THE CHENNAI DIARIES

Cats, Dogs, Puppies and Kittens
There’s a thumb-rule about the Chennai weather, it gets “hot-hotter-hottest.” I disagree!!!
What’s a thumb-rule any good for if it doesn’t work on any try??? The weather is anything but hot, at most it gets a little warm, with the humidity levels way beyond my level of comprehension. But the frequent visits of cats and dogs…puppies and kittens sometime all throughout the day is quite a respite. Although it’s really cruel if you have to sit inside the building when the soft pitter patter of rain on the classroom window beckon to you…playing with your imagination…enticing you with those patterns that they draw out on the panes.
Listening to dido, looking at the green leaves outside….dancing and swaying in the slight breeze….the tiny droplets of water glistening like diamonds in the sun, it feels as if there’s not a care in the world. *sigh….then google returns the results for my search on “background scores in movies adapted from books” and my flights of fantasy come crashing down to my computer screen. But I’m not going to be cast down….I will defy the laws of human concentration and attention….I Will Multi-task !!!
It’s my eleventh day (21st July) in Chennai…and life has been quite kind. I’m in a hostel, with four others, and I haven’t messed up (yet). I’ve gotten lost at least two times, but managed to reach the destination on time (kudos to me). I’ve traveled in the most crowded of Chennai buses, hanging on with two fingers. I’ve had the most scintillating conversation with complete strangers in those buses. You know, I’ve always heard of those famous political discussions on Kolkata buses where the people keep on changing but the flow of conversation never stops….i finally had the opportunity to experience it. It’s amazing how friendly people can be when there are several reports on the channels about communal violence…man killing man….man killing men, and here I am, a north Indian bong having completely scintillating conversations with people from the South, most of the time trying to guess what the other person is saying…considering I don’t know how to speak the local language. But then, when have language constraints been a hindrance to my vocal chords….they just blast off whenever they want to. ;)
Coming back from a programme one day, it started raining so hard that the streets out here immediately transformed into huge rivulets of water. The water clogging problem is so much here that within minutes there was knee deep water on both sides. Now yours truly was trying to come back in the bus, and adventurous that she is…she came back to the apartment changing two buses, walking (read wading) through knee-deep mucky-disgusting-not to be thought about water, and completely drenched. I could have taken an auto, but then it’s remarkable how I found the whole experience quite charming. It made me relate to the people here, it made me feel like a person who’s from Chennai, instead of an alien, who’s here for just a visit.
The weather here is more unpredictable than Delhi. I mean one day it’s as hot as the Saharan desert in the afternoon, and it suddenly starts raining cats and dogs in the evening, while on other days when I carry an umbrella, all I’d be treated to is a couple of puppies and kittens falling sparsely here and there.
But you know what the weirdest part is…I think I actually like the city. I’m still IN LOVE with Delhi though…don’t ever get me wrong on that.