Ranting over a Chicken Fried Rice

Yes. I am not pleased with the world around me now. So I choose to rant like every responsible citizen of this democracy. I will rant about things afflicting me personally, connect that to something happening with the nation and blame people who have no bearing upon my personal life. After all a god almighty rant demands nothing less. So here goes:

First of all, what’s all the fuss about the new iPad? A lot of us can’t afford it so stop rubbing it in. And anyhow all Apple did was polish of the creases and wipe off the dust from the previous one, so stop hanging that white shiny carrot in front of me, it disturbs me while I buy chicken fried rice off the roadside.

Now Mr Sunil Mittal of Airtel, I swear on the aforementioned chicken fried rice, I will go all Gordon Gekko on you (that is create havoc for you in a smart, suave, investment banker avatar) if you don’t get your company’s act together. When you offer Broadband, DTH and mobile service – ensure that your employees know that they all belong to the same company. If one of your DTH guys come and wrecks my Broadband wires once more, I will take that disgraceful logo of yours and feed it to the first Vodafone looking pug I see. And don’t you dare tell me they are different entities within the same company. Draupadi was married to Arjuna but she belonged to the Pandavas, okay I don’t know how that makes sense but considering you keep sending me messages for reduced call rates to Europe when I have never called Europe, I’m sure you will find a connect.

Let’s now focus our attention on YouTube. Love the concept, love how it makes auto tuned Dhanush sound like the best new thing out of Chetpet but for God’s sake what is wrong with the comments section of this website. Why are people spewing such venom out there? A simple song from a new movie which has casted an extremely talented Pakistani actor, started of a war of words between two people about Kashmir. You jobless losers! Wake up, smell the chicken fried rice and shut up. We have our politicians to take care of all these banal conversation. Grow up guys, but then that will only make you 12 so what’s the point. And for all those people who say YouTube is so much fun because of the ‘comment wars’, please do use Google’s other great invention, Google Maps, to find your nearest shooting range and just take a walk around the target area. Mighty fun that will be.

How can I forget the powers to be in Tamil Nadu. On recent trips to Pondicherry and Bangalore I had the pleasure of walking into a wine shop without being shoved around, spat at or offered Old Monster instead of Old Monk. I walked into air conditioned wine shops with people who were buying their first drink of the night, not their 10^th for the hour. I could browse and walk across sections dedicated to beer. It felt surreal. TASMACs are no fun, they are a small introduction to what life would have been for cavemen when they went to the neighborhood barter store. I mean come on, everyone wins if you make the alcohol easy for all to get. It would be a great complement to my steaming chicken fried rice.

Some quickies. The non sexual kind.

Rahul Gandhi – growing up doesn’t involve growing a beard, it’s all about growing some politician horns and getting those ballots in the box. I will only believe your vision for this country when you manage to park yourself in Manmohan’s currently idle seat.

Manmohan Singh!! Get pissed, jump, clap, scream, do something man. You can’t possibly let a bunch of clowns ruin that Oxford head of yours. You are going out and there is no doubt in hell that you are, so I say go out with a bang. Tell the Congress and your allies how they got together and wet the country’s pants and how they should have the spherical to take the blame and maybe, maybe, you just might get my vote of sympathy.

Tendulkar score that century already. Stop the press!!! He just did. Thank God. Time to let the floodgates open now.

Mamatha Banerjee and Mayawathi. You guys met before? No? Oh my my, you must. You will kill each other with your obnoxiousness and what I would give to see you both rip each other apart. Ah yes, I would give my plate of chicken fried rice.

KFC!! Improve that monostrosity of a Zinger of yours back to how it used to be. Remember the days it used to be delicious and people used to come to KFCs just to eat that. Oh wait you don’t remember that, because it was when Rahul Gandhi started growing his beard, a long long time ago.

I dare you Sonam Kapoor, oh I just dare you to act in another movie. I have spent around 1250 bucks on tickets and popcorn on you. Don’t make me come to Mumbai and make you accountable for each rupee. We work hard for our money, I mean previously my Dad used to but now I do too. It doesn’t come easily so please when your choosing your next role, let it be for a silent movie. It can win you an Oscar.

