Chennai

21st April 06 will have started by the time I finish this post & that makes me 8 months old in Chennai. He he he ..not that It's a landmark or something, but am in the retrospective mood again. I remember a joke about the slow nature of game of chess which shows a picture of a person watching two old fellows staring at the chess board and the person comments "I've not seen anybody so slow at doing-nothing ! ". I guess I'm beating those old fellows too :( just whiling away the lots n lots of free time I've got these days. I wonder whether I'll be able to get a such a time span again. On the positive side, I've been able to work on the things I've been obsessed with in last few years. The weirdest part is that I'm not fully enjoying it either. I keep cribbing about being in Chennai instead of Pune, but am not sure if that really is the problem. Though I've completed 8 months here, I have always been "here for 2-3 months" ! That is, it's not been clear that I'm gonna stay this longer in Chennai. So, every now and then there's this longing to get back to Pune - to enjoy "moong bhaji" at our fav spot at Lakshmi Road, to chat with friends sipping the famous cold coffee at ... (Gawd...I've started forgetting the names of restaurants now :( . Umm....it's Durga I guess) , to have special mango mastani at Sujata, to take a ride to Chandni Chawk in the night, to visit the Poona Hospital wala two wheelr bridge and the place which had become our Mini Hostel after we guys came to Pune in 2003. Hmm... "Pune tithe kaay une?" :)

I dunno, Chennai would not be that bad a place after all, but I find it weird. The people, the weather, food , language everything poses a problem. I keep facing the incidents like these which make me feel that this place is not for me :(

>> After a Michael Johnson like run to the bus stop I cramp my legs in the seat, barely managing my breathe and the bloody cacophony starts (It’s called some “Suryan FM radio” here), spoiling my day at the very beginning. I try to cajole the driver to reduce the volume. He, of course, doesn’t understand Hindi & English and instead increases it. Even after I communicate my message with broken tamil (kamii, kunjam ), he just doesn’t do me the favor.

>> It’s raining heavily and the auto-rickshaw breaks down in the middle of the road. The driver struggles hard doing something in back of the auto, pulling the handle again and again. Gets drenched in rain; Gupta (sitting with me) manages to make his voice reach him and offers him our umbrella. The driver still doesn’t want to put off the dhin-chak tamil song going on!

>> I really appreciate the services rendered at our company's adyar guest house. Everything is so neat and tip top. At dinner table, the attendant serves chutney in my plate & carefully picks up the dosa with the fork and just when I think he’ll carefully place it in the other part of the plate, he (careful still ;-) ) puts it right on the chutney. These guys just don’t have any aesthetic sense in these matters. At office canteen, the server at the counter just doesn’t know the funda of “thoda rice”, “less rice”, “kunjam saadam”. All he knows is take a BIG scoop of rice and throw it onto the plate :(

>> I need not talk about the buses and the hygiene of aam junta here I guess. In a city bus, we 5 are sitting on the last seat which is meant for 6. A girl (typical tambi….no where near the gorgeous Pune gals ;-) ) comes in and stands in front of us thinking that there is no space to sit. One of us adjusts to one side and offers her a seat. She gives a scornful look and prefers to stand. As if we were gonna do “##$$%^ $$^^ ” on here there.

>> Food habits of people & manners of waiters – Can talk a lot on this. You guys probably know it.

>> Language again. A cognizant employee, sitting besides me, asks me (in tamil) where the bus is going. I answer “Thiruvanmiyur”. Again he asks something in tamil. I pickup the word ECR and tell him that it goes via that route. Again he has something to ask in tamil. This time I give up and tell him “tamil teriyad” i.e. “I don’t know tamil”. Now, the guy being an IT pro like me, my expectation was that he will apologize and ask the previous question in English. What happened was, he simply turned away and asked the same question in tamil to other tambi guy!

>> Every now & then, I see photos of MLAs literally touching the feet of Jayalalita in The Hindu.