The great divide.

Disclaimer: I am grossly generalising here and I know that each of you can think of thousands of examples countering what I am about to say! Also, thanks to The Girl for the idea.

Chennai, culturally, can be divided into two - the two sides of Mount road. The Tenampet/Poes Garden/Besant Nagar etc.. side(lets call them side A), which are more westernized than the Nungambakkam/Egmore/T Nagar/Kilpauk side(lets call them side B).

A person from side A would probably take life more casually and adopt a "life life one day at a time" attitude. They would be more open to casual relationships, pre-marital sex and the works. They are way more likely to take an arts/humanties course in college and adopt a variety of hobbies which potray that. They are more westenised in their way of dressing and thinking.

A person from side B on the other hand are way serious about their life and career choices. They stick to traditional choices such as engineering or science. They prefer long term relationships and dress more conservately (except for the oh-so-occasional night of clubbing). They derive more fun out of hanging out with small groups of friends or being along rather than wild large parties.

Which isn't weird at all when you thing about it. I know it's still just one city but the people of side A probably schooled together, just like side B did. And if you see the friends you grew up with doing something, you think it's okay for you to do it too and it becomes who you are, if you get my drift.

Anyway, it was just a thought and Ess said I should post it, so I am. He also pointed out that people in Kilpauk quite make up for the presence of a certain hospital by being super-serious and thinking many-a-time before they make any decisions - whether it be which college they attend or how much money they spend this weekend. I thought about it and realised that, weirdly, it isn't about schools anymore, because all my friends in school who weren't flighty weren't from Kilpauk!

Weirdness.

But, remember, both side A and side B worship thalaivar.

P.S: For those who do not know me or are not from the city and are curious about this fact, I'm from side B.

Enga area.. ulla varadhae!

Before I begin,
Happy birthday, Madras!

A long promised post. I must say that the repeated requests for it flattered me no end and I wanted to do justice to it! Hence I took a long time and decided to post it on August 22nd - for what better day??

I’m not gonna give you people a list of reasons we love this place. Enough blogs have them. Or open the supplements today. All of them will carry popular opinions which will, I’m sure include filter kaapi, podimas, beach road, mount road, ranganathan street, spencers(for Gawd knows what reason), Anna nagar tower, etc.. I, however, am gonna merely state and refute or reinstate popular opinions, giving credit where it is due.

So what is so great about this place, you ask? After all, it has been voted as being the hottest, most conservative, boring, and most under-developed among the metros! A desert - in short. Chennai autos are infamous throughout the country and the city is definitely not known for its night-life, hot chicks or guys! There are exactly two big malls and Chennai people do not know how to dress and those who do, find it too expensive to maintain it! The city dwellers refuse to learn hindi, thus making it difficult for the rest of the country to come down for a visit and what's there by way of sight-seeing anyway? The city has a rainy season of two-weeks and is eternally on the verge of a water-shortage. The politicians are again infamous throughout the country (who doesn't know Jayalalitha? - who studied in Church Park, btw..)and the people are uninteresting and stupid. Most importantly, according to my friend, "It didn't even have a McD till 3 months ago, and Madrasi food sucks!" and the beach is of course, as dirty as it gets!

Okay, now that I've written all the points which people keep throwing at me, let me start by refuting them one by one.

First of all, this place is not a desert. As my sister put it 'The only thing you don't get in T.Nagar is an aeroplane'.

Yes it is hot, I'm sorry about that - but has anyone ever noticed that it is hot for precisely 3 months a year? The rest of the year, I am cursing the hostel administrators every morning for not having a geyser!

And yup, most people are conservative, but that is just about the way they live their lives and the way their children live theirs! They let everyone else be. Chennites are among those who do not pass judgement easily, believe it or not. We're more open minded than B'loreans or Delhites in the sense that, in either of those places, you need to be 'cool' and 'hep'. You can't be who you are the way you want to be. You need to fake it and pretend just to fit in - something neither I, nor anyone I know had to do in Chennai. It's a city of extremes and weirdly, the extremes get along very well. Here, it is common to find a pardha cladding muslim be best friends with one who sports the minis and halters.

The autos are irritating, but be a sport about it, won't you? Walk! Nothing feels as good as a long walk. Just trust me on this one. And if you hate your feet, take the public transport. Apparently, Chennai is one of the few cities which is very wll connected by public transport! (If anyone has a contention here, they can contact Mr. Ipe Job, who, by the way, spent his entire childhood elsewhere).