Phew. Time to get back to my chicken fried rice. To forget all that is wrong and miserable. To remember what really is good. Nothing like an almighty rant to get you going. Until the next rant…    

The 12 km Burst

When I landed on the shores of Chennai much like the British and the Portuguese, I too felt an all -conquering need to make this place mine. After all this was going to be home for some time to come…These thoughts found their genesis to an extent with a 12 km dash I made on the ever so popular and road much travelled, the East Coast Road, lovingly and conveniently known as ECR.

The journey doesn’t begin on a stretch of road extending from Thriruvanmiyur but begins on a little lane in Perungudi. This is a story of small yet important patches of my life here and how it all nicely led up to this day.

My first morning in Chennai was characterised not by jitters for my first job, but greater fear of getting to work in a city where not knowing the language can lead to instant alienation. After hitching a 60 buck ride for a kilometre long stretch, I instantly knew life was going to be a bitch. An ability to bargain, crassness coupled with rudeness and stoic apathy are a deadly triumvirate and a much needed one to tackle the Chennai rickshaw driver. But I was to learn that gradually, until then, my knight in shining armour (the black and yellow kind) was here. The shared auto. A concept both unique and extremely gratifying, a big auto stuffed with people to the brim, who share the cost of the ride. Simple and effective and in one simple discovery I had managed to get rid of the scourge of the Chennai rickshaw driver.

Thiruvanmiyur is for all practical purposes on the periphery of Chennai, right at the edge of civilization. It’s at that precise distance where friends begin to make excuses about not coming over to your place. You start throwing beaches and proximity to Mahabalipuram to them as bait. but all in vain. This reduces you to a very obvious reality. YOU HAVE TO GO WHERE YOUR FRIENDS ARE AND THEY LIVE EQUALLY FAR!! So I began my first tryst with the city buses. With strange numbers like 21Hct, PP19X and the ilk, it felt like I had just walked into some secret military testing base. The buses honking, the crowds of people and a 29C nearly driving over me brought me back to reality. 29C is a bus route which spans Thiruvanmiyur to Perambur. It’s also the one bus that connects all the bus stops of the major all girl colleges(Stellas, MOP and WCC,.. beat that) which should be a great opportunity for most men to exercise their charm and chivalry but is mostly an exhibition of just how terribly stupid and cheap we can get. A story for another day and a more serious occasion. For me, this route proved to be a lifesaver, connecting me with all the places I needed to ever go to. The frequency is simply brilliant and with Volvos doing the route too, I couldn’t have asked for more. From Alwarpet to Egmore to Ispahani to walking distance from Sathyam to yummy eating joints in Nungambakkam. Ganesha, had found his mouse.

Long journeys, the summer and a lack of novelty set in. Public transport was still convenient, cheap and a boon to my wallet but was soon becoming an arduous routine which my mind could not take anymore. The roads of Chennai are wide and inviting, beckoning me to unleash myself on them. On my own terms. I needed a 2 wheeler to really enjoy this city, a city I have been itching to discover. I want to be able to wake up in the morning and ride to a quaint Armenian church in Parrys when my mind demands. I wanted to ride to Sathyam at 10 in hope of getting tickets for the night show, only to be turned down and enjoy the ride back. I wanted to get out of work and head to that lovely fish stall for a plate of 40 buck prawns on Bessie. Ride to Saint Thomas Mount and watch planes take off and disappear into the Chennai sky, fly like the wind on Radhakrishna Salai over the flyover and admire Music Academy on an evening when it’s lit in all its glory. Midnight coffees at the Hyatt, cheap beer from a Tasmac, stay at Kottivakam beach till the cops chase me away, ride to Amethyst (best coffee shop in town..Period) and read a book sipping a bitter Frappe. Endless thoughts, spiralling in my head for months now. Bus windows, front seats of share auto, non existent meters of rickshaws were all the motivation I needed.

Back on that lovely ECR stretch on a Tuesday evening after filling fuel in my new second hand Activa. I stood and saw the road open up in front of me. It’s like all of Chennai was offering itself to me, saying ‘Son, go, you deserve this. Let rip and she will hold you good. Let this remind you of all the good days and the not so good ones spent on my roads. Let this be the day you break free and finally unleash yourself on this imperfect but addictive city’.

The rest is a whirl of speed (not too much Mom, so cool it) and joy. A 12 km burst on ECR that shall be forever etched in my memory of one of the better, make it best, day of my life on Chennai roads.   

