have had to happen together.The Hindu has decided to post atleast 1 interesting article daily and HSB has decided to reduce all rates by 50p and increase all quantities by 1gm, with effect from 4th April midnight. Upon announcing this,crowds immeditaley thronged the various branches of HSB to get the last few morsels of overpriced food.Huge and serpentine queues were seen outside the main branch at Vadapalani and the police was called to control the crowds. The otthers meanwhile resorted to random attacks.

The Communist Party which was silent over the past few months mourning the death of their tall leader(actually short) Jyoti Basu, has decided to rise to the occasion and get back to doing what they are best at-Resist any change in the prices of any commodities without giving it a thought.They are planning to sneak in a few of their comrades from across the Kerala border in Coimbatore as well. They are planning to take the support of Liberation Cheetahs as well.

Meanwhile,the other hotels are watching the developments closely. The Sangeetha group, which matches HSB to the T, atleast in pricing if not the quality, has decided not to touch any of their rates.Particularly the Adyar and Citi Center branches have been given strict instructions not to compromise on the cost. For the information these are the costliest branches.Hot Chips,Murugan etc have also decided to stay put with the existing rates. Vasantha Bhavan is contemplating a hike in the prices, thereby putting to practice the make hay while sun shines theory.

It is rumored that both The Hindu and HSB,in the wake of stiff competition from TOI and Hot Chips respectively,decided to rope in McKinsey India to give their sagging sales a boost. An IIT Madras guy, Karthik Vaidyanathan, is said to have come up with the brilliant proposals after spending 5 months putting in long hours at work, roaming around Chennai in a suit, doing a thorough study of the existing policy and that of the competitors' and making secret trips to his house in T Nagar in the garb of work.Karthik has escaped to Mumbai but his relatives here are a worried lot.They have sought police protection.The dept has posted an officer at each of their houses and plans to escort his father to work too.Any case,the dept is adept at spending crores to protect a criminal like Kasab. Spending a few thousands for an upright Indian Overseas Bank manager will not do any harm.

Our reporters interacted with a cross section of the vandals to gauge the public pulse.An overpaid IT employee who was burning The Hindu furiously says - "This is ridiculous. After a hectic day's work,I use The Hindu to sleep. If it is made interesting, I am deprived of that small pleasure also.This is just inhuman." Another IT employee seen damaging HSB rues "I am used to spending Rs 30 for a cup of Pongal which is not more than a Tirupati ladoo. If he reduces the cost,how can we manage our expenses and financials? I have to spend hours to recalculate the family budget.This is just not cricket". A gang of mamas and mamis sporting naamams were seen conducting a funeral ceremony at Mylapore Tank with a garland on the picture of HSB Mylapore branch .A disturbed mama says, "This is nonsense. I mourn the death of HSB. It is no lonnger alive for us.I always used to love the 18rs coffee before a kucheri at narada gana sabha. Now with lesser rates less even other castes will come and spoil the sanctity of this place which is within 100 metres of a temple. The TAMBRAS has unanimously decided to quit going to HSB.We also plan to put up an obituary ad in The Hindu. HOTEL SARAVANA BHAVAN,born 1985, attained Acharyan Thiruvadi last night. "Another member of the mob, who belonged to the Health Club says ,"HSB did a great job of checking people's obesity with their minimal quantity. Now with the increased food, I fear all Chennaites will have a pot belly and it will be difficult to identify a policeman".

The HSB management is just flabbergasted."We totally don't understand, we are always famous for overpriced meals - you need to donate blood and sell kidneys to pay us .We also serve insanely low quantity that will get digested by the time you reach ground floor from our 2nd floor.The situation demands that prices be reduced, given the intense competition. Even after reducing ,we are still in tune with our astronomical pricing-minimal quantity policy. The riots are totally ridiculous"

Seeing the trail of destruction, Karunanidhi decided to go on a fast, after breakfast, upto lunch at Anna Arivalayam. He has called on a team of doctors too to monitor.He has a Plan B also ready, unlike his AP counterpart YSR who kicked the bucket plunging the state into chaos due to issues in identifying the new leader. Stalin will clearly be the CM and Azhagiri can continue screwing hapless women in Madurai.Btw CM has given strict instructions to come up with something concrete by lunch time so that he can break his fast. He is afraid that starving beyond 4 hrs at the age of 85 can put him on a permanent fast. Meanwhile DMK cadres have lined up from Guindy to the airport to form a human chain, braving the scorching Chennai heat.Another worker threatened to self immolate.It was only threaten- he just poured kerosene over himself.Little did he know that he had indeed immolated himself - the Chennai heat burnt him to death . Further development shows that Karuna has decided to negotiate with N.Ram to go back to square one and publish only stuff like poor runways in Indian airports, birds in and around Pulicat Lake, discovery of 11th Century frescoes in Peru etc.N Ram has agreed to talk to Karuna mainly because they both are atheists and have a mutual respect for each other. But HSB owner on the other hand, with a strongly theist and heist background, wants to poke Karuna with a Vel from the HSB logo. He is anyway adept at murdering, so taking a risk like this is like eating rusk for him.Karuna of course is suppressing a smile and delighted at the back of his heart for causing pain to Tam Brams.

Autowallas meanwhile are having a hearty laugh. "No one will protest if we reduce the rates.As it is we quote 60 bucks to go to IIT from Madhya Kailash.Make it 50-40 hell even 30 and we still will be overpriced. I only see protests if we start using meters because that would mean more than 50% reduction in prices. Anycase if the protests start, we can pacify the agitating public by promising them rigged meters so that they end up paying 10% less than what they pay now.Like our superstar, we also proudly say"Naan autokkaran,nyayam ulla rate kaaran".

The other persons who are having a hearty laugh , of course apart from autowallas, are Mani Ratnam and RGV. Mani has decided the topic of his next movie and also has plans to bring back an overfed Manisha Koirala. RGV meanwhile, has tentatively titled "Chennai ki Aag" with Big B, Abhi and Ash. Up a 700kms North, Rosaiah is absolutely delighted with the riots in Chennai and wants to poke Karuna in Face book and say "Take That. You laughed when Hyd burnt. Now we will laugh.Muahahaha. Take KCR for help if you want". Now IT companies want to shift back to Hyd. Finally an old grumpy thatha was seen shaking his head in dismay,clutching a worn out copy of The Hindu in tatters. He said "I will post an obituary of The Hindu in The Hindu"