And as for the nightlife, we do have our fair share of clubs and discos and pubs. What we also have is more than our fair share of Sabhas and Concert halls and Theatre/Rock fests! *Allow me a huge grin here, will you?*

Two big malls and one McD – forgive me, but I’m kinda proud we haven’t yet succumbed to the US based MNCs who drive our men out of business!

The hindi bit, again something I’m proud of, but that has a whole post dedicated to it. Besides, did you know that you didn’t need to know Tamil at all to survive here? Ask my friend Anisha – she was born in Chennai, lived here all her life, her mother-tongue is tamil, she studied tamil in school till the 8th and she still can’t frame a proper sentence in it! Why? Because she doesn’t need to!
In fact, apart from her, I have exactly, *counts* 5 tamilian friends. No, 6, but the 6th is the same as Anisha - can’t speak tam for nuts! I’m talking about people born and brought up in Chennai, of course. It is expected I should know many more… but weirdly I don’t! *grins* Cosmopolitan, eh?

The city, though has always been on the verge of water-shortage, never actually was! 5 successive years of failed monsoon and I didn’t have to miss a single bath. Compare this with the west, where one failed monsoon and they’re already worried to death!

I dunno what they mean when they say ‘Madarasi food’, but I’ll say one thing – we make the best god dammed sandwiches EVER! (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please please go to Alsa mall the next time you’re free!
Oh, and one thing non-south Indians should know – idly doesn’t taste the least bit like how you get it in restaurants – I dunno why, but home idlys feel and taste very different!

Hot chicks, dreamy guys – well, you got me there. Er.. * scratches head*. All I can say is Madhavan, Siddharth, Shriya, anyone?? *sheepish grin*

Oh, the sight-seeing bit *chuckles* (bet no one else got the joke anyway!), well.. apart from the beaches (check ‘em all out!), I have on my platter Dakshin Chitra, 3 amusement parks, Mahabs, Crocodile bank (it’s really cool, trust you me!), Vandalur zoo (It’s almost as good as the Singapore one. Almost), etc.. (Remind me to put up a long list at some point of time in life.

As for the uninteresting and stupid people bit, well.. off the top of my head – Indira Nooyi, A.R Rahman, Kalam (well, he studied in MIT – that counts), C.V.Raman, Chandrashekar, Vishvanathan Anand, etc..

So yes, there I refute all the statements ever thrown. If you have anymore, bring ‘em on!

Oh, and also, let me mention that no one can stay in this city for more than 4 years without falling in love with it, apparently. Ask my MCC friends – Unni Nair, Sai Krishna, Satyaki Roy, Prashant Ipe Job, Shannon Peter to name a few..
They constantly surprise me with they proclaimations! Stuff even I wouldn’t dream of saying. Like Unni saying he’ll do anything to settle down in Chennai! Or Satyaki (this guy swore he would never return to Chennai once he was done with MCC) pinging me to let me know that he was returning to ‘his favourite city’ the next day. And Pipe (dude could never stop talking about UP when he landed here) having an argument with me – ME – about the afore mentioned transport thing. And Shannon (sigh, you gotta meet him – no word would do justice here) calling me up the night before an exam to argue about how Chennai is the safest city on the planet. Yes, I said argue. I didn’t agree with him of course!


Last year, same day, I sent a message to all my friends wishing them. I don't have a copy of the message, so I can't quote it verbatim, but here's what I remember of it: "I'm looking out of my window and all I can see is a vast expanse of green trees and shrubs against a light blue and pink and purple sky dotted with white clouds. A few coconut trees are popping out of the green mass and swaying to the wind. In a distance is a solitary building - the tidal park with it's lights coming on! And all this, bang in the centre of the city! Where else, but here?”

That message still holds.

We love you, Madras!!!! :-)

Wherever I roam..

Last night it rained hard in Chennai. A sudden burst of thunder followed by heavy rain which lasted for many hours. A strange occurence in itself. Many wondered why - it was so out of the blue. It seemed like a clear evening.

Not those who knew me of course! The city was in tears with happiness. The princess had returned to her kingdom! :-)

The streets were muddy. The roads - flooded. Even the new bridge over the Katipara junction had stagnated water all over it. It was 12 in the night and the traffic was still chaotic. We got splashed and sprayed as the call taxis and guys in their shining pulsars over-took us as they raced past, breaking a million traffic rules on their way. As i looked out, many people huddled close, holding a plastic sheet over their head. A thin old man, walked past us near nungambakkam, with a walking stick to hold him up and a towel to protect him from the lashing rain. A transformer sent out a shower of sparks before immering the area in darkness. We drove past old forgotten buildings, construction sites, half-broken walls, huts with the roofs letting through the water, buildings with the paint peeling off..