A Wedding List

Two of my very good friends decided to get married on the same day. That’s two weddings and not one. With it came a huge logistic dilemma of running across Chennai for the various ceremonies and now as a bona fide Chennaite, I along with a friend was expected to manage this coordination for all the friends coming from out of town. Not that that amounted to excruciating schedules and timelines being drawn up but sure allowed me the special benefit of showing off a city I have come to truly love. But above all I got to experience one of the Tamilian Brahmin (better known as Tam Bram) communities greatest show, the wedding. Yes, I must agree that I had my reservations of the fact that there will be no alcohol or meat. I mean aren’t everyone in the hall allowed the luxury of forgetting the fate that awaits them or has already befallen them. Ask me and that’s the reason alcohol should be allowed in a wedding. But then these are just things I say to fit into the mould of a twenty four year old guy who is tuned to believe that marriage is the end of the road. My views are very different, my views are for another day.

Both my friends are girls and were getting married to guys who besides being simply amazing were also the loves of their respective lives. Our entire friends circle had been preparing for these wedding for sometime now and all of us were united in our pure joy for this great occasion. A Tam Brahm wedding is truly a very emotional experience. As I had friends explain every nuance of every ceremony, I couldn’t help but begin to observe the various characters in a wedding and their reactions to the proceedings, it sure does make for some timeless entertainment. Here we go:

The Wedding Romantic

These people charge themselves on wedding adrenaline and go all energizer bunny on us all lackluster spectators. They enthrall us with stories of how their wedding will be, how the flower decorations will be different, how the hall will have so many more people, how their partner will wear exactly what they have in mind. All in all how they have the entire two days playing like a stuck tape recorder in their head. Even though my first reaction is to ridicule them, I sit back and think that your wedding day, truly is your most special day, so what’s the harm having it planned perfectly. So just as I begin empathizing, one of them begin with how they have had their wedding planned from the age of 8. Alarm Bells!!!

The Dark Wedding Humor Comedian

The usual quips of this wedding spectator will revolve around ‘gallows’, ‘undertakers’, ‘doomsday’, ‘Mayan calendar’ jokes and a few ‘end of days’ jokes thrown in too. They always make for the best humor at a wedding until you have one of those aunties who may as well have gift wrapped her ears and given it to you, turn and glare at you like you are vermin. Yes, well these are the guys and girls who just have to get these jokes out of their system. The Wedding Romantic will look at them with disdain and will instantly become the butt of all the jokes. So you keep laughing at these jokes and then look a little harder at the’ life of every party’/’depressed alcoholic’ in the making and wonder if they even know what they are talking about and tend to pity them a little. That stops the moment you go on stage and they go upto the groom or bride and point out how the garland around their neck can also become a noose and they do an undertaker impression. Rolling on the Mandapam Laughing (ROML)!!

The Back to the Mandapam Spectator

Well this one is a character. Affable, intelligent and with an acute case of ADD. At a wedding, they will have their backs to all that’s happening to the couple that’s going to pay for their lunch and will have a comment for all else in the wedding. They will check out all the hot singles in the room, pass adequate ratings and predictions on how their lives will turn out. They will also look at the oldies in the room and imagine the conversations they are having which will mostly range from match making to ‘so when are you due’ questions, utterly reducing the oldies  to a collective incapable of any other intelligent interactions. They will start finding faults and often times hilarious things with the stuff the camera guy is capturing. On the whole they are the ones least bothered about the occasion and most indulgent in creating their own. Hats off to them for being so completely aloof and so unbelievably entertaining.

 Disclaimer: Don’t be around them if you have family at the wedding. Trust me!!

The ‘Coming soon to a wedding hall near you’ Groom/Bride

These are the ones who know their chance is coming up. They are universally the butt of jokes for everything. They watch the proceedings silently, like they are memorizing the order of things. Tam Bram weddings have the unique ability of starting everything before the sun is up, therefore the early morning jokes laced with the subsequent lack of a late night after that get thrown around mercilessly. They quietly take the jokes with ominous warnings of ‘it will happen to you soon too’. They are intercepted by relatives and people they have never met with questions of a wide ranging quality. Following are the questions with answers I would love someone to give:

‘So when is the big day?’ – You talking about the day I lost my virginity? I was 16 and it was sometime in June, it was raining that day and..

 ‘You must be so excited, no? – I don’t know about myself, but you sure seem to be excited. Now that’s all matters.

Do you have butterflies in your stomach? – Oops how did you get to know of my carnivore oddities. So the other day I saw this blue winged one on my window and I got my fork out..

