Declaimer – This is just another Chennai post. Lots of unnecessary romanticising and emotions for the sake of topical and personal reasons. Please proceed with a grain of salt.
My chennai was different from the usually romanticised version of chennai. I couldn’t go to a beach or sathyam whenever I wanted to because I was living far away from them. I didn’t have a HSB or Murugan to go to whenever I felt like it. I don’t drink coffee. Tambaram was my t nagar. The wasteland in my area was my Alphonsa. But none of these made my chennai any less romantic than anyone else’s. I didn’t even know this version of chennai existed until my college days, which is when I first moved out of chennai. But what fascinated me is that I could still go on a nostalgic trip with my peers talking about our tuition stories and our chutti vikatan love though we grew up in a vastly different neighbourhood.
I know this could apply to anyone in any other city anywhere in the world but this is where I grew up so this is what I could write about. During my school days, I used to yearn for the evenings so that I could go to the ground and play with the kids in my neighbourhood. After a few years, the ground became a park, the kids then included teenagers and middle aged people as well but nothing else changed. An evening there with those people could change anyone’s mood in a jiffy. We had an ice cream store nearby which was open late at nights probably only because of us. The Varadharaja and Vettri theaters could have a bunch of seats reserved for us every weekends (even some weekdays) and it will never go waste. I always had a house in my area to go to at any day or time and I had people to take care of me just like my parents did. These are the things I miss mostly on this day, 2 years after the day I moved overseas. Looking back in time, there never was a day when I dreaded coming back home from school or college or my work because there always was something that would make me feel better no matter what happened.
There weren’t any elaborate plans for anything. I could, at any time, call a bunch of people and go have masala poori and just ride over the MIT bridge, overlooking the beauty of chromepet. Even if nobody else, I had my Apache for my company that has never given up on me. Long before I had a bike or could afford a masala poori by myself, I used to save up every Rs.1 and Rs.2 to go to the playstation after school. And when the smackdown CD won’t work, we used to fight with the owner to give us extra 10 mins just to see Goldberg use that amazing spear one more time. And then we used to realise we couldn’t get that one puff to be shared by 5 people because we spent everything we had on that extra goldberg spear.
I used to watch movies for Rs.7 in Varadharaja theater and my parents used to have second thoughts about buying me murukku during interval but as time passed, economy changed but everything else stayed the same. Rs.7 became Rs.100, 50 paise murukku because Rs.40 Puffs but the second thoughts are still second thoughts. I was introduced to the nungambakkam theater and food scene much later than a normal person in chennai. Then started the process of accumulating memories in Music Academy, Alliance Francaise, Little Italy and Novelty Tea House. The Crazy Mohan and SV Shekar dramas became Hindu Lit Fest, Short+Sweet, CIFF and standup comedies. Dinner in Idly kadai near my house became reunions in Bombay Brasserie. The memories kept on increasing and everything had a touch of chennai in it.
It’s been 2 years since I could do any of this whenever I wanted to. Even though the place I’m in right now is much materialistically better than chennai, none of this could replace the city where I could get those bajjis in beach. I’m doing many things that I love now because of this city, but this will never be the city I love the most. The parking in my city is definitely outrageous but I would never hate them as much as Express Avenue management people. The chipotle and Taco Bell could never replace Anandhi Idly kadai and Bhai’s kaalaan. However regularised the traffic is here, I’d still prefer swearing at people in Sholinganallur signal because I get to eat that pani puri after I cross that signal. Radio city and Suryan FM used to save me from my tedious playlist creation and wasting my mobile data in Spotify. Saravana Stores and Richie street had everything I order my Amazon now.
It was on this day, 2 years back, I stood at the entrance of the airport and bid adieu to the city. And co-incidentally, this also happens to be the day chennai was born. And like a new born baby, chennai has given happy tears to so many people all over the world associated with it in some way or the other. I hope everyone who shed their tears today for missing this city, get to shed the same tears soon for setting foot in this city once again after a long time.