Cheers to Chennai

Cheers to Chennai

Just back from an "eventful" trip to chennai - "eventful" because these trips though invariably short are always fraught with some adventure or other.
I started my trip in a non-existent coach in a non-existent train leaving from an apparently non-existent platform( almost like the 9 3/4th!) My Iticket said that I had a berth in coach AS1 of chennai express leaving bangalore at 11:45. As I entered the station and looked at the electronic notice board I made my first unpleasant discovery of the night: there was no Chennai express that night- but there was a Cauvery express leaving at 11:45 to chennai! Investigations confirmed that this was the same train ( cauvery/chennai same difference??!) and I set about looking for platform no.5 -I am very strong in numbers upto 9 so I did not anticipate any trouble- but was a little taken aback to find platform no 6 after platform no.4 although the signboard seemed to say that 5 and 6 were in the same place. So anticipating some enginnering marvel, I descended to 6 and then realised that I had to reverse to platform no. 5 which did not have its own stairs to the overbridge. Having made 2 discoveries in one night, I thought the rest was easy - I just had to hop into coach AS1 and spread the mattress on seat no 49 and go to sleep. But after walking the entire length of the train I realised that this train had left Mysore without coach No AS1! Thankfully they added it in bangalore after making us all wait for about 30 minutes and finally around 12;30 I started my journey to chennai.

Every time there is a trip to chennai I plan my itenary days in advance and list out all the things I need to do there,the places and the people to visit. I am so excited about it all that I talk about the proposed trip to everyone I know. And finally I land in chennai and 30 mins on the road I start sweating and I want to take the next plane back to Bangalore. And I never do anything I plan to do, merely sit under one fan or other and come back. But this time the weather was lovely and I could do most of the things I wanted to do and in my happy state of mind I finally understood the reasons why I love this place so much.

People: people here are very friendly if you speak to them in Tamil and they engage total strangers in an animated conversation effortlessly. For example, within a short trip between the US consulate and Sterling Road the auto driver told me how tough his job was, how auto drivers are a maligned lot in Chennai, how the police are more corrupt and yet how he was sticking to this profession because it suited his temperament as he was over-sensitive and didnt like to be bossed over by someone else! He also told me that morality was on the decline with too much money in the hands of the younger generation.He said all this in such delightful Tamil, in a cheerful tone with no bitterness, added a few jokes and plenty of philosophical statements in-between -I guess I was happy to give him the 50 rupees for the conversation rather than the auto ride.
As I got off the auto there was this man who was releasing a rat from a rat trap on to the road. As I watched the rodent race past me, the man smiled and told me that he didn't like to kill them. I said that it may find its way back to his house and he said he had the trap to catch it again! Then he also told me that he had found the rat in the coffee flask when he returned from two days leave. We both laughed at the implied joke about a caffeine addicted rat! And all this with a guy who I don't know from Adam and won't recognise if I saw him again !!
These people have a way of touching you even when they have nothing to do with you - they are never shadows and silhouettes - even if you meet them for a fleeting moment in your life!

Sense of humour:I dont know if it is true of all chennaiites or just the people I meet - they all have a great sense of humour and a sense of timing for cracking jokes. They laugh about the most serious things.They love comedy in films and theatre, they enjoy it and they use it in their day to day lives.

Songs:I love all the music I hear everywhere in chennai - be it religious songs or carnatic music or film songs and their lyrics.

The fusion:And finally I love the way the old and the new co-exist so comfortably and blend beautifully. There is an early morning life with people flocking to the temples for margazhi pooja, and elaborate kolams decorating the roads and there is a night life in the multitude of restaurants that have cropped up all over the city. You see your neighbour's daughter zipping off on a two wheeler to her college clad in trousers and shirt and a day later you find her in the temple in a traditional pavadai daavani singing the notes of a carnatic song to perfection. And they look lovely in both and fit in perfectly in both places!

This place never ceases to amaze me!
I am happy to be back at home in Bangalore but I have already started looking forward to my next trip to fascinating chennai