Semmozhiyaana Tamizh mozhiye...

This time around, I am at Coimbatore to attend my friend Arch’s wedding. The city has been decorated as nicely as a bride-to-be – all for the Tamizh Semmozhi Maanaadu. The flyovers have been painted, the roads widened, new traffic signals, a lot of police at the Railway Station, a lot of traffic police deployed – all this for just the next one week. Lot of Tamizh cultural art forms are going to be performed at different venues in the city. I feel proud to be a Tamizhian. The schools and colleges in Coimbatore have been asked to declare holiday for the next one week. How I wish I were in school now! All city buses will be ticket-free. There is no need to buy bus tickets for the next one week. Food festivals are being organized. Now is the best time to be in this city; well, if you like crowded places.

I miss my dad now. He would have really enjoyed this Semmozhi Maanaadu – being a staunch Tamizh-patriot himself. He would have forced me to take a week’s leave and taken me to all the programmes and lectures and made me listen to the glory of my mother tongue. I can almost see the pride in his face when someone praises Tamizh.

But the city has lost a lot of its trees in the name of road-widening. The programme will last for about a week or so, but the city might never get its climate back. Sigh…

Although so much is being done to ‘improve’ the city and its infrastructure, the people of the city still remain the same. They still talk with so much respect, throw rubbish on the streets, wait for TASMAC (wine shop) outlets to open in the morning and form a queue in the counter there, the auto-drivers still demand exorbitant amount money from the people, the city hasn’t changed one bit in its character.

But no matter what happens to this city, no matter what the people are like, this will always be my home. This is the city that I have grown up in, the city that has made me what I am through the school and college I studied in, through the innumerable people I have met; it is my favorite city (ok, next to Chennai). Chennai is still my most favorite J

I have a couple of good news to share with all the kind people who visit this space. There will be an announcement in a few days’ time (if all goes well). Pray for me, people!!!

Remember those times?

Life cannot be any better for me. Now, at this particular minute I am writing this, I am happy. I am a very happy person now. Finally, life at Bangalore and this office are becoming something to look forward to every morning. Until last week, Bangalore could not give me the kind of happiness that Chennai gave; my present office and my office-mates can never compare to the awesome friends I made at Wipro, Chennai; I couldn’t go to meet Baba here. And all that has changed now. I have made very good friends here at Philips Innovation Campus. Now, I can say I have a gang – as in a bunch of really cool people with a great sense of humour – that I can hang out with. A big welcome to my new friends to this blog and to my life! And now I am back to my normal self. I plan my weekends during my weekdays and write about my weekends on this space. I have got a bunch of friends to go around with now.

It has been a crazy couple of weeks now at work with trainings and meetings all day long. But otherwise it is so much fun here. Last weekend, I and my friends from work - Rama, Barath and Sreekanth - had been to Nandi Hills – a tourist destination about 45km from Bangalore and enjoyed Saturday afternoon there. We went there to see the sunset from atop the hill, but forgot about it as we sat there chatting and looking at the mommy monkeys carry their lil’ ones.

On Sunday, Sabal and I went to Forum and met up with Dhinu, who I was seeing after almost 3 months. He had been to Norway on an official trip. Then we went to Dhinu’s place and just as we were about to leave his house, we saw the most amazing black clouds ever. And it started pouring. It was one of the best rains I have ever witnessed and needless to say most of the roads on our way back home were clogged. Our cities NEED to be planned better! The auto in which we came had a radio and we listened so many of our favourite songs, singing along loudly and time just flew by and we reached our home back.

The day wasn’t over yet. It was Sunday and I HAD to meet Baba. Barath had come by and he took me to the temple although it was raining. There was not much crowd in the temple and I met Baba, spoke to Him for a few minutes and came back home. The weekend, unlike the umpteen boring weekends I have been having ever since I came to Bangalore, went off in a flash. For some time, I felt like I was in Chennai with my gang, hanging out and laughing and playing and simply jumping up and down with as much joy as the time when India won the World Cup (remember 3 years back, when Sreesanth actually used to bowl well and caught Misbah ul Haq in the T20 World Cup Finals against Pakistan? That’s what I am talking about). Sigh… That was a long time back, indeed!

Chennai is the warrast?

There is something that I have to ask you. One of my friends says, “Chennai is the warrast (worst) city in India”. Do you agree? My friend has not made that statement without reasons. There are a few reasons he has listed out and he is more than willing to give “hundreds… no thousands of reasons” to prove his point. He was also curious to know what the others are feeling and in fact, insisted that I write about it on my blog. Please do go through the reasons he had mentioned (and pardon my language, support projects do make your communication so formal that you end up talking like the E! news guys who talk about celebrities’ hook-ups and break-ups like it is the most important news)

Reason #1: Chennai climate – it is the warrast climate. It is so damn hot.

