Part- II My Chennai Days

Chennai- Erstwhile Madras, The sultry Summer Weather, the Drinking Water Problem, the impending elections and the roadblocks on account of the high profile campaigns, the pick pockets at public places and Buses and the greedy and demanding Auto drivers...the things I need to look for here in the city and I had got enough talk on all of these from whoever had heard that I was going to be in the city for the initial part of my Summer project.

MY office on account of being located at the Ambattur Industrial Estate, 45-55 minutes from Vadapalani, from where I was put up consumed lot of travel time. I started almost at 7 am everyday only to return back by 8 pm on an average in the evening. The project concept, roadmap and output were things I had to concentrate on and once the groundwork was done, I could move off to various locations to meet customers/prospects and generate data and information, as well gather market intelligence.

The one problem I did not face in the city was the language problem since Tamil is my mother tongue and I speak somewhat understandble language, the people around could be well handled. English is used extensively in the city on Bus boards (Which was a great relief, since I cannot read and write Tamil) and at all major locations which helps non-Tamil literates to understand the messages.

On a lighter note, I used to wonder though in the monrings, why at all need to take baths at 6.30 in the morning, when I am almost drenched(with perspiration!!) when I reach office at 8 am. The purpose to reach at 8 for 8.30 office was primarily to catch up on the awesome breakfast available at the office cafetaria. The kerala and Tam style preparations made me remind of my young summer vacation days at Kerala and I really loved them.

I hardly got any time to explore Chennai with office consuming lot of time, but got one sunday to see the great Marina Beach, and few other top locations like the Spencer's PLaza at Anna Salai.
Evenings in chennai were spent on catching up with North Indian food and with Saurabh being there, it was almost necessary!!.

The first half of My Chennai days ended abruptly when my guide sent me on a one month tour from 19th April only to return on 17th May to Chennai.

Then started my Great Indian Tour, Stop One==being Coimbatore and Tirupur- the Knit City of India, with a chance to explore Business for the company. The company, my guide especially treated me damn well, which motivated me to try and go that extra mile with my assignment and in the end it really made a difference.

Chennai though at times left a bad taste in my mouth, with the local people especially.... highly reluctant to learn Hindi and appreciate people from the North. It is surprsing that Chennai is a part of Hindustan or India. I sincerely believe that Chennai has a lot to pick up in terms of Changing its attitude towards Hindi and North Indians in general. The Politicians in the state have not helped the cause either.

The politicians need to rise above petty politicking and work for National Integration and should make efforts towards unifying rather than division. Tamil Nadu also had a ridiculously high 69% reservation for the backward class and one of the few states which ws having pro-reservation rallies when AIIMS in Delhi was burning with agitation.

Due to unavoidable circumstances the post got deleted, hence am posting the comments made to this post below:-

-Raghav-hehe nice..will check out the go pagal thing when i got time!!

Anonymous:- I resent your comments about chennai.. regarding Hindhi and N.Indians.On what basis have you come to this conclusion, after barely stayingfor a month or so in chennai? I am surprised! Pray why should we learnHindhi, just because it's our national language? How many fromthe Hindhi belt have even tried to know and learn any south Indianlanguage and here I am talking about common people like you found inchennai. If people feel they can survive day to day with their locallang and mother tongue tamil and a smattering of english ( thanks dueto colonial hangover ) they certainly don't feel the need to learn Hindhi, just to please the likes of you. Yes the Dravidian partieswere against Hindhi and maybe they took the hatered a bit too far,which is not the case anymore. Sadly these days children in most cityschools opt for Hindhi or Sanskrit as their second language andhave forgotten their mother tongue even to the extent of not beingable to speak fluently, and you are a prime example which is a shame!When you look down upon your mother tongue it's like disowningyour own mother. Tamil nadu has always welcomed people from other partsof India and they have lived and prospered in our city withour any fear.When tamils and other south Indians go to north for a living theymake an effort to learn Hindhi purely for survival, though the northIndians who come here never try to learn the local lang and wantthe locals to understand their Hindhi! And there you go saying thatwe have an attitude towards Hindhi and N.Indians. Yes there is a pro reservation in T.nadu but we forwards havelearnt to live with that, but that doesn't mean anti-reservation isright. Hope fully everyone can have their pie and eat it too.

Shankar:-

Dear Anonymous!!

Thanks for sparing time and writing a feedback on my blog. I do not wish to respond to your comments. I have said all that I wanted to. I would be thankful if u can mention ur name too on ur comment. btw its Hindi and not HINDHI as u spelt it.Cheers!!