Monday, April 27, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Recession, Chennai too affected?
As recession hit US, IT industries and Export industries in India were the first to get affected. May be in other words, they were the ones that were directly affected. Then it moved on as a chain & started affecting related businesses.
For eg. if we take the travel industry, around 50% of their vehicles were sent back by the IT MNCs in the name of cost cutting. In addition to that, people in the working category responded by postponing or avoiding tours & travel ideas. Also there were reduced number of foreign visitors visiting India. This way the entire travel industry had a pitfall.
A similar wave is affecting the other industries too....
Monday, September 29, 2008
One day in the life of...Spencer Plaza
I’m Spencer, and here’s my story I’m Spencer Plaza, and I’ve been in the heart of this chennai city for the last 15 years.
To start from the beginning, I am the chennai’s first department store, Spencer and Co., way back in 1895. In 1984, a fire broke out and they had to pull me down.
I was put together in three phases, with the latest one designed to remind you of what I used to look like in the good old days. An array of pillars with arches around the corridors.
And now, over 22,000 people visit me everyday. We have three counters to keep track of footfalls. I work round-the-clock, in three shifts. But the part you get to see more of is when the shutters of Phase Two go up in the morning, thanks to Landmark and its nationwide policy to open its doors at 8.45 a.m.
That early in the morning, the parking lots are empty and the shutters to Phase One remain closed for another hour. By then, one by one, over 700 shops wake up to start a really long day.Keeping track
As Wensley D’Rozario of Landmark would tell you, that during its 12-hour shift, the store sees 4,500 people on a weekday. Double that on a weekend. In April, the store had nearly two lakh footfalls. With that sort of human traffic, surveillance cameras have become the order of the day. And there are bar code detectors installed at the exits to tackle shoplifters.
I must tell you here that you are always watched. If not by cameras, by security personnel in mufti. Major Ganapathy, Chief of Security, drops in around ten in the morning to begin his rounds. “Unlike companies where you are allowed to check people before you let them in, here we have to welcome people pleasantly and then make sure nothing untoward happens,” he says.
If you are new to the city, the first thing you will notice on entry, apart from the blast of the air conditioning, is the May I Help You desk at the heart of the Atriums. We get all sorts of queries, problems and complaints.
Ask Major Ganapathy, he’ll tell you: “Heart attack, people falling from the stairs, college gang wars, small fires, pocket-pickers, shop-lifters.” Just a while ago, a small fire broke out because of an electrical fault, but we managed to douse it in no time.Preventing fires
That’s because the in-house fire department has six firemen per shift (most of them being retired fire control personnel), a water capacity of 12 lakh litres, fire sprinklers, smoke and heat detection systems and fire extinguishers all around.
With your safety taken care of, a trip here has to be among the most stress-free shopping experiences in the city. We make sure people don’t smoke. Especially, with the air-conditioning. We have world-class escalators. I’m sure most of you first got on to an escalator at my place.
Owned by Mangal Tirth Estate Limited, I occupy 10.68 lakh square feet of prime real estate in the city, with six lakh square feet just dedicated to shopping. The shopping arcade is limited to three floors (including the ground floor) and the rest of the plaza, between the fourth and the seventh floor is home to MNCs and BPOs that work during unearthly hours. We have a separate business lobby for them.
Back at the shopping mall, people usually start pouring in around lunchtime. Chances of you finding a table at our food court in Phase Three, on a weekend, are remote, in spite of the range of restaurants lined up because the numbers are big. 40,000 people on a weekend. And when there’s a festival around the corner, there about 60,000 people under one roof, jostling for space.Window shoppers
During summer, most of these people just come to window shop and beat the heat. Like Major often says: “As long as they don’t cause any problem to us, we let them enjoy themselves.”
With this sort of floating population, largely comprising college students during the afternoons, girls do have a problem with the three-is-to-one man-woman ratio. Men are omnipresent.
Like this 20-something student once complained: “If you are a girl, you are sure to get plenty of unwelcome advances from men who are almost always ugly.” If you face such a problem, you should not hesitate to talk to our security department. We usually deal with them by ourselves. And if things go out of hand, we hand them to the police.
Our parking department is well organised. Over 20,000 two-wheelers check in to the lot on weekends and our basement car parking facility alone can accommodate 600 cars. Before we close for the day, we have to make sure every single vehicle is taken back by the owner. We don’t let bikes or cars stay overnight.Foodies’ delight
I can safely bet that you will not find a greater range of cuisine and junk food anywhere else in the city, all under a roof. Take a walk around the corridors and you are sure to get captivated by the aroma of American corn, the whiff of freshly baked cookies at Cookie Man, or the irresistible flavours of chaats, sights of assorted softies, temptations of the ice-cold thirst-quenchers and sounds of sizzlers at the food court.
That’s probably why mall rats prefer to spend all day here. And so do tourists. Ask the hyper-busy Thomas Cook money-changers and they’ll tell you we’re at the top of every tourist’s ‘Places to see’ list.
Many of these guys don’t check in to hotels, they spend their transit time shopping for curios and artefacts, biting into different slices of life in India all in one time zone and space.
At around 10.15 p.m, it’s time to say Goodnight to all.
But me, I never get to sleep.
To start from the beginning, I am the chennai’s first department store, Spencer and Co., way back in 1895. In 1984, a fire broke out and they had to pull me down.
I was put together in three phases, with the latest one designed to remind you of what I used to look like in the good old days. An array of pillars with arches around the corridors.
And now, over 22,000 people visit me everyday. We have three counters to keep track of footfalls. I work round-the-clock, in three shifts. But the part you get to see more of is when the shutters of Phase Two go up in the morning, thanks to Landmark and its nationwide policy to open its doors at 8.45 a.m.