My thought: I have got to agree with him on this one. Chennai is hot; but I liked the heat and he didn’t.

Reason #2: Chennai people don’t know how to behave. They are harsh and rude.

My thought: Ada paavi makka, Chennai makkal are the warmest (well, not as respectful as Coimbatore makkal) and very friendly. They are a little conservative, but that is the best part about it. It is a modern city with traditional values.

Reason #3: Chennai’s dirtiness and ugliness.

My thought: Well, I am still contemplating what he meant by ‘ugliness’; and if he expects any city to be ‘clean’ by his standards, he would have to travel to Singapore, I guess)

Reason #4: Chennai’s drainage system – big open drainage lines running all over the city (in front of major IT parks too)

My thought: The other Indian cities are no better, Krishna! Chennai is a city with one of the best infrastructures in the country.

Reason #5: Chennai people can’t speak any other language – not even Hindi/English.

My thought: Babu, when YOU visit a city, YOU should learn the local language and NOT crib about the people there. And do NOT expect the locals to learn a new tongue in their own city. Also, Tamil is a simple and beautiful language, try learning that! When God gives you an opportunity to learn a new language, grab it. If you get an onsite opportunity and go to France or Netherlands to Spain wouldn’t you learn French or Dutch or Spanish? Or will you forgo the opportunity and demand that your client learns Hindi/English? If you can adjust in a phoren country, why not do it in your OWN country?

Reason #6: Non-Tamil movies (by this he means Hindi movies) don’t release in Chennai. If they do they are released in very few theatres and they don’t last for more than a week’s time.

My thought: Really? This point proves how little you know about Chennai. During my stay there, I watched almost all the Hindi movies that were released. From Hit to Flop, I saw everything there.

Reason #7: Auto-walahs are very rude. There is no meter system.

My thought: I agree there is no meter system. But not all auto-walahs are rude. They respond depending on the tone and attitude with which you ask them. Give respect, take respect! :-D

Reason #8: I went to Ponnusamy hotel. I had chicken, mutton, and everything and I ended up vomiting. Chennai’s food is bad.

My thought: I couldn’t stop laughing at this one. Nadakaradhu, odaradhu, parakaradhu, neendharadhu ellathayum ore time-la vettina, vomit varama? Sinna pulla thanamala irukku? Team lunch-na ippidiya kattradhu? Oru limit venaam? Oru self-control venaam? But anyways, it is just not acceptable that Chennai is the warrast city because Ponnuswamy hotel provides bad food.

Reason #9: Chennai (Marina) beach is the warrast beach (compared to RK beach in Vizag)

My thought: Payapulla, compare panradha vuda maatiya? May be Marina is not as clean, but I am sure the life in Marina is something incomparable. The kids, the kites, the sundal, the wind, the under-the-boat-lovers – it is just out of the world. Instead of enjoying all that, if you choose to concentrate on the cleanliness aspect of it, you are the loser.

Indha maadhiri palappala reasons sonnar avar! I think that you should enjoy whichever city you visit as long as you are there. Try learning the local language, use public transportation to explore the city and I am sure you will have a nice time. What say people?

Love Hurts

It is my last couple of weeks in Chennai now and I am growing increasingly paranoiac with each passing day. That I have fallen in love with this dusty, sweaty, over-polluted, hot and humid city is no secret to you all. And the more I write about how nice the city is the angrier few of the readers (especially those who hail from the North Indian states and don’t want to be called ‘Northie’) get. So I shall refrain from writing out my love for this great city and go back to writing what I know about – manager bashing, may be. But hey, I did that in my previous post and there is only so much I could crib about a bad manager when I know there are worse.

A couple of days back I was talking to this friend from my school days and as we were talking about life and career and stuff, I told him how much I hate this freaking IT job and how I am not tech-savvy and how awkward it feels when I am supposed to pretend to be an expert at something that I don’t know head or tail of. And then he asked me what my passion in life is. I was tempted to say, “My passion in life is to eat, sleep, read, write and shop – in that order. If anyone is going to pay me to do any of these, then that is the kind of profession I am looking at.” But he was not the kind who would appreciate my pathetic jokes. In the end I said something and he went on to give a lecture about how ‘passion’ is something that ‘doesn’t let you sleep’ and how it ‘keeps you charged’ all the time. After an hour or so of lecture, he hung up. But I had started thinking – is there anything I am really passionate about? Something that I keep thinking of all the time? Something that I want to do for the rest of my life? Something that is not eating, sleeping, reading, writing or shopping? After a couple of hours of thought, I gave up. May be I am not old enough to have a passion as yet. Well, who am I kidding? I should have a passion by now; I should be on my way to excel in it. Although I am so not Sidharth Mehra from ‘Wake Up Sid’ who lives life carefree, happy to be spending his father’s hard-earned money, I don’t think I am any better than him in realizing my potential or at least in knowing what I want to do with the rest of my life. Anyways, I am not going to write about finding my passion either.