And i smiled to myself. I was home.

:-)

Personal jinx!

Lately, I have a feeling that I'm cursed! Any IPL team I support seems to be losing! It started of course, with CSK. I admit it,it was me who was in the way of all their defeats! Took me long enough to realise what the problem was..

It started last saturday. CSK lost against RR. My status message was "Go CSK go!" And they promptly lost the match! There was a match after that - Mumbai indians vs Delhi Daredevils. I was told to "pray that Mumbai wins, cause if they do, CSk goes to the semis". So obviously, my status was "Go Mumbai!". Guess what? They lost the match too!

Coincidence? That's what I thought too, until there was a Mumbai vs RR match.

Jaipur needed 35 runs from 2 overs! Everyone assumed that Mumbai will sail to a finish, but sadly they didn't know that I had just joined the Mumbai cheering squad! Just to irritate a friend I said "Mumbai rocks. Go Mumbai Indians!". The next ball, jaipur hit a six and went on to win the match!!!

It finally dawned on me what I had to do! Switch loyalities! CSK vs Deccan Chargers. CSK's final chance to get into the semis. My status message: "Go Deccan". And guess what? It worked! CSK won! There was much celebration afterwards. Though my team (DC) lost, I was kind hearted enough to be happy for my friends... ;-)

Now I switch my loyalities again:

"Go Punjab! Go Delhi! Go Jaipur! Go Go Go!! Lets kick some CSK ass!!!"

:-)

A racey post!

Recently, Aquila accused "tams" of taking a lot of pride in their race. "Second in the line", she claims,"right after the bongs"! A statement which caught me completely off-guard! Do we really?? The fact is, this is the first such accusation I've faced in the past 21 years..

It all started off with me correcting the way she pronounced "Madras". It's Med(as in short for Medical)-raas. That's the way we pronounce it. Truth be told, I dunno if that's the right way of doing it, but that's the way the localites fondly refer to it as and that's what stays. She insists on "Ma(as in mother)-da-raas". I correct her and she says that's how they write it in Marati and then goes on to accuse me of acting like a bong! * Huh? *

Lemme clear a few things right now. It's not my race/language/culture I'm proud of. They're as good as any other (except maybe America). No better. No worse. But when it comes to my city, it's a whole new story.

Most people assume yhat the 45 degree temperature which forces everyone to flee and the obvious conservative and traditional lifestyle which the people there are so scared to come out of doesnt leave much to be proud of. And now, a cricket team which insists on losing all it's matches doesnt add much!

There is much more to the city than that, but i don't wanna get started on why I love my city again. I promise I'll dedicate a whole post to that when i come back. For now, lemme just state that I love that place and can bear no criticism of chennai or it's people. I mean, will you be quiet if you family is being criticised? :-)

Coming back to the accusation. Yes, if you accuse me of standing up for my city, I shall bow and admit that it is true. So shall every other fellow Chennaite I know. But we do not claim that tamil food is the best. Dosa's are alright, but we can survive on naan just as well. And yes, we crib and crib about not having the perfect filter kaapi, but it doesn't take us too long to realise that Bru is a good substitute - it has a slight chocolatey taste to it too!

But that wasn't her accusation. Her accusation was about how we're proud of being Tamil. Are we, really? It's easy to see why one would think so. Our absolute refusal to accept Hindi as our National language, for starters. For the record, I'm completely with my state government on this. I think it's ridiculous for the Central govt. to force a language upon me. I agree we need a unifying language et al, but why Hindi? It's bullshit to argue that the majority speaks it, cause majority of what? Majority of the people I know don't speak the language! And i live in a Metro!! Why not English? Please don't reply with "English is a foreign language", because Hindi is just as foreign to me as English is. Plus if I learn English, I'll actually be able to communicate with people all around the world. In fact, knowing Tamil, will probably help people much more in Singapore and Sri lanka - where Tamil is a national language. The only reason I see for me to learn Hindi is so that I can watch Shah Rukh Khan movies! But hey, I'd like to learn Chinese so I can watch Bruce Lee too!!

The august before last, we had gone to Nainital on a college trip. We had to buy a few curios and stuff and had to bargain with the peddlers there. We had to speak to them in broken Hindi and every single one of them made it a point to scold us for our lack of knowledge of Hindi. One of them even said "Hindi is an international language - everyone should know"(!!!). We meekly heard them out, took our shopping bags and came home. After all, their territory, their language. We were the outsiders. What can we say? Back home, on the other hand, my North Indian friends crib all the time about how the auto-karans here speak only Tamil. No meekness there. No acknowledgement of how it's okay for a person to speak their mother tongue in their part of the world!!

