Next year this time I hope I will not be here in Chennai...not because i have stopped loving the place....it's as close to me as my family and God knows how many fights I've fought over her...from her side...I once read another blogger's outlook on this city...this sleepy, dreamy city of mine...I will never forget the kind of humbling I felt at the end of my reading...not just at the blogger's knack in stringing mere words so as to make poetry in prose form...but at a strange charisma stemming from its abstract beauty...at the way she talked to me and every other Chennaiite who cared to listen...I one day decided to listen...
Was walking out of office...my part-time job at The New Indian Express in Ambattur Industrial Estate takes me there every Sunday...I was leaving early...in a rush to make it to an evening assignment on time...reached the bus terminus at the end of the road...it was, as always annoyingly, infested with D70 buses...not the one I needed and that justifies any amount of annoyance, I tell you! Now, if you ve lived in this city long enough and have been on its roads too...you cannot have missed these...ummmm...let's say, Urban Legends...there are these legends associated with Chennai's roads, signals, and even her buses that are quite amusing, yet spot on!!!!
The one about the signals goes something like this: If you get a green at your first signal on your way to either cathedral road or Mount Road or Anna Salai, it means u were lucky that day coz you will not be made to stop at any of the succeeding signals!!!! (If you get pulled over by a traffic cop, this legend does not hold gud...duh!!) Well then, you ve by now recognised what I'm on to, and of course, the other side of the coin: you get the red at your first signal, say a silent prayer asking for a lotta patience, coz you re going nowhere too soon!!!
Moving over to the one about the buses in Chennai...it'd be one of those hot, hotter, hottest days....you would be standing at this bus stop for that godforsaken bus to show up...you wait for 10 mins...you don't even bat an eyelid...it becomes 15 mins, you shift over to your other leg...but still going steady...20 mins, you actually make an effort to look once down the direction you think the bus's supposed to be coming...then at your watch...excuses, if late, formulate in your head involuntarily...(habit s a hard thing to give up, afterall :P) if hungry, and if smart, you'd now open that pack of chips or biscuits or take a peck on that Dairymilk you ve saved for such trying times...if tired, you look back at the stop, ony to turn back after finding each seat thoroughly occupied(!!!)...and you wait on...you hang on...25 mins...one bus...your bus...finally makes its weighed down way to your stop...you try making your way to the steps of the bus...
A battle ensues....you elbow, she elbows harder...you shoot him a disgusted, look he looks away but keeps at it...and finally, the bus...that bus has moved away....without you....you lost your first battle in 25 mins...of course, you don't lose heart...you cant lose heart, would be more apt...you go bak to your palce in the bus stop and while doing so you re not really surprised to note that all those who had been standing at the stop when you came have actually won their own tiny bus battles and gone away, only to be replaced by a new, equally ready lot...you definitely look at your watch now...shuffle beween the only 2 legs god gave you... Now, 35 mins have ticked away and you ve lost even a second battle...bravo!
You think you've had enuf...you flag down the first unoccupied auto (well, this takes time too...and it's an entirely different story all together!)...you haggle with him, he double haggles with you...petrol prices are discussed...stats exchanged and even new half-baked legislations are reminded, and finally, finally a fare is agreed on...you park that sore ass followed by legs on that bumpy, cushiony seat...arrange your bags...shift your position so that you can see yourself in that rearview mirror, and he cant and then....you look back accusingly at that mirror...which is just now reflecting a far away image of an empty bus...your bus...this time there is no battle...afterall what is it worth, if the person who has to battle, is on her way, on an atrociously priced auto ride, to wherever land, thinking...no convincing herself, what she saw must have been a mirage..."it must have...it better be...oh, plzzz forget it man!!!!!" ringing in her ears...
And finally about the roads in Chennai...she has a whole lot of them and their names are quite amusing, if you can be bothered, that is...for starters, Big Street in Triplicane is a well known street in the city...but what it actually is, is only a laughing contradiction of its name...quite a narrow stretch...more like a lane that was once maybe a big street...
Frankly, at the moment, am currently unaware of any legends associated with her roads, (I'm quite certain there are!!)...so till I find them out, this post shall continue...sleep after some work beckons...
To be continued...
Pseudo-nerd is quite impressed :)
