TheEnchantedPileOfThatLonelyBird

The Chennai Chapter

Its been for a long time that I have wanted to write about Chennai.
My work place for over a year. My destiny. The myth , the reality that is. The prejudice the folklore. The happenings , the traditions. The journey so far.

Iam not a good story teller. And yet I so long to tell this story. To write about the place I hate to not love and love to not hate.

To begin with, they say a place grows on you with time. Which is true. A handful of people to share your days with. A couple of places that you can reach out to. A few things that you know you could go about doing when theres little else to while on. All this and there you are. Grown with the place!!!

It started with a hotel called Abu Palace, my first lodgings in the city of dark interiors, idlis for breakfast and maxicabs, the mini dilapidated buses shaded green and a bumpy ride assured.

The hotel is located in down town across a road so narrow it would pass as a bylane. But thats how all roads are in this city. Have you heard of single lane flyovers. They are aplenty here. Useless but curving over shopping malls and huge banners. That makes for the next big attraction, hoardings. You see them all around you. Huge, of silk sarees and gold jewellery, of the latest tam flicks and the rest, they canopy the main roads everywhere.

The hotels in chennai are small. They aint very jazzy. The junta is simple. Unlike the snob appeal of a dine out in a five star at say Delhi. You can just not get it in, at Chennai.

I shifted from this place onto my next dwellings at Suraj Towers, a couplet in the whole form the Suraj and Chand towers. Apartments , minutes away from the sea. Located in very congested exteriors. Two local theatres flank the road adjacent, on its left and on the right. But once in, the serenity takes control. The place is very convenient. It has a japanese restaurant downstairs and the top floor is inhabited by its oriental staff. Amidst live families that wake up in the wee hours of the morns and sleep just before midnight or even prior. Mornings smell of incense and dosas. Old men of the society gather every evening and sit in rows basking in the evening sea breeze. Theres a basket ball court and a sand court for volleyball which the children and youngsters alike get to make the most of.

This is the basic most I could get to take off on my share of Chennai. It is just a signature. Not even a preface. I shall update hence forth on this land of the bay of bengal and its gray waters, my favorite east coast road, temples, foreigners, joints, dance, music, theatre, shopping, and ofcourse rasam and sambar. : )

posted by sunayana : ) @ 9:50 PM