How can we be full of pride after all this? After not being able to speak our language in our own cities? After being imposed upon from all sides to learn a language we don't want to?

The central govt. has imposed a new rule that everyone working in a Central govt. academic institution must pass a basic test in Hindi. To read and write it. Not enought to know your physics/chemistry/math/mechanis. Nope, one's gotta know her/his hindi! No matter where the institute is. IISc and IIT-M come under this even though they're both in South Indian cities rebelling against imposition of Hindi. I, for one, will not pass such a test. I know exactly two letters in Hindi, and though once upon a time I wanted to learn the language, recent events like those stated above has put me off. It might be a fun thing to do - learn a new language, but I will not. Just because it is forced upon. "To take a stand", if I must use forceful statements. It probably sounds childish, but that's the way a whole state feels about it and the Central govt. doesn't seem to care.

I'm not saying my language is the best. I'm not claiming that Barathi was the best poet ever. I'm not saying that no one compares to Kris Srikant in cricket. I'm not saying that idlies are food of the Gods. I don't care how much you mutilate my name. I don't give a damn whether we're a pure Indian race or not. It really doesn't matter to me if Tamil is the oldest language. And I definitely don't wish to prove to you that we're the best.

All I'm saying is that, we're a nice bunch. Fun people doing their own thing. Let us be..

P.S: In retrospect, I realise I started talking about one thing and ended up somewhere else, but it all connects up in it's own way..

The lions vs the chargers (?)

Before I begin an "objective" description, lemme start off with a few sad smileys:
:-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

There. That felt good. Not really, but it feels good to say it felt good.

Anyway, lemme start off by saying Chennai people are sweet. Right from the guy who gave me his 4/6 card at the beginning of the match when I asked him where he got it from, to the audience who clapped for Gilly when he got out, they're nice people. One cannot deny that. I dare you to. We may not have the hottest chicks, we may not have the most happening malls, our night clubs may have sad curfews and our theatre may show more regional movies and we may hero worship our actors, but we're nice people. Nice people who love their team! So I want no CSK bashing on my comments okay?

I've never been to Chepauk before and when I got there, what struck me was how surreal the whole stadium seemed. The green green pitch. The bright lights. The smallness of it all. It was quite different from what i imagined. And that's an understatement.

We bought this yellow 'Chennai super kings' flag, but sadly, the cops at the entrance took off the stick and gave us only the cloth. The sticks probably went back to the peddlers, but whatever, at least we got the cloth! And after CSK's batting was over, we converted the 4/6 board into a stick.

Anyway, we entered the stadium wearing yellow, (what? it's not a crime to like yellow, is it), just as the toss was over. Chennai had decided to bat and Karthik came to the front singing "theradi veediyil..". All the songs he sang that night were very local songs. Good pick. He ended it with "we will rock you"! That, you see, was before the match started. Before Afridi and before Gilly.

Shivamani came on next. He got more cheers than the entire CSK team! He played a few beats. There was this one he did, where he plays three beats on the drum and the audience clap in accordance and he does three more and so on.. He kept increasing the speed till at one point, we were clapping with him, because it was so fast. Good stuff! :-)

Anyway, the match started. We were progressively 11/1, 22/2, 33/3, 44/4.. Didn't continue on that line, thankfully.. We got 144/7, you will know if you watched the match. I'm not gonna bore you with the details. What I am going to tell you about is the crazy guy next to us who kept yelling out to the CSK guys. He kept calling them fools and was asking Dhoni to hit a six. Top of his voice. I believe his exact words were "fool CSK. fool Dhoni.. hit a six.. come on". Then, towards the end, he just started mumbling and started calling them bananas.. Yellow bananas, chilly bananas, fool bananas, cool bananas, split bananas. They even got a "mutaal valapazham"! It was hilarious!!

Finally, 1st inning ended and after 10 mins of the cheerleaders dancing around - the DC cheerleaders had nice hair and a pretty outfit and one dance sequence and all they did was blow kisses into the camera. The CSK cheerleaders has 2 dance steps, an 'ok' outfit and no enthusiasm - though i don't blame them for that!

The second inning soon started and meanwhile the crazy guy had disappeared. The 1st two overs, they didn't score many runs but soon the downpour started. Dipika and I suddenly decided to start screaming "we want wickets.. we want wickets".. We were the only ones screaming (none of the other idiots joined it) and the next ball, the bowler bowled it, Gibbs hit it and suddenly I say the bowler throw the ball in the air and everyone running towards him!! I was so amazed that I dropped the 'flag' I was holding.

