ROMANCING CHENNAI

OATH : I solemnly swear on chowk ke chhole bhature and golgappe that I am as “lakhnavi” as ever . Please do not freak out after reading this
Warning : if a few passages seem to have been taken from ‘2 states’ ..forgive me .I declare this is my original work and I have no intentions of copying .
APOLOGY : If any of my Chennaite friends get offended by any passage , I am extremely sorry . I am going to try to be nice and appreciation , but you know me ( *sigh* ) …I can never be totally successful at it ;-)

Yes , ladies and gentlemen ..it’s been almost one-n-a-half years since I first set foot here .Since I saw my first lungi ( just saw it ….I still have to wear it ) , got fleeced by auto-wallah and puked over my first curd-rice .
And I have come to the decision that Chennai isn’t that bad ( ok ! I confess I’ve started liking it …it’s so funny YAA). You just have to “get used” to certain things like …
You know the auto-wallah is going to fleece you ( which means AT LEAST Rs.50 extra no matter where you go ) . But since it is the fastest ride available ( dood …the way they drive , any one of them can take over as the stunt director in tamil cinemas ) you just hop in !
You know the buses will be cramped , smelly , will move at snail’s pace and you will have a lot of undesirable experiences ( I do not want to narrate here …I will have to change the status of my blog to ‘adult’ if I do) ..but you still go in it . The best solution is to sit on the window seat , put i-pod in your ears , stare outside and take deep breaths . And I give you my assurance , the green-buses do not fall apart ( although it took me 10-12 rides to confirm this )
You get used to hand-feeding ( when I went home , I stared for full 5 mins. at the spoon mom gave me ...then I remembered it’s use ! ) . You have to properly mash the rice against the palm and let the mixed juices flow through your fingers . Look at it this way , you do the carbohydrate digestion on the plate only , no need to chew and waste time in the mouth !

You get used to “tamil” ( and even if you don’t …the words ‘ama’,’aiyoo’ , ‘illae’ and ‘seri’ have a creepy habit of creeping into your vocabulary ! ) . You do not get freaked out when you see uncles on film posters . You start admiring “full figure” females . And the shiny-shirts-gold-chain-lungi combo dosent scare you any more . You finally choose your side…amma or karunanidhi / Ajith or vijay ( same thing….people are equally passionate when it comes to movies and politics )

You get used to gajras , rangolis and kanjeevarams . You learn a lot of pelvic dance moves ( forget the shoulder-bhangra ones macha !! ) . You become at expert at making coffee with two tumblers ( if you know how to manage it ….you can get proper froth , then it becomes ‘expresso’ coffee ! )
All in all …I love Chennai . It’s been like this for ages …and will hopefully remain so in the time to come . Cheers to my morning masala dosa ( Which I am addicted to now ) , mysore-pak ( mmmmmmmm ) and hosanna ( best song ever ! )