An experience called Chennai :)

Being the pampered last child (Shendefal, in Marathi), I never imagined myself going beyond the boundary of "home, sweet home"! But thanks to this corporate world and my first two jobs, I visited a different world called Chennai and kept visiting it over and over again. When I think about Chennai, I literally go in flashback. There were funny moments along with struggling frustrating events. But all in all, it was truly eventful period which finally proved as an important chapter of my life! There was so much of cultural difference. My lifestyle changed completely, not to forget my name too! I became SWATHI PATHANKAR. Everyone would write all combinations of Swati; SWATHI, SWATHEE, SWATHII But they would never forget that H, grrrr..


It was way back in the year 2005 I got my first job. After convincing my parents, I went to Chennai for job. I still remember that train journey. We were a group of around 18 freshers in the train travelling together. There were a couple tamilians in this group. We (non-tamilians) showed tremendous enthusiasm and started taking Tamil lessons in the train itself. Onne, Rend, Moon, Naal, Anj, Aar, something something, onbudu, patthu (bear with my mistakes if you are a Tamilian)! We learned 1 to 10 numbers in Tamil in no time, our learning graph was at its peak. But it suddenly dropped to ground level. We learned one important sentence and that was "Tamil Teriyad" (I don't know Tamil). This was magical line which solved our problems and confused the person we were interacting with! Once I said same thing to my manager in office, he started laughing. He said, "You are saying, you don't know Tamil and that too you saying in Tamil hehehheeh". I just smiled at him and said to myself, "What to do Sir, people here don't understand any language other than Tamil" :)

Samruddhi was my roommate in Chennai. We both were always together experiencing daily challenges. We used to interact with Autowallas daily. There are no meters in Chennai, I mean there are meters but nobody uses. So in the end, before getting into the auto you have to bargain and obviously you have to do that in Tamil. We came to know from colleagues that our daily one time fare would be max 20 Rs. So our task was not to give more than this. Here was our daily routine: we used to stop an auto and say "Alwarpet" (that's where our office was) and with action ask him how much? He would say a figure which we wouldn’t understand. And then we say "Irubathu" and then his facial expressions would change drastically. He would act as if he has returned from some tragedy and start speaking in Tamil looking like he is crying. Then Sam and me look at each other and say in chorus, yeah you guessed it right "Tamil Teriyad". Autowalla: "Tamil teriyaadaa ammmaa, something something" Then somehow we would manage to bargain till 25 Rs.

Sorry to say, but Chennai autowallas are really weird or they are too smart! We once decided to roam around some places. Our only option was Auto. Me, Sam and Anshul decided to go to Mahabalipuram and visit places on the way, so we wanted to hire an Auto from morning till evening. Again the first step was enquiry. To and fro Mahabalipuram plus places on the way should have cost us around 500 Rs. We started searching, many of them were not ready and many were quoting 1000 which we thought was very costly. So we moved ahead and asked one more autowalla. Told him the place and asked how much in our usual style. He said 10000! whooaaahh.. we were in shock, but gained control, we thought he might not be knowing English. So asked him using our hands 1000??? He said “No Amma, Ten Thousand!” Anshul got mad at him and he instantly switched to Hindi, "Abey saale, ek din ke liye hire karna hai, kharidna nahi hai tera auto!" heheheheh.. We were laughing out loud. We controlled Anshul and went ahead. Finally we managed to get auto for 600 Rs. :)

On the way to Mahabalipuram is one Amusement Park called VGP. It’s like Essel world, we enjoyed there. There was Golden Beach in the same park! I tell you, that's a must watch place in Chennai. When we went there, for a moment we thought we have reached abroad. Such a beautiful sea, greenish blue water, clean sand, clean beach. This one was classy place. Our 600 Rs was already paid off!

Days passed by and we soon got tired of our daily interaction with Autowallas. Another option for transportation was Bus. I am a resident of Mumbai so I actually shouldn't have got scared looking at the bus. But it was really scary. I hardly saw any bus going balanced. The buses would be so crowded that they would be tilted on one side. But Sam and I had decided so we would show some courage and get in. After the initial struggle, it would be quite ok travel. The bus conductor would be SITTING on the first seat. Everyone would pass money to buy ticket. And everybody would buy tickets, it was mutual trust I guess. And there would be two separate rows, all ladies standing on one side and all gents on the other side. I was quite impressed with this self achieved management in bus. Btw, the place names were quite hard to remember in Chennai, Nungambakkam, Peddunaickenpet, Siruvallur, Thiruvotteeswaranpet and the list goes on. If you have to go to such difficult places, do write it down on a piece of paper, a sincere Advice! :)

Being from Mumbai, another major problem was Food. There would be options like idli, sambar, dosa mostly. For lunch and dinner, different types of rice and a huge variety of chatnis. I used to literally starve for chapatis. After a long time, I got to know one lady who prepared nice chapatis. She must have got lots of good wishes from all of us for sure. There was one strange food item though, Bonda Sambar. Guess what that would be! It is batata (potato) vada with sambar. I mean putting batata vada in sambar is like insulting my favourite batata wada :( I never tasted it! :)

Now another advice from me, if you are visiting not a high profile hotel in Chennai, don't ask for 2 things. One is Spoon (even though you have ordered idli) and other is finger bowl. If you ask for a spoon they give a look as if you have asked them to remove all their clothes heheheh. And Sam had asked for a finger bowl in one good hotel to which the waiter replied, "Basin is there aaaa" :D One funny incidence happened in the same hotel. I ordered for a juice. After my order came, I didn’t drink it immediately. I was busy talking with my friends. That same waiter came n stirred my juice with a straw! He did some facial expressions and said "Stir Stir aaaa". I said OK and laughed like anything after he went. I was wondering was he planning to drink it also? hehehhe

One attraction about Chennai is movies and music. If mumbaikars are cricket lovers then Chennaites are movie lovers. I never got a chance to see any Tamil movie but I fell in love with Tamil songs.. Kannam kannam nokia, Raa Raa, Rend ka Rend ka Rend ka.. the list goes on. Never understood the meaning of any song but they were really melodious/catchy numbers.

Chennai has given me lots of memories and it has taught me to be on my own away from parents, the most important lesson. Cheers Chennai!