By the way, the big fat ticket inspector from the MTC (to know more about this character read this) has made it a habit to harass everyone from school children to construction workers. I see him almost everyday sitting on his bike with his entourage of ticket checkers who I am very sure receive a part each of the “collection” and what am I doing there? Well, just standing and watching and writing about it on my blog. Sigh…

Well, finally what I want to say is: I love Chennai. Yes, despite such foul-language speaking MTC ticket checkers and even worse auto-walahs and the dirty beaches. I love this city and it kills me every time I think I have to move away.

Enna koduma sir idhu...

The last two weeks have been most eventful. And I’m a lot wiser now. Really. Not buying it?

I have interacted more with managers in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years and learnt how to talk to them – the choice of words in an email, the tone of your voice in a telephonic conversation, to be persuasive in a subtle way – I am well on my way to become a manager myself. :-P But then God help those who become my subordinates! :-P

It is so funny when you go and stand in front of your manager and tell him,

Me: I just came to remind you that I’d be on leave next week.
Manager: Which days, Sandhya?
Me: Hmmm, three days and the other two weekdays are holidays.
Manager: What? The whole of next week?
Me: No, just three days.
Manager: But you won’t be at office throughout the next week?
Me: (Silly fellow, isn’t that obvious?) Hmmm, yes. I’m planning to go to my hometown, you see.
Manager: Why didn’t you inform me earlier?
Me: Actually, I did. I informed you three weeks back that I need three days leave and you actually approved the leaves.
Manager: I did?

It’s so funny when managers try to think hard, you know? The look on his face made me think that he badly wanted to answer nature’s call, but somehow nature wasn’t calling him as often as it has to. :-P And needless to say I was controlling my laughter and had to rush out of the ODC to a nearby conference room to laugh it off.

And then I headed to Coimbatore – to spend an awesome week there with Amma and Gaya and Paatti. As usual, the city was at its enchanting best - not very hot, not very cold, chilly wind and the slight drizzle and the magnificent hills surrounding the city - they are all still there. The city is just soooooooo beautiful. Since it was Navrathri time, we had visitors during all evenings to see the Golu. My cousin Nithya had come with her two daughters, aged 4 and 2 to see the Golu and the elder one – Harsha – sang devotional songs so beautifully (with actions) as her teacher (who was also my teacher when I was in school) and I couldn’t stop moving my hands in action just like her (although I stayed away from singing along for good).

For years, it has been me who stayed back while the others said ‘bye’ and left and come November I would be the one taking off – away from Chennai, away from my work, away from a lot of great friends I have made here, away from the beaches, away from my extremely patient roomies, away from a great team at work, just away from life as I have known it for 2 years now. And I do hope everything goes on well post my ‘bye bye’ from a city I have grown to love.

But of course, ‘Lighter Side…’ will still be alive and I will continue to post here – all the details about where life takes me and what it offers. And yeah, I will be available on Orkut, FaceBook, Twitter, etc. So, I don’t really think I would be missing the gang of friends I have made in the cyber world. :-)

Fell in love!

Something is wrong with my net connection at home. I have Reliance NetConnect using a USB modem and it has not been working since last week. Now, that is what has been keeping me from blogging (much to the relief of readers). This morning, I called up the customer care and they said something about a credit limit. Ridiculous concept – they give you a USB modem, tell you that you can download/upload up to 2.5GB and that your monthly bill would be 850+taxes (unless you go beyond 2.5GB of usage) and then your internet doesn’t work (even after you have paid your bills well before the due date) and they say, your credit limit is only 500 bucks and you can’t use more than that. What the heck!!!

I had gone to my home town (Coimbatore) for two consecutive weekends (some thing that I rarely do for fear of tiredness throughout the following week). The first weekend of June, I landed at Coimbatore North railway station at 6:30am and it was drizzling ever so slightly – a drizzle that could wake you up from sleep, but not make you wet, a drizzle that is like the droplets of water that hit you on your face when you are walking beside a waterfall. In the distance, I could see all the hills surrounding the city – the hills and the drizzle and the fresh, unpolluted air and the serene city (so far away from the rush and madness of Chennai) and was interrupted by, “Enga ammini pogonum?” – a burly auto-driver who, for some reason, reminded me of Teddy Bear and I fell in love with my home town all over again. The people here are, by far, the most respectful of the lot. Even fathers address their sons with respect – eg., instead of “Enga da pora?” (Where are you going?), they ask, “Engainga thambi poreenga?” The majesty of the hills (the elephant hill right behind my college, the Western Ghats where we used to go for summer camps/treks), finding virgin streams of delicious nectar (siruvani water), taking bath in small waterfalls which requires quite a few kilometers of walk into the forest and the amount of greenery (there are two institutions that keep the city green – The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and The Forest College campus) both within the city limits! All these (combined with the piping hot Chennai during the following week) seduced me into going there for the second consecutive weekend.