You know, just leave these guys alone. They really have their own issues to deal with. But don’t miss a couple of jokes on them. Priceless reactions in return.

Amused. Bemused. Stuffed

This category is where I usually find myself. Wedding food is always exceptional. Linked to the thought that the more stuffed you are at a wedding, the happier the marriage, families leave no stone or gulab jamun unturned in their quest to stuff your guts out. I always choose shamelessness over dignity at such occasions and pig out like its 2012 ( Oh wait, it is) You will have a very unsavory label attached to you, but savory reminds me of all the sweets available. Even though Tam Brahm weddings are veg buffets, they are veg buffets eaten by the Gods. Every dish has a touch from heaven and for a guy who is known to have eaten his first masala dosa at the age of 2, this was just an out of body experience – quite literally. After all the hogging at constant intervals I tend to remain generally bemused with the occasion and amused with all the characters described above. I’m the silent spectator at these weddings except for when I’m chomping all that food down. I am the one who mixes a bit of all the above because I myself am quite undecided on who of the above I am. I am the one who is the butt of the jokes and I am the one cracking them (music builds up superhero movie style). I am.. Wedding Man.. Well couldn’t resist that one but at a wedding where every one is a character straight out of all those wedding movies you have grown up on, you best belong to this one. It’s where all the fun is!!

I’m sure you can add many more to the above not-at-all exhaustive list. So do let me know and do enthrall us. Till then I just want to wish the best to my two good friends whose marriages I had the fortune of attending and also to a very special friend in Mangalore who got married the same day too. You were always in my thoughts and I’m sure that all the three couples are going to be immensely happy and blessed. But for the rest of us.. On your marks.. Get set.. Go/No!!

  

When Chennai wets itself..

So when I landed in Chennai, they warned me of the summer. ‘It will burn your pants off’, ‘You will lose the desire to live’, ‘Legend has it that no outsider has survived’, ‘Hope you have an AC dude’. Yup so I heard it all and in between my consternations on how to wrap my mind around getting past this hellish summer, some kind soul remembered to warn me about the monsoon too…

‘It begins to rain and then it doesn’t stop. Every inch of what you previously were introduced to as the road, will lose all its identity and just become one huge puddle of water waiting to be splashed on your newly polished shoes/ironed pant/snazzy party shirt/face (true story).’

I used to wake in horror at the thought of this all depressing season. Never been the greatest fan. And yes they write many a prose and poetry of this wonderful season but to me it’s just a messed up coming together of all that is terrible.

Wet muddy slush                Check

Slush on your clothes          Check

Nowhere to walk               Check

Cancel plans coz of rain      Double check

Did I Mention, slush?          Check

So to all the romantics out there who wait for the rains to profess your love, don’t do it in Chennai. Now when it all began I had the fortune of being out of town. Like how Switzerland must be feeling every time some part of the world breaks out into war, I sat comfortably numb to the fact that I was going to be thrown right into the battlefield very soon. Upon landing in Chennai I was greeted with wet roads, remains of a shower, scattered umbrellas, women in wet silk sarees..Ok back to reality. Basically, a colossal mess. But no rain, none at all. Could it be over?

I quietly sauntered into my house as not to disturb the rain gods/devils and tucked myself into bed with ‘Here comes the sun’ slowly playing in the background. And that’s when that eerie voice returned in my head, ‘it begins to rain and then it doesn’t stop’ . True to his words and apparently the ruling party’s manifesto, the rains returned the next day. Now I would like to use the words’ with the vengeance’ or ‘like its going out of fashion’ but it was much worse. I mean I was looking at the dictionary for the right words when it got blown away with the wind. Instantly there were flash floods on the little street outside my house. The victims being every pair of shoes/chappals in a 5km radius, lowest office turnout rates in a year (since the last Rajnikant movie release) and a floating Egg Bodimaas stall that had the name ‘Mobile Egg Cuisine’, couldn’t be more apt.

I stared at the roads ala John Cusack in 2012 or even Jack Black checking out an inflated Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘Shallow Hal’ and there was nothing shallow about this. It was pure chaos except that nobody else seemed to feel that way. It was like another day for every other mortal/superhero on the road. I mean these guys were just waking up to another day. I, was waking up in a nightmare or wait, a wet dream (PG rating mentioned^*). So I waded to my office, jumped on a few bricks and crossed the rivers of Chennai’s monsoon. Then I turned back and looked at the mess and was amazed at how we adapt, like we were born with these abilities. Come the summer we curse and get through with all that we can remove off our bodies, come the monsoon and we wet ourselves (ha ha ha) with thoughts of getting wet everyday.

