Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Live from Chennai - Part 1

The first thing that hits me when I land at Anna International Airport, Chennai is the incredible humidity. You could literally smell the H2O in the air even at midnight, and sweating is a way of life here. One advantage is you don’t have to worry about dry skin and all those different moisturizers. Your skin feels as oily as that of a seal.

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Its so great to taste home-made food again. The simple rice with sambhar and rasam with a couple of green sabzis taste like heaven, and my mom finds it amusing that I keep complimenting her cooking at every meal. Some days, I’m surprised I can eat four square meals – a breakfast consisting of idli and pongal, a full meal at noon, a light snack (we call it tiffin here) and coffee (kapi here!) around 4PM and then a full-fledged dinner at night. The food consists of very little oil (except for the papads), and is light, simple and delicious. Yumm…

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I’ve been going running on the beach (my house is right by Marina beach) and I was surprised by the incredible amount of activity at 6AM. There are elderly couples and entire families – men in shorts and shoes and women in salwar kameez and shoes – walking briskly and chatting along. Kids play football and cricket on the sand. Hordes of people enjoy various fruits and juices sold by hawkers along the way. I can’t believe this – Madras has finally become health conscious.

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Its election time here in Chennai and the fever is palpable. Watching the various politicians jumping parties and affiliations at the last minute is hilarious. Take the case of the actor Sarath Kumar who jumped to AIADMK after having sucked up to Karunanidhi, the opposition leader. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that a bunch of ex-IITians and other foreign returns have formed their own party and are contesting 6 seats. Their party is called Lok Paritran. Unfortunately, they seem to have jumped in late and without much planning, and even in a highly literate constituency like Mylapore, almost no one is aware of their existence.

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Slept a little late today and so could go on my usual beach run only at 9AM. BIG mistake. The heat literally fried me, and I must’ve tanned a shade, if that's humanly possible (I'm not the whitest chalk in the box, if you know what I mean). People were looking at me like I were a death sentencee being lead to the altar. By the time I’m finished, I find myself hungry, dehydrated and wanting nothing more than to jump into the shower and follow it up with a nice hot meal. And ofcourse, that's what I did.

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Welcome to Singaara Chennai!if u are a foodie,dont miss "Rainforest" in Adyar and GRT "Copper point".

4/20/06, 2:51 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Welcome to Chennai...Though i will not be there to welcome u personally :)
I too miss chennai and TN politics..it must be real fun watching our politicians make a mockery of themselves
Will be leaving to US next week. Guess we will both come across each other's path during the MBA apping process :)

- Murali

4/20/06, 8:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Marina beach has always been filled with early morning joggers.
I guess it has been a long time since you woke up at six a.m.

4/20/06, 11:00 AM  
Blogger c2c said...

Saranya - Thx for the suggestions. Am most definitely a foodie, and will try to visit those places.

Grey One - Sure thing dude. I'm hoping to have zoomed in on the final 5-6 schools by the time I leave India.

damesbond - You're right, I've always taken the beach for granted. But the crowd def seems to have increased these days.

4/21/06, 2:52 AM  

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