North India to Chennai

I got this on email and I thought this was worthy enough for a fight.

Hi friends,

This is a live update from chennai.

Language - Tamil, tamil and tamil. Even if they know hindi, they dont speak up.
People - We never heard anyone laughing here (I wonder if they ever laugh or shout)
So conservative, that noone talks even in the bus
Food - Idly, sambhar, rice, dosa, vada, pongal
We have to cook our food ourselves (unbelievable naa).
Weather - summer from october to feb and rest of the year it's deadly summer.
Lesiure - TV, dormitery, dirty sea beaches on weekends
Rent - 6.5 K / 1 BHK
Advance - 6 months
Aata - Rs. 26 /kg
Apple - Rs 100 /kg
Orange - Rs. 10/piece
Banana - Rs 3 /piece
Mausmi Juice -Rs 18 /glass
Jeans Dryclean - Rs.40
Phulka - Rs. 8 (idly also Rs.8)

Interesting facts and incidents :
1. Here you cannot buy a needle after 6 PM (strange).
2. We asked an auto driver, "hindi aati hai"?. He replied in hindi "Hindi nahi aati".
3. The most common suffix here is 'a', e.g.
straight - straighta
2 cup tea - 2 cupa tea
4. Even dogs eat curd rice.
5. In north, names are like Gori Shankar, gauri prasad etc. Here the names are like Kaliraj, kalicharan etc.
6. When there is a 't' in any name, they add 'h' to it.
jayant - jayanth
bharat - bharath
7. Here is a culture of adding mystical alphabets after ones's name, like Mahesh R, Sandeep T etc.
7. Cable connection is of no use here as only tamil channels are broadcasted on cable TV, if anyone wanna watch hindi channels then you need to buy a set up box (Rs.4000).
8. Cognizant navallur office is actually not in chennai, it comes under a district called Chengalpet which is 51 kms from main city.
9. Once we saw a girl in the food court, she was looking and acting like a north indian. My friend became exited and planned to talk to her, but just then we noticed her breakfast and then "dil ke armaan aansuon mein beh gaye", she was having pongal. (disguise!!)
10.How dare anyone come to chennai : Cognizant Chennai MCity comes under SEZ(special economic zone), swap and transfers from here are not possible.
11. No life after 9 PM.
12. No need to worry for Tsunami, because noone will be left to cry on your grave.

Bye Bye (waiting for banglore, pune, hyderabad update)

This was sent to a lot of other people and as luck would have it, someone was from Chennai !!! He/she replied ...

See i think a few things are pretty true here...But most of it are just mere exaggeration. He has just written all his effusive frustration here..!! I live here in bangalore, and trust me its much more expensive than wht he thinks.. i have lived in Chennai and Bangalore, and in Kerala, so i do know the difference between most of the places in South India.. Chennai is supposed to be the second cheapest metropolitan city after Calcutta and any other cities in India.

Language - Tamil, tamil and tamil. Even if they know hindi, they dont speak up.
For your Kind information, nobody knows Hindi here. Only non-tamilians living in Chennai take Hindi (like me) while most of them take French. And excluding the non-localites, people converse in ENGLISH.

People - We never heard anyone laughing here (I wonder if they ever laugh or shout). So conservative, that noone talks even in the bus.
They are not conservative damn it...ALL INDIANS are like that..!! The same happens in Bangalore, Hyderabad or Pune..U dont strike a coversation with a stranger out of the blue..!!

Food - Idly, sambhar, rice, dosa, vada, pongal. We have to cook our food ourselves (unbelievable naa).
Excuse' Moi ..!! When i went to the north (not specifying which place), me being a south-indian, had a tough time, hunting for some good rice to eat, because all i got was Aloo Paratha, Aloo Gobi, Gobi Manchurian, Aloo Muttor, Aloo Roast etc.. Wonder if they invented Aloo Juice.. Each of them have their own culture for taste and sense..!! So dont blame any place.

Weather - summer from october to feb and rest of the year it's deadly summer.
Damn it, dont tell me you would complain that it dint rain or snow in Sahara when you where there..!! Oh please, for heaven sake, each area has a difference in climate. India is not small as u get to see in the world map.

Lesiure - TV, dormitery, dirty sea beaches on weekends
Hahahaa....Atleast you get to see a beach buddy..!!

Rent - 6.5 K / 1 BHK
Do you know the size of the rooms?? They would be huge. I pay 7K for a 1BHK, that is just as big as my bathroom in Chennai..!!

Advance - 6 months
Buddy, i pay an adavnce of 11 months.. !! So who is to blame??

Aata - Rs. 26 /kg
Apple - Rs 100 /kg
Orange - Rs. 10/piece
Banana - Rs 3 /piece
Mausmi Juice -Rs 18 /glass
Jeans Dryclean - Rs.40
Phulka - Rs. 8 (idly also Rs.8)

Hahahaaa..!! Pillsbury Aata costs the same all over India dear..!! Sorry these things dont worth an argument..