Sadly, the next time we tried doing that, Gilly hit a six! He got out too, eventually, and the game became a drag. It got so boring. Until Afridi came and finished it off in one over! :-(

The thing about a live game is, you forget to watch the ball. There are no commentators reminding you to. You see a four and you turn around to crib and by the time you look back, the next ball has already been bowled. And you turn to the big screen for replays and by the time that's done, the next ball has already been bowled. And so on.. But it was fun, all the same. Worth my 600, definitely!

The game was well organised. There were PTC buses waiting outside the stadium. A whole long line of 'em. Covering almost all the locations in Chennai. There was a parking lot which had a different entrance and a different exit. The car was triple parked, but we didn't have to wait for too long to take it out and the stadium lights lit up the whole area and made it easy for us to find our way.

It was our third loss in a row, but as my gtalk status message says: "We shall rise again!"

Summer's here...

You know summer's here when:
~you cannot stay in a room without a fan for more than 5 secs.
~you are once again thinking of chopping your hair short!
~the only thought running through your mind is "bath.. bath.. bath.."
~you kick away your bedsheets in the night!
~you don't care if the monkeys come in, you keep the window open anyway..
~you look at your full sleeved dress and you wonder what made you buy them!
~your face starts resembling as oil field!
~you drink more water than the food you take in!
~blue skies no longer make you happy!
~for the first time, you don't care that the solar water heater has conked!

Chennai - it's beaches and the elite.

Okay, I'm supposed to be typing out a project proposal.. (Ranj is gonna kill me when she comes back!) But that being the most boring thing in the world, I decided to blog. Honestly, writing a project proposal out of thin air is real hard work! Ask anyone - they'll tell you.

Anyway, we went to the beach last saturday.. The whole damn class. The HoD took u, believe it on not. We met at the GC and cylced all the way out, went towards Anna Univ and took a U, cycled up the flyover and down - the down part was way way fun. And it was super-ool to cycle as a big gang. Imagine 30 people cycling down the road together! You'd stare, right? Aarti fell down while coming down the flyover, hit herself against the railing and stubbed her toe. But that didn't stop her from fooling around in the water for an hour and a half like the rest of us!!!

Initially we were told that we can wet our feet. Max. But of course the guys went 50 mts into the water and we girls went about 10.. Fun stuff. We were soaked to the skin.

Missed the sunrise though, thanks to the clouds. Of course half the gang missed it because they were looking in the opposite direction waiting for Aarti and her convoy.. A bunch of guys who strived to "not let her die", as she put it! ;-)

Now being the bunch we are, we didn't stop with one accident. We also managed to lose our cycle key in the sea, causeing us to approach the HoD and requesting him to break the lock!! He said he didn't know how to himself, so hired a guy there to do it. Quantum Mechanics isn't everything, I guess!

Anyway, around 9 o clock, we packed, went to Murugan Idly store where the said HoD treated all of us. We had coffe which tasted out of the world - the idly and vada were okay, but the rest of the gang - who've never tasted proper idly before loved it!!

We cycled back - me leading the way - as if I knew everything about adayar! Adayar!!! i must've been there twice in my entire life before IIT!!! Sheesh! Of course, if I said I didn't know, there'll be cries of "local girl!".. What one has to put up with these days..

But you know what reaally gets me mad? When someone curses this city of mine! Which my friends constantly do. I mean, they have absolutely no right to speak! The don't even know the city! They're in their snug campus full of deers and monkeys and they have no idea what's there in the rest of the city!! Like this guy who said "ha, why would i go out to a restaurant? you only get idly and vada anyway!" WTF?? I have NEVER - never eaten idly in a chennai restaurant before last saturday (except palimar, but that is purely due to hunger striking when I'm finacially low, so it doesn't count!). At least some of them are willing to take an initiative to get to know the city.. The rest just sit and crib and crib and crib.

That is why I still love and terribly all those irresponsible, happy-go-luck, MCCians. all of them were like that and most of them were not localites. But fact is, every single one of them gave this city a chance and every single one of them fell in love with it. And from what i've seen, anyone who's lived here for 3 years agrees when I say "it's home"..

Sale

I saw a hoarding yesterdayfor pantaloons which proclaimed "End of season sale - 70%off". Inviting, definately. But it did lead me to wonder what they meant by "end of season" in Chennai. Chennai has only one season - HOT.

And if you wanna argue that no, there was 'rainy', 'pleasant', i guess, then 'rainy' starts sometime mid-june and ends in the begining of december. So what the hell did they mean by "end of season sale"?!

Mind you, i'm not complaining.