This would be my first post of 2010, not that I was unable to find time for this in the past 11 months, but in fact I had used most of my spare time in some extra hours of sleep.I will try to share some points on my survival in Chennai so far, and how my opinion about the city has altered in these months.
When I came to Chennai a year back, and spent the first three months, I was completely convinced that this is the worst place to live in. I never liked the food; it still takes every ounce of my will power to gulp down the sambhar rice. Tried very hard to learn and speak Tamil, I was pretty close with the pronunciations , but soon realized that it is beyond my scope, and didn’t waste much time to quit (I usually quit real quick); though to my dying day I will never know how I spoke Tamil 16 yrs back. I never thought I will survive a year in this place, but as often the case with relationships, where often discontentment and reluctance is followed by acceptance, and when you don’t see much options on the horizon, you tend tosettle for what you have and try to hold on to it (usually the case with many Indian Marriages), my relationship with Chennai is of a similar kind. I have kind of accepted Chennai with all its faults and defects, till I find an appropriate and sensible way of moving to a different city.
Here are a few points about life in Chennai which might be of some help if you are planning to move here. All the thambis following this blog can ignore them….
Weather
Be prepared to lead a life when you have just one Season in your calendar, and that would be the season of summer. Yes, life in Chennai is not like the 500 Days of summer (for those who have mistaken summer as Zooey Deschanel), but more like the Days of Summer till the City Stands. The concept of winter, spring and every other season that we have in our calendar is alien to chennaites. No one can remember the last time the temperature dipped below 25 degrees. And it is not just the heat; because of its proximity to the ocean its humid too, so within minutes of you stepping outside of your home you will have sweat dripping from all over your body like a Rainforest.
Greenery
You won’t believe your control over ‘Tharak’ and the limits you would be able to push yourself to, this place is like the Azkaban for people who are a little too desperate… sometimes I feel some of the frustration is wiped off as sweat in the Chennai heat and the rest of it is dumped in some garbage bag inside your head. And the longer you stay in Chennai those garbage bags will keep piling up inside your head, to the point that it will blur your vision for girls around you. Someone who might have been ‘not good enough’ 6 months back, might start to look jerkworthy.. Only way to clear your head and avoid any possible fatal mistake about your life (like falling in love..), is to get out of the city to any other city in the country, and don't be surprised to see yourself jerking-off at every corner of the street in that city. I have seen people who have been driven mad momentarily when they landed at the Delhi airport from Chennai.
Lungi Capital
In Chennai, men are content to cover up just the ugliest curves of the male body while some less known ugly curves are kept exposed and open for everyone’s attention, which sums up to an extent the concept of the lungi in south India. So do not feel uncomfortable when you see people walking around in Lungis, while in other parts of the country it’s a kind of a home garment,for mallus and thambis though it’s a symbol of freedom and three out of every five of them(cooked up stats) wear them on the streets.
Lungi is one heck of a creation from the man, considered as a symbol of manliness by many, though the evolution of the concept probably has less to do with the expression of masculinity and more with the idea of giving air to the privates (attributed to the terrible humidity in the city). Much like the National Flag it is worn at Half Mast or Full Mast. Half mast lungis is what you see most on the streets, it is folded twice or thrice to give more air and worn some good five inches above the knees, while the full mast lungis are found mostly in weddings and funerals and worn generally as a sign of respect. As you move more towards the South of India from the North, more the flesh lungi exposes, and Chennai is almost like the lungi capital of India. Every morning you have five out of ten people wearing them in public, in the alley, at the coffee shops even inside the Shopping Malls, some of them driving BMWs and Skodas. Let me forewarn you, it is not a very pretty sight…..
Booze Metric
If you have just passed out of college, and were planning to blow off our salary on weekends with some good quality booze, this is not the place for you. Thanks to the Govt. Liquor regulation in Tamil Nadu you only get the liquors that are manufactured in the state, which means even people with 10 times your salary have to be content with ‘Shiva Beer’ on ‘Madras Beer’ on some unfortunate days when Kingfishers are out of stock. If you are trying to cut down your boozing this is a great place. About the food here heh!, the lesser said, the better it is.
Despite some of the things being so unusual in this city for many people, I would say that Chennai is not something like the 'last metropolitan in the country you would want to live in; all the cities have their own set of problems and style of living. But Chennai is a lot more unique than most other cities, and one can take a long time to like it, but eventually you would like it, that's for sure.
Yesterday I was waiting for a Bus at the Ekkattuthungal Bus Stop and was staring down the road wondering when the bus will turn up and if it will bother to stop when it does, just then a cute looking girl standing amongst the crowd caught the focus of my eye and I started shooting regular 5 sec glimpses at her…and while I was exercising my pervert demeanor in public, I had missed two white board M70s(Bus I was supposed to catch and usually very infrequent)…but it wasn’t much alerting coz I was in no hurry to go to work, and this is a routine and not a one-off thing which happened yesterday, just that you don’t spot cute girls at the Ekkattuthungal Bust stand everyday.