1. Here you cannot buy a needle after 6 PM (strange)
God give me a break..!!

2. We asked an auto driver, "hindi aati hai"?. He replied in hindi "Hindi nahi aati".Buddy, thats the only thing they would have learnt in Hindi..!! For heaven sake, stop having false impressions that hindi is our National Language..!! It isnt..i have no time for this argument again..!! I never knew they speak Tamil in Delhi or Bombay..!! So why Hindi in Chennai..!! Use a more worldy used language, ENGLISH.

3. The most common suffix here is 'a', e.g.
straight - straighta
2 cup tea - 2 cupa tea
Yes, like the way you'll pronunce, thirty (therty as thartty) and fourteen (forteen as farteen)..!! Somebody stop me..!!

4. Even dogs eat curd rice.
Atleast they get to eat something, not starved to death.. and yeah, less stray dogs, that they would be famished and start feeding on children.

5. In north, names are like Gori Shankar, gauri prasad etc. Here the names are like Kaliraj, kalicharan etc.
What else do what us to name?? Elvis Presley or Brad Pitt?? Atleast Elizabeth Hurly or Angelina Jolie never asked you, why your name was Gauri Prasad..!!

6. When there is a 't' in any name, they add 'h' to it.
jayant - jayanth
bharat - bharath
Well, in Hindi you wrtie 'Ta' as t, and in Tamil we write 'Tha' as Th..!! Dont find faults with such silly matters.

8. Here is a culture of adding mystical alphabets after ones's name, like Mahesh R, Sandeep T etc.
Sorry, instead to keeping 'Abhishek Anandkumar Khare' or 'Sunaina Swapan Teja', we just name them as 'Abhishek A.K' and 'Sunaina S.T'

9. Cable connection is of no use here as only tamil channels are broadcasted on cable TV, if anyone wanna watch hindi channels then you need to buy a set up box (Rs.4000).
Hahaha...You guys where the ones who started making a big fuss about making Hindi Channels as paid Channels...we never wanted to watch Hindi here, so who cares.. Nobody uses STB (Set Top Box), Tamilians watch all south-indian languages for free..!!

10. Cognizant navallur office is actually not in chennai, it comes under a district called Chengalpet which is 51 kms from main city.
Escuse me..!! Hahaha..!! Infosys or any other office in Bangalore, in Electronics City, is actually in Hosur Road..!! Dont expect Narayan Moorthy to build such a huge campus in the heart of the city..!! Ask questions that make sense..!!

11. Once we saw a girl in the food court, she was looking and acting like a north indian. My friend became exited and planned to talk to her, but just then we noticed her breakfast and then "dil ke armaan aansuon mein beh gaye", she was having pongal. (disguise!!)
I saw a cute south-indian guy...But what??? Ohhh..!! Shucks, he is having Aloo Paratha :'(

12.How dare anyone come to chennai : Cognizant Chennai MCity comes under SEZ(special economic zone), swap and transfers from here are not possible.
Be in Chennai learn something here, so that you could live anywhere in the world and stop making a upheaval with small matters of life.. They sent u here, so that u learn :)

13. No life after 9 PM.
Do u know what life is than just going to Disco's and Pubs?? Partying and Boozing??

14. No need to worry for Tsunami, because none will be left to cry on your grave.
Atleast we wont sit and fight among ourselves, shoot or die cause of bomb blast..Oh Boy, i want to look sweet when i die, dont wanna look like a roasted chicken ;)

No offence meant in this mail.. But just wanted to let you noe that DON'T BELIEVE ALL ARE TRUE.

I live in Bangalore, and I do love this place, and I would love it anywhere I live..!! Learn to adjust, and not to make a big riot over static things in the world..!!

The bold face font and italics were there in the original mail. There were more colors in the mail but for the sake of simplicity I did not use them.

The person who replied is in all probabilities a female. :D

Pulikat Lake

Visited Pulikat Lake on Sunday.


About 80 KMs from Chennai. Once you reach the place you have to ride the boat for some 2 hours to reach the mouth of the ocean and this is where this pic was clicked !

Credits - Me :D

Gold, Gajras and Silk

If I were asked three things that define a tamilian woman, I would bet my life and say ... Gold, Gajra and Silk. Every female in Chennai is fully loaded with these three things at all points in the day.

I really wonder why aren't there any day light chain-snatchings, robberies etc. with so many potential targets out on the street are shopping, walking, chatting, haggling, Gold we all know is one of the best friends of any female in the world (diamonds give them a fight but gold still holds ground). Chennai would have the maximum amount of per-capita gold anywhere in the world.