Then when we least expect it, the sun creeps out from behind and goes all ‘Peek a Boo’ for a couple of days, teasing and tantalizing, and with me wanting to give it one solid slap. Finally it appears in all its glory and across town people start running up to their terraces with bucket loads of clothes to put it to dry. Panting and relieved at the same time, they put up their clothes and smile in relief and like naïve kids return to their daily lives only to be greeted in the evenings with a downpour and clothes thrown all over the terrace and your sense of belief in all that is good taking a major beating.

But we still wake up the next morning, wear our Sunday best and get down and dirty back in that all conquering mess. We roll up our pants and flip out our umbrellas and raincoats, make a silent prayer hoping for the winter (story for another day) and make the dip in the unholy waters of the Chennai monsoon.

At the end we prevail.. But the monsoon kindly begs to differ. 

Writing my way out of trouble

The greatest act in any drama is the act of committing. That is the one thing I managed to get my head around a very long while ago. But the act of execution has always been my Waterloo. I have always known and felt that surge deep down, primarily in my head, so not that deep down, that I want to be a writer. And besides the previous ill constructed sentence, there have been many reasons limiting my yet to be explored/exploited talents. This entire post can be summed up with one reason and that is laziness but then how does the audience waiting with baited breath – make that a paltry number of people who really love me – know how this story reached this not so conclusive present. Be prepared to be regaled with the greatest excuse(s) ever…and a grand stand end!

It all began with a notebook given by my uncle and aunt where I was told to pen down any story that came to my mind. At the tender age of 8 and I still wonder what is so tender about a boy who wants to break pencils for tea, I began to write my first few short stories. Tales of 5 rupee coins and trucks, Iraqi born American Air Force pilots and an ode to the west wind ( I still believe I own the rights to the original, mine being more entertaining). I managed all this and so much more at that terribly labeled ‘tender age’. The tenderness surely vanished after that because all I could think of was how to get the guys at our evening cricket game to allow me to bat and not always be the runner for some lazy player. So when life was playing these unfair tricks on me, I began to let my one lone talent slip away while cultivating another; complete disregard for my writing skills.

I returned to writing only in college after a 9 year hiatus in which time I could have become the youngest novelist in the world, the first 10 year old self-made millionaire, pin up boy for Chandamama, Tinkle, Cartoon Network and the ilk. But the constant learner in me decided to wait a couple more years to hone my talent.

The 8 year old in me is asking me right now, ‘what bloody talent?’

Pah look at the language on that. Kids these days. Sorry. Kids those days.

By then the world had moved on from the pen and paper approach to the all conquering 'blog'. A medium I have greatly admired for its ability to do the job of showing itself around. No more of those 'please have a look at what I have written' routines anymore. Typing on a keyboard I realised helped me recover from the nightmares of having to spellcheck my handwriting which by no means deserved to see the light of day. From here began my journey across the blogverse (blog + universe - better spin than the outdated blogospehere) which in true Starship Enterprise style was beyond the thrills of any earthly adventure. From setting up a blog to taking my following from a paltry 1 (that being my room mate who was tricked into following) to a loyal following of 7, I had done it all.

I managed to maintain blog decorum by posting frequently, keeping it short and crisp, minding my Ps and Q s and overall keeping it real. Yet deep down like the termites in your kitchen shelf, something was eating away. A sense of non accomplishment coupled with a feeling of no real direction to it all. I needed to be bigger and better, reach out to more people and with something more substantial. Thus began my pursuit of happiness, my yet to be completed (4 years on) novel.

The novel has been the one true enigma in my life. Very much in my hands to complete, yet so distant because of the pure will required to pull it off, which I lack in abundance. I have been laboring through those 50 pages I have written for the past so many years, yet don’t quite see where I’m going with it. I put this down to my inability to keep an audience entertained over the duration of a novel. Somehow blogging has shown me the joy of quick returns on low investments, a positioning unfortunately my novel writing cells are happily lapping up. So is blogging really killing the novelist in me? A question I have pondered on many lonely and alcohol filled nights and I have finally reached a suitable answer.. Who cares?

