Day #32: Chennai. 100 days of Gratitude

Day #32:     Chennai

(100 days of gratitude)

I was born in Madras and live in the same city for most of my life, except for a few short stints outside. I’ve visited many cities and have always wanted to get back home after a period. I remember this as a city with hardly any traffic. Private cars were few and far between. Buses and cycles were the common mode of transport. It was a big city with a laid back approach and a village-like pace and safety. I used to go to school by car when very young and later by bus when I was able to commute on my own. There was no fear of kidnappings, extortion, molestation or crime of any kind.  

When I went to college I graduated to a cycle and in the 2^nd year I was given a TVS 50. I remember a friend of mine who possessed a 10 gear imported cycle who crashed into a bus at high speed. He was doing 45 kmph on his cycle when the bus in front of him braked. High speed collisions were as rare as a Tasmanian tiger.

I could drink water off the hand pump on the sidewalk. And I’ve actually done it a few times and I’m still here. Goli soda, kamarakat, pulippu muttai, panchimuttai, etc were common eats and drinks for school boys. At night a kind gentleman will cycle his way through the streets ringing a bell to call our attention to Joy ice cream or kulfi.

The tallest building was LIC building that stood majestically at 14 floors high on Mount Road. Millions of people from the villages and towns of Tamilnadu will come for a vacation to Madras (Chennaipatnam) to view the LIC building and spend an evening at the Marina beach eating thenga-manga-pattani-sundal, kai murukku, and masala pori.

Today I live in Chennai. This city withstood the change in name and still is as gracious as before. She is still welcoming of strangers and people of different hues and colours, languages, religions, ethnicities and orientations. She is still a safe haven for women and children. She still is laid back, though straining now under the huge traffic jams that are piling up day by day. The roads  which handled thousands of buses, hundreds of cars and tens of thousands of cycles is now handling a million vehicles.

The land of idlis and sambar is now co-existing happily with Pani puri and Vada pav. She is still nurturing and caring of all and sundry. People here have a heart and time for you. You can find a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on. Most other cities have become plastic and silicony and here we still have cows and cow dung to keep us connected to Mother nature.

I love this city and I’m grateful to her for giving me a home, family, friends, business, social circle and feeling of belonging. I belong to Chennai.