That title wasn’t a spell mistake. Intended. It’s a day when people usually are out on the sea bathing, eating pannju mittai, going gala rounds on the raatinams, teens driving supersonic bikes with their girlfriends in the pillions and hiding faces with dupatta on the east coast road, people throwing ‘rastali’ bananas at the orangutangs in Vandalur and what not. Many of them were missing in action, today.

Was driving by the Marina shore today and to my surprise saw there were hardly anyone for the pongal celebrations on the beach. There wasn’t even the a crowd that comes down on a weekend. And as I took a ‘U’ turn on the war memorial and came back through the Napier bridge, just can’t beat the thought of Aayitha Ezhuthu climax scenes. Stopped the bike on a corner of the bridge, looked back at it and took off again. Drove along the Kamarajar salai to reach Santhome and then the Elliots beach. Hardly any crowd there at 5 pm. Gosh, couldn’t believe my sight. Went near the shore after parking the bike. Desperately wanted to touch the water but it was restricted today. The bajji stalls are now moved far from the shores and it looked that they were the ones seriously hit by Tsunami attack.

There was even very low turn-out on the Chennai Book Fair. Was roaming around from 12:00 to 3:00 in the noon and it wasn’t too crowded as the other day. Only on such a day you can leisurely browse books and also get a good glimpse of the fair. Leaving my outfits, I gave off everything else in the book fair for buying books. Now, I have to find a place in my house to arrange them.

Some book thats I bought today – 6 out-of-print books of Sujatha from Thirumagal Nilayam(mostly compilations of columns that he wrote for Kanayaazhi), Gnani’s Kandathai Sollugiren (columns that he wrote for India Today) and Sundara Ramaswamy’s Oru Puliyamarathin Kathai. Need to buy – S.Ramakrishan’s Ulaga Cinema(World Cinema) and Upa Pandavam, Ashokamithran Katuraigal, Aathmanaam Poetry, Jeyamohan’s shortstory collection and thousands of such nice ones. The bookfair will wind-up by tomorrow.