So from where I see the literary world unfold in front of me I see a very well defined path ahead littered with my fast evolving writing ambitions. As long as I can keep the junta I have accumulated entertained and wanting more, I guess it really doesn’t matter in what form I churn the goodies out as long as I don’t reach a day that I stop wanting to do it anymore. So like many a rockstar has said in the past, ‘let’s keep it real’ and keep it coming.

May they write on my epitaph – He was born, he cried a bit, he woke the hell up, he lived it up, he made them all happy, he made the money and the money didn’t make him, he waited but never wasted, he always loved never hated and whenever it all went pear shaped..he wrote his way out of trouble.

The Frustration of a Writer’s Block

What I thought was only a myth actually happens even to the best of us (modesty shall prevail eventually). The dreaded writer’s block has afflicted me, an uncommon yet over worked and abused condition which takes away from a writer ( 2 blogs so I guess I qualify) his sense of imagination rendering him worthless to himself anymore. I haven’t written a post for extremely long and in the interim period have written very little else. So how did this excruciating disease afflict my mind after having taken that entire gamut of keep-the-writing-going vaccines? A question worth pondering about.. Let’s rewind the past few weeks and attempt to reach a formidable argument which can thus cure me of this condition.

Here we go…

Work is my true master and I love being its slave

Really?? Work? That’s your excuse!! You walk in at 9 and get out by 6 and have the rest of the evening to make sense of life and put it down on paper, so don’t you dare give me that as an excuse. But wait, I never said that work drains me or leaves me unfit to write. Unlike many people who will scoff at this idea and others who will sink into it like quick sand, I am enjoying work. It challenges my faculties, pushes me to think (not like I had given up on it till now) and makes me want to go back for more. I know you all are waiting for me to burst out laughing and say I’m kidding but I’m not and NO my boss won’t be reading this. So strangely you get a little wrapped up in what you do, you think it, you plan and begin to believe it’s all you have. While that is not such a bad sentiment to throw at my baffled readers, it surely cannot be the path of my existence. So yes maybe the work got to me but no excuse to run away from what quite surely drives my yet to be defined existence.

Chennai and building a life

So one is thrust upon this world with a new city, a new job and asked to switch to a mode you never knew you had. ‘Life is your responsibility’ mode. Considering I had a day’s break to segue from college days to work bays I could not ask for a timeout and it really isn’t a tag team sport now is it. So besides finding my way around a new job I also had to fit into a new city with a complete identity of its own, of the kind I have never experienced before. This was surely made easy thanks to friends you should die for and my general ability to love any place I have lived in (Look up Binnaguri on the Indian map and you shall know what I’m talking about) But Chennai kept throwing surprise after shock at me. Falling in love with this city, for me, and I may have an army full of detractors, but it been the easiest ever. From finding small places to eat to neat pubs to drink to a little piece of heaven on a terrace to live, I covered the basic needs quite easily. There on, discovering this city and its many facets, faces, facades has just been fascinating (Read Chennai, Oh Chennai). Well, maybe then discovering this new city has absorbed me in a much needed journey of self discovery coupled with a desire to have something of my own, but could it possibly have taken away from me the only talent in my repertoire, my writing. I think not.

A Lot like Love..

So besides being my favourite romantic comedy, this feeling is quite possibly another reason for the condition. So without breaking into a cross between a tap dance and a highly questionable Bhangra like jig, I surely do have all the symptoms of the much dreaded yet breezy ‘K’ word. So taking off from there, the last month has been a whirlwind discovering this whole new side to life. Something that has reinvigorated me and shown me a whole new path. You spend sometime with a person and life’s perspective begins to change, that is not some filmy funda, it’s a real life in the face believe-it-or-not kind of awakening. So every day seems a little more beautiful than the previous, the motions you go through everyday begin to have an end to it and if that end is in a little house full of all that you love, it just begins to fall in place. You start getting that epiphany they all talk about, of how life suddenly clears its windscreen one day for you and you see clearly again. That vision is upon me and surely I know who has helped me see it and that makes this feeling all the more special. So evenings spent in deep conversation and the thrills of life, early mornings spent in despair of leaving that beautiful vision, the day spent constantly hoping for the evening to come.. Could this be the reason then for my writer’s block? Hmmm…

I guess I will never know the correct reason or the set of reasons but I surely know one thing, these set of reasons have surely helped me advance to the next level of my writing, not necessarily in my skill but surely in my persistence and need to churn out the good stuff.

