City love

When you're happening to travel alone in an auto . . . oops, metered Chennai auto from Egmore to home, which is quite a distance of 16kms, your auto meanders through many flyovers and you get to see a wonderful city bathed in the lights of the numerous street lights that illuminate the roads. It was about 9. 45 pm and with no one to converse, brushed by the gentle breeze of the night, I fell in love with Chennai all over again. I craned my eyes to see beneath the flyovers if the auto was driving above a road and tried to look above and side ways if the auto travelled beneath a flyover. Cities look beautiful at night, especially Chennai with wide roads and multiple lights of different hues - I could soak in those sights like a love-lorn lover or a love-sick poet. The heat and dry humid wind of the day time does not evoke such love unless one is so stricken by the city that even the heat is exalted. I think I like to be a realist here. The gliding Government buses, bikes with couples, cars with hurrying families or singletons blasting radios while casting a stray lingering look at the passing by woman/man sitting in the pillion or auto-rickshaws getting back home after a tiring day -- everything presents a lovely sight. Parallel to these sights, I also imagine the Chennai when I was a regular on those roads, mindless of the heat and sweat and always walking purposefully and never once glanced a loving glance at the city.

This gush of love first began showing its streaks when I started reading the post, "Those girls on Mount Road" by Snigdha Manickavel which was shared recently on Facebook by Jothi Vel Moorthy. I could relate with that writer's perspective on Chennai and tender feelings of joy started taking wings within me and I wanted to reach out to all the places in Chennai that I have known and loved - The place where I went to school lazily walking about on the roads and sharing love notes and class gossips; the bus-stop where I drank Panneer soda; British Council of the early 2000s; WCC and MCC . . . There are many such places.

While reading Manickavel's post, I also remembered another article that I read a day ago in The Economic Times where a certain French writer, Bennet Voyles in his article, "Paris is not Paree anymore; outshined by London, New York" laments that Paris has lost all the seemingly French traits and that London is more French than Paris! He lists many points that were quintessentially French but now is no longer seen in Paris. Can a city every lose the traits that made it, I wondered. Can Chennai ever lose its peculiar traits. It might, otherwise there wouldn't be so many complaining that Chennai is not the same Madras anymore. Will a day come when the spirit of Chennai will be seen only in blog posts and Madras Muthiah's articles, I wonder. But what is this spirit of Chennai that so defines this city -- Is it the healthy idli-dosa-sambar-chutney or the magic tunes of December Festival or the safety factor that makes women fearless on the roads even at 11 pm or 12 pm or the balance between tradition and modernity or the connectivity of the city or just the feel of being in a relatively calm and secure place. I cannot put my finger on any one point.


Well, I just hope Chennai doesn't lose its peculiar Chennai flavour like Paris! Inspite of everything, every time I return to Chennai, I see so many additions to this place and those additions please and irritate me as and how my mood commands but last night while travelling home in that auto, every single sight was being taken in by me as aspects of that city which I have grown to love gradually and all those sights spelt - 'This is home!'

do you think you have your landscape in you?

all of us come from a specific region. but sadly even though our roots belong to one place, we are far removed from our roots physically. but inspite of that, one inherently possesses some traits that belong to the place of our roots. for example, whenever i eat, my mom points out that i closely demonstrate the eating patterns of the place from where my father came. sometimes her comment quite irritates me but it is something that i cannot change. the same can be said about the way i argue: another trait of people from a specific place!

it is quite interesting as to how we possess traits of our ancestors even without us consciously realising it. it can be called 'genes' but i prefer to see those traits as the cultural habit of my landscape: the place where my roots lie. what makes it more interesting is the fact that inspite of having no much connection with the place of my roots, i have traits that are common to that place!

i have heard some people saying, "the sea in me makes me crave for fish and crab." probably that person might just use the above line as an expression but digging into that person's roots might point out to the fact that that person is indeed from the coastal region. when one pins down oneself to one place, one ceases to be a citizen of the world. while the term 'citizen of the world' sounds quite grand and cool, it seems quite generic and all-encompassing. and this is too grand for me to think!

long ago, i read a novel and something from that struck within my mind. the protagonist says something like this: Long ago we could identify people by the shoes they wore. But now everything is uniform. Everyone wears the same Nike shoes and trainers.

so, what landscape do you belong to and what trait reaffirms that? your grandma would have told you something about that trait!

image: internet