Hansa Parekh introduced me to the wornderful world of Gajras. Ever since, I have been hooked to say the least. Chennai is a heaven for all the Gajra people. You can find small kids selling Gajras everywhere. On the bus stops, in the restaurants (yes in the restaurants), petrol pumps, outside bookshops, think of a place, they are there. And what more, ladies buy them too.

And finally silk. They have some kind of obsession with silk and they experiment too. I have seen silk saree with pocket, have seen reversible saree and have also seen denim silk saree. Who said India could not innovate things.

Chennai to Mahabalipuram

Wikipedia: Mahabalipuram

Mahabalipuram is also known as Mamallapuram is about 45 KM from Chennai. Famous for temples going back to 7th century (I am still confused if we are in 20th century or the 21st).

Sunday evening, Chumma (Tamil for "Just like that") I decided that I would bike to Mahabalipuram and come back. Picked up my bike, got the fuel and off I was.

Just before I left Chennai, I lost my cellphone. A friend called up and I saw his name and put the phone back into the pocket and when I stopped to call him back, the phone wasnt there anymore. I went back to the spot where I had put it in the pocket and I couldn't find it. Its now about 24 hours without the phone and life hasn't stopped.

And I was away biking on the ECR, lost in the scenic beauty of the roads (I was driving parallel to the sea shore all the time). For the first 20 odd minutes I was worried about my phone and what all to be done but after that .. I got lost. Lost in thoughts, arbit things, sights, analysis of other drivers, competitions with another highway raider.

I reached Mahabalipuram in about an hour. It had loads of tourists milling around. I dint see a lot of it but yes I saw the Krishna Butter ball (a huge rock boulder sitting on the hill) and alight house. I have always fancies about lighthouses but have never been in one. I so wanted to go in but they dont allow you inside. May be next time.

Apart from all the temples and sculptures and beaches, walks etc., Mahabalipuram is a good place to shop around for miniature replicas of gods, goddesses, demons etc. The best part about the shopping is the shopkeepers. They can speak English, Hindi, French, German, Telugu, Gujrati and of course Tamil. And if you ask prices of any object, they would reply "The price is XYZ and you can bargain!".

Caught !

Today I was driving on the road leading to Spencer's plaza and the cops caught me. Since my bike is registered in Delhi, I thought I would have to shell out some 1500 bucks and get my bike impounded. But surprise ... the cop caught me for driving in the bus lane and I paid just 100. For the first time in my life I have heard that you could be fined for driving in the bus lane.

I tried using my power of influence to somehow get him on my side and not pay the fine but I failed miserably. I told him that I am a mere sales trainee with limited resources and am new to Chennai. I also asked if this is how they treated their guests. I gave him all the gyaan about not knowing the rules and being careful in the future but he was not ready to listen to anything. Then I used the last trick in my bag and said actually I was searching for an address and that's why I was driving in the slow lane and this time he stared at me. I thought I better get myself fined before he impounds my bike and I am left stranded in heat without a bike.

And no he didn't check any other necessary documents that I should have had on the bike. In all thumbs up to Chennai traffic police. They are so much better than cops on Delhi roads.

Life and Death - The show must go on !!!!

People are happy when someone new comes to a family. A birth, a wedding, the new house etc., all are welcomed and celebrated in grand fashion. Parties are thrown out, friends are invited, everyone has a grand celebration.

If someone leaves, all the celebration is replaced by sorrow and pain. You leave for a different city; your entire family (cousins, friends, friend’s friends, neighbors and everyone you ever knew) would send you with sadness and tears in their eyes. Worst is when someone dies. We mourn like there is no tomorrow. If it’s a celebrity, we mourn the demise for seven days and entire nation comes to a stand still.

Here in Chennai I saw something very different from what I have seen in North India.

When people die in Chennai, they celebrate. There are no tears, no sorrow but it’s a huge ball. I am not implying that kin are happy about someone dying but the way they look at it is entirely different.

A typical funeral procession is lead by group of people throwing flowers on the road. They make something like a flowerbed that the procession walks on. Just behind is an army of drums, percussion instruments and a group of people dancing fanatically. Next is the body of deceased. Following this are the next of kin and everyone who has gathered to pay the last homage to the deceased.

First time I saw it, I thought someone was getting married. And no, this is not meant to be funny.

For a change I like this deviation from North India. The world moves on, the clock ticks away, nothing changes when people die. Mourning is not the way to send someone to his heavenly abode. (And yes I am an atheist). Lesson to be learnt.

Someone once said ... The Show Must Go On.

Chennai to Bangalore

My boss sent me from Chennai to Bangalore for a week. It was sort of a dream come true as I had zillions of friends in Bangalore and I thought I would have a rocking time in this technology capital of India.

And if you dint know this already ... Bangalored is now officially a word !