During the second weekend (yesterday and the day before), there was no slight, cool drizzle, in fact, the sun was out and although it couldn’t be called hot, it was warm outside and we (myself, my sis, and a couple of my coolest cousins) could roam around the city. We went to the zoo (I know what you are thinking right about now) and then to Pizza Hut – initially we decided to order pizza from home, but I decided against it because of this. :-) Anyways, we had pizza and fun and quite a bit of yelling from my mom who had cooked lunch for all of us and all the food had to go waste! :-)

Here I am back at Chennai and all the heat it offers. I guess the next weekend is going to be a visit to Pondicherry (with friends) or Kumbakonam to a few temples.

Chennai rocks (again)...

Pardon me for loving Chennai so much. I just can’t seem to hate the place despite the bad water (I am sure Coimbatoreans would agree with me) and worse climate!!!

In a comeback of sorts, Sandy started learning carnatic music again. Yes, I have restarted my stint with music (I just can’t leave anything alone for good, can I?) after a rather long gap of 12 years! I attended my first class this morning. Is it just for time-pass or am I really passionate about music - is not something I have an answer to at this point of time.

Last Saturday, I visited Dakshin Chitra with a group of friends and had a lot of fun. For people who are not familiar with places in and around Chennai, Dakshin Chitra is a place along ECR (about 20 kms from Chennai) where there are model traditional houses from each of the four South Indian states.









The place also offers an opportunity at kindling your creative side through activities ranging from basket weaving to pottery to paper art. For the women, there is a pretty good crafts shop with a decent collection of clothes, books (about India), posters, jewelry and other stuff. I, Anjana, Mohamed, Bala and Seems had a great day, although it was too hot for my convenience!!!

On Sunday, I had gone to Chennai CitiCenter mall and saw a mad rush at the various stalls put up by The Hindu for Women’s day – stalls from mehandi to caricature drawing to cookery – you name it. Not to mention women in bright costumes and even brighter make-up!!! Sunday also marked my first visit to Abhirami Mega mall at Purasaiwalkam – is it far from Thiruvanmiyur or what!!!

All in all, I had a rocking weekend, spent time with lot of friends and roamed around the city like crazy and found one thing that I’d like to repeat forever – Chennai truly rocks!!!

Chennai welcomes you...

Well, recently I debated with my north Indian colleague. He was going on telling about how bad Chennai is compared to Bangalore, how cold people are, how people here are unfriendly, how the food here is so bad, how there are only 2 malls in such a big city, how the beaches are dirty and so on...

I couldn't help but show him that I totally disagree. I myself am NOT a native of Chennai, (I am from Coimbatore) but I think I am considered "a local" because I speak the tongue. So, I had to give out replies to each of his questions, but since I was angry because he was blaming MY city (I think I could call Chennai mine too), I was a little harsh towards him in my reply.

First, he said the people here don't even wanna learn hindi (He expects everyone in the country to learn hindi because it is our rashtra bhaasha), where as those in B'lore or Hyd speak hindi... I am a great lover of tamil and I somehow couldn't stand it when he told tamil is just another regional language. I told him that it was he who has come to Chennai and if anything. it is he who should learn the local language. Would anyone in Delhi learn tamil just because I went there?

Then he was talking about the food habits of the people here. As if Bangalore people have north Indian food all the time. In fact, as much as I know B'lore food, it was way too sweet. Even sambhar tasted sweet. I replied saying food habits are something you shouldn't expect us to change. In north India, you people put aaloo in everything possible (I wonder if they have invented aaloo juice!!!)

He then told about how unfriendly people are, specially the autowalahs of the city. They take advantage of the north Indians' lack of knowledge of the language and charge extra money and if a north Indian goes and even enquires directions to a place, they don't help. I told, Chennai people are considered the warmest of people. You would probably have sounded snobbish. When you are asking for help, you are suspposed to be humble. You approach someone with a smile and a humble tone, none of them would take advantage of you...

I don't understand what problem these people have with being here. They call their relocation to Chennai a disaster. Chennai is such a nice place... Warm people, nice beaches, decent places to hang out, good food...