Though I have been disciplined all my life not to stand and gawk at girls, but this has often resulted in obsessively contemplating staring while the target is in sight and ignoring almost everything else, loads of people do it everyday ….at Malls and Supermarkets, at workplaces while idling in your office chair, standing at annoying long queues in the cafeteria…..you let us laze for a moment and we will be at it, its in our genes, we have to do it, its one of those things which sometimes keeps me alert and awake in my office(not the coffee).
Now staring in public and then getting caught may not sound too negative for loafers like me, but for others it could ruin whatever little reputation one might have had in workplaces and neighborhoods, coz not many people actually realize this, but females apparently have wider peripheral vision because they have more of the receptor rods and cones in the retina, which in non-geek means they are biologically equipped to catch us when we are busy relaxing our eyes with delight,... some hot girls actually get offended when men don’t stare at them, it’s a fact…they like all the stares and the attention they get for free, and no matter how we try to camouflage our exploits they invariably know it and enjoy it, though we have no threat here coz these are safe targets, its the other breed of females that has been a problem…and over the years men have tried all sorts of techniques and ways for solution…like hunting in numbers and using our buddies as our best defense, thereby taking short glimpses in between our conversations, even using complex reflection techniques when just a simple stare may not be enough and a Complete Check Out(CCO) is the need of the hour.
But this is Risky business and should not be tried by the slow and Blockheaded people as they could call trouble on their completely innocent buddies who might have had a clean track record in these things. Now when you are caught in your act and your target is not one of those who beams with joy when gawked at by strange people, here’s what you can get away with:
1. She might stare back at you with anger and possibly muttering under her breath ‘how a sick lecherous old pervert you are’, or she might just get away from your sight if she is uncomfortable with direct contact but she will still be muttering those same words. 2. ‘Paraya Ladkiyon ko Ghoorte hue Sharm nahi aati’ or ‘Ghar mein maa behen nahi hai kya’ if you have failed miserably with a CO. (Do not charge for using vulgar language or you will be redirected to 3) . 3. Public Beating if you have tried a CCO which went horribly wrong or if you tried to play smart and accused the girl of staring at you instead. , Though far worse things have happened to people if you have followed IndiaTV or AajTak regularly.
All Men could be divided into people who gawk and ‘those who gawk but don’t get caught’. There’s nothing wrong in getting caught, Heads of State from several countries have been caught in the act by media over the years. Latest examples where made in the G8 summit in July this year. The Camerawallas were quick to capture them in moments that would make their wives proud. Some have been lucky but some weren’t…….
Heheh...Everybody stares ...look at all of them, busy in COs...
Today I have exactly completed 4 months in Chennai and we are also into the last month of the year. It seems so fast time has passed. Once I had this situation for another twelve times, I would be bidding adieu to another damn year. Why am I starting a post with another sorry and dull tale on how we are getting old and how miserable life is???....maybe coz I have a shitty job, I live in a lousy place in Chennai, or maybe coz I am a nutcase......Not that I am worried about it...and I hardly worry about anything…and these things would figure somewhere near the bottom in my list of things to worry about. Here is the list of High priority Problems which would put real pain in my buttocks in course of life.
1. Dying Old
2. A Nuclear War (with radiation all over you body, death cannot be more painful)
3. Global Warming (Now think about this: No Land for crops + heat that lets roast a Man
+ No Food ---->Human Cannibalism)
4. Dying doing the same shitty work as you are doing now.
5. Getting Married (to clarify, not getting married isn’t a problem but getting married is)
On the fifth point, most people get married with any cuckoo they lay their hands on, thinking nothing better will come along(which is also true), and then they end up spending a fortune on a stupid big wedding, which could have been spent more wisely on a VW Passat or on a Month Long trip to Europe. No one cares about weddings, I hate Wedding parties, it’s the most foolish way of wasting tons of money…..You want to blow away your money and of your parents too???, I will give you a better idea, Give The Money to Me...I will put it into far better use than you dumb heads can dream of.
Coming back to my time in Chennai, now some might feel that my job is a big piece of shit….but stop high-fiving you sadistic morons, b’coz it is the best one you will ever be able to get. To elaborate on my work experience in Chennai: I am getting paid for resting my ass on the office chair for 8 hrs a day and just to highlight a few things on my tough time in office……which included snoring at my office chair with an open mouth(disgusting?, I know), exaggerating all the lies in my resume to my office colleagues, feigning interest in whatever boring activities my superiors fill their weekends with, maintaining a fake smile frozen on my face when my Boss tries to say something funny…..and having done it for four long months, it has been tough to be my own slothful self. But hey!! No one is complaining, as long as I have my salary credited at the end of every month...and when I feel I have made enough money, I will give a thought about contributing something to the company revenue (Right now my contribution is in negatives, taking all the free coffee and other company freebies into account), and when I realize I had enough, I will leave and rob someone else.