And funnily, in the process of finding the reasons, I have forgotten the fact that I have been cured..

P.S. If you are still searching for Binnaguri, you may take longer than you think.

And if you are wondering what is the ‘K’ word. Learn some Tamil.

Chennai, Oh Chennai

Not the most creative title but then just wanted to get into this post without further ado because it has been a long time coming…
Many people and that included me too doubted and absolutely feared me landing in Chennai and for once they weren’t fearing for the good people of Chennai but plainly just for me. Yes I am an Armyman’s son and change and adapting is all but second nature but this was truly my first big move. My first job, my first shot at taking care of my own life and that tiny thing of adjusting to a new city. The language, the people, the food, the WEATHER!! The list was endless of all the things that would take a lifetime to get used to. I will not disagree that it’s has not been a smooth transition because it has been sparkling. For some strange reason which many are still befuddled about, I fell in love with this place the moment I stepped onto it. You can attribute it to the fact that I was picked up in a snazzy car and had an amazing friend waiting at the station for me to do the bargaining with the coolie while I admired the crazy atmosphere. But as my friend took me out of the station like a child being taken to a fair, I immersed myself into what would become ‘daily life’ soon. Chennai unlike any other city I have been to, maybe you can add Mumbai to it, had a strong pumping heart to it. The city was a city in a village in a metropolitan in a country full of small villages separated by a modern city, some sewage and a whole bunch of urban dwellers and pure hearted villagers. That is the best way to describe this city which is the reason the science of physics has found a fourth dimension, just to explain what is happening here.
I live and work on what many will say the other end of Chennai, while we here will say you guys live in the other end of the world. So putting it into geographical perspective, the heart really is the Nungambakkams, Mount Streets, Parrys Corners of the world while the T Nagars and the Anna Nagars are well, the Nagars and the Thiruvanmiyurs, Adyars, Besant Nagars is home. That will sound like absolute nonsense to a blue eyed Chennaite but to me it was just so cool that I could name and spell all the places in one go. Getting back to what is important is that the much spoken about government/s in the state which are basically, two (you know who), revolve like a game of musical chairs in which the final two keep running and the music just doesn’t stop. Well one of these geniuses are the ones who sanctioned the entry of IT in Chennai, ensured it was away from the city, built a home for it and said, ‘Listen you modern non - traditional little brat, I know you are going to spoil the other children in the house so I’m going to put you in a separate room away from the others. You can come to our side once in a while for stuff you don’t have there (theatres!!) and we will come once in a while to check on you. So you make your own living, call your kind of friends and we shall live happily ever after.’ Well the conversation happened in Tamil but that is all I could translate and basically that was the birth of what is now ‘my side of town’.
I have found myself a living abode in Thiruvanmiyur with all the luxuries I could ask for around me. Bessie beach - 10 minutes away, restaurants – you name it, we have it, essentials – so what is essential for you? and all the heart could desire. In all I am living in just the right place where every bachelor has ever dreamt of living. My little penthouse on the third floor of this house is where it all comes together as I walk into what already feels like home everyday. A great set of friends from my past and present (you know who) have also made life a breeze. I have discovered many a thing in very little time and I would like to share it with future aspirants of Chennai:
• Public transport rocks which include my favourite – share autos, buses – with strange numbers though!! and the train service – not crowded like Mumbai and much cooler.
• Egg burjee is egg bodimaas. They will refuse to understand burjee.
• Biriyani is generally Briyani
• All medical stores do home delivery. ALL!
• Movie tickets will never be more than 120 bucks. Even in multiplexes. Even on Fridays.
• Taking a walk into random lanes is an absolute treat.
• The cops can be bribed. Wait!! That is everywhere
• The streets are really wide.
• The CCD in the IIT is dirt cheap and Sparkys on a Friday is like heaven on earth
• Pondy is closer than you can imagine and more heavenly than you can imagine.
• Drinking is difficult as there are very few wine stores and the pubs aint cheap but then isn’t forbidden love always more exciting.

And finally, if you walk into this city with an open mind there is no way you can’t love it. It’s got its problems but just become a part of it and you will love the problems and I know I’m speaking a tad bit too early but I can’t wait for what’s yet to come. Now that would be the summer, right?
Yevlo, Venda, Naire, Ponnam, Sollringha.. Yup that is all you need for the first few months.