That early in the morning, the parking lots are empty and the shutters to Phase One remain closed for another hour. By then, one by one, over 700 shops wake up to start a really long day.Keeping track
As Wensley D’Rozario of Landmark would tell you, that during its 12-hour shift, the store sees 4,500 people on a weekday. Double that on a weekend. In April, the store had nearly two lakh footfalls. With that sort of human traffic, surveillance cameras have become the order of the day. And there are bar code detectors installed at the exits to tackle shoplifters.
I must tell you here that you are always watched. If not by cameras, by security personnel in mufti. Major Ganapathy, Chief of Security, drops in around ten in the morning to begin his rounds. “Unlike companies where you are allowed to check people before you let them in, here we have to welcome people pleasantly and then make sure nothing untoward happens,” he says.
If you are new to the city, the first thing you will notice on entry, apart from the blast of the air conditioning, is the May I Help You desk at the heart of the Atriums. We get all sorts of queries, problems and complaints.
Ask Major Ganapathy, he’ll tell you: “Heart attack, people falling from the stairs, college gang wars, small fires, pocket-pickers, shop-lifters.” Just a while ago, a small fire broke out because of an electrical fault, but we managed to douse it in no time.Preventing fires
That’s because the in-house fire department has six firemen per shift (most of them being retired fire control personnel), a water capacity of 12 lakh litres, fire sprinklers, smoke and heat detection systems and fire extinguishers all around.
With your safety taken care of, a trip here has to be among the most stress-free shopping experiences in the city. We make sure people don’t smoke. Especially, with the air-conditioning. We have world-class escalators. I’m sure most of you first got on to an escalator at my place.
Owned by Mangal Tirth Estate Limited, I occupy 10.68 lakh square feet of prime real estate in the city, with six lakh square feet just dedicated to shopping. The shopping arcade is limited to three floors (including the ground floor) and the rest of the plaza, between the fourth and the seventh floor is home to MNCs and BPOs that work during unearthly hours. We have a separate business lobby for them.
Back at the shopping mall, people usually start pouring in around lunchtime. Chances of you finding a table at our food court in Phase Three, on a weekend, are remote, in spite of the range of restaurants lined up because the numbers are big. 40,000 people on a weekend. And when there’s a festival around the corner, there about 60,000 people under one roof, jostling for space.Window shoppers
During summer, most of these people just come to window shop and beat the heat. Like Major often says: “As long as they don’t cause any problem to us, we let them enjoy themselves.”
With this sort of floating population, largely comprising college students during the afternoons, girls do have a problem with the three-is-to-one man-woman ratio. Men are omnipresent.
Like this 20-something student once complained: “If you are a girl, you are sure to get plenty of unwelcome advances from men who are almost always ugly.” If you face such a problem, you should not hesitate to talk to our security department. We usually deal with them by ourselves. And if things go out of hand, we hand them to the police.
Our parking department is well organised. Over 20,000 two-wheelers check in to the lot on weekends and our basement car parking facility alone can accommodate 600 cars. Before we close for the day, we have to make sure every single vehicle is taken back by the owner. We don’t let bikes or cars stay overnight.Foodies’ delight
I can safely bet that you will not find a greater range of cuisine and junk food anywhere else in the city, all under a roof. Take a walk around the corridors and you are sure to get captivated by the aroma of American corn, the whiff of freshly baked cookies at Cookie Man, or the irresistible flavours of chaats, sights of assorted softies, temptations of the ice-cold thirst-quenchers and sounds of sizzlers at the food court.
That’s probably why mall rats prefer to spend all day here. And so do tourists. Ask the hyper-busy Thomas Cook money-changers and they’ll tell you we’re at the top of every tourist’s ‘Places to see’ list.
Many of these guys don’t check in to hotels, they spend their transit time shopping for curios and artefacts, biting into different slices of life in India all in one time zone and space.
At around 10.15 p.m, it’s time to say Goodnight to all.
But me, I never get to sleep.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Renting a house in Chennai
Below is a hard feeling of a chennaite!
Looking for a house in Chennai?
This is one of the hard things to do for the quality of the houses are the worst of its kind. No matter which area but the worst maintenance is seen in every house in spite of the owners collecting maintenance charges apart from the rent every month.
I saw a house that has 2 bed rooms, a small hall, a mini kitchen and 2 toilets, the floor is as same as that of the T-Nagar bus stand and the toilets too, the wall will look better with the Cinema posters for they are all have damaged paint and so on... How much do you expect this house for rent?
He says Rs 8500 + 400 maintenance charges + Rs 1,00,000 advance money.
It is my terrible condition to rent a house in such a city, it is getting hard time here in Chennai to live. Of course if you have lots of money and you own a house it is better but like a middle-class family I can only get tears from my eyes on thinking where to look for a home for my family.
Only GOD can help me.
Looking for a house in Chennai?
This is one of the hard things to do for the quality of the houses are the worst of its kind. No matter which area but the worst maintenance is seen in every house in spite of the owners collecting maintenance charges apart from the rent every month.
I saw a house that has 2 bed rooms, a small hall, a mini kitchen and 2 toilets, the floor is as same as that of the T-Nagar bus stand and the toilets too, the wall will look better with the Cinema posters for they are all have damaged paint and so on... How much do you expect this house for rent?
He says Rs 8500 + 400 maintenance charges + Rs 1,00,000 advance money.
It is my terrible condition to rent a house in such a city, it is getting hard time here in Chennai to live. Of course if you have lots of money and you own a house it is better but like a middle-class family I can only get tears from my eyes on thinking where to look for a home for my family.
Only GOD can help me.
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