Parables of a Survivor in Chennai : Part 2

Chennai : The Cultural Adversity

Most of the Bengalis are a sort of gourmet. Naturally, people who are addicted to the 'Daal-Bhaat-Maacher-Jhol' diet, Chennai has been (and perhaps always be) a nightmare ! However, blessed are the people who get to live at least in the main Chennai City, where plenty of Bengali communities have grown up over the ages. Seems like we are the one chosen to go through the toughest tests a 'shanto-shisto-niriho' Bengali could have endured...

First let me give a view of where Mahindra CIty is. Let's visualise the Chennai Central railway station, almost adjacent to the beach (1 Km away). Now from Chennai Central you start going to the south west. After about 30Km (1 hr by bus/train) you reach a town called Tambaram. You continue in the same straight line, and after 6 Km you reach Urapakkam. It is also a developing town. Again after about 5 Km there is MM Nagar (a big south indian name). Next after 5 Km is Singaperuma-Kol. Then after 4 Km Mahindra City main gate. Next in 6 Km is Chengalpattu.

You must be feeling dizzy by now in the details. But know this : In the hottest period of the day, when the sun was dazzling directly above our blessed heads and evaporating the least amout of brain-matter we had, all of us had to visit all these god-forsaken places to just avoid shelling out Rs.1000 per day per person which the Office Guest House would be deducting directly from our salary in case we failed to check out on Friday. We desparately needed a place to put our bodies (especially the luggages) in the non-office hours !

People here understands only Tamil. We understand only 1 Tamil word : "Tamil-teriyaat". Ironically this means "I dont understand Tamil." !

If you try to speak Hindi, they'll frown and give you a dirty look. It is said that they think we 'foreigners' are taking away all the jobs of their people, we do not follow any religion, we dont have any culture, we are reckless, we are all ill-mannered, we are drunkards, we create hell in where we live. In few words we are the living examples they set to their next generation what not to be !

Hence there was no way of communication as English language was non-existent to them, Hindi they hated, Tamil we do not know, and seems like they've skillfully developed a different (Tamil version) of sign-language too ! Their "yes" means swaying heads to the sides, their "no" means swaying heads to the sides, but in a 15 degree angle ! We are engineers all right, but seems like they have a much evolved sense of measurement !

However, amidst our countless miseries we are blessed with a fellow Bengali who is the only one that can make out & speak Tamil Abhishek Palit (he had the great achievement of surviving 4 years in Chennai in his college days!!) While in Mysore campus, he was the underdog. Hardly few people knew about his existence. But here, he is the Local Hero, our Saviour Jesus Christ ! You could clearly make out a vast difference in his attitude, his body language, his linguistics and even his accent from the moment his importance was realised ! He knew he was The One, and he was obviously enjoying it !

Anyway, as I have no further intention to bore you with the finer details of our hundreds of hours of torture and miseries, I'm briefing the inferences from the many experiences that we had in our several road-adventures throughout the past 5 days :

1. Here the bus conductor does not come to ask for your ticket. You have to come to him and pay the respects. They have a fixed seat in the bus, even if some lady or kid sits in it, he makes a rough hand-gesture indicating to vacant his presiding throne !

2. The bus source-destination and even the demarcation of ladies/gents seats, all are written in the blessed Tamil Fonts. So after once we caught some very hor fiery Tamil words for sitting in a seat pre-sitted by a gentleman (which later turned out to be a ladies' seat), we preferred to stand in the bus-journey.

3. People here think we Infoscions get 50K-60K per month, as clearly mentioned later by our Bungalow-owner (later we tried our best to convinced her that accumulating five of us we really did get that amount, but individually maybe our boss's boss would fall short of the salary they conceive !).

4. Just opposite of what pre-conception we had, these people are very bad hosts (especially to 'foreigners' like us), are blessed with least grey-matter and more air in their huge craniums (in Vodaphone service centre, it took exactly 27 minutes and 4 different operators to make them understand that I do not know Tamil and I can understand only English or Hindi & I want to know my billing details).

5. Never travel in auto-rickshaws. There is no fixed rate. It will vary according to the financial impression you will give them in your self-presentation. And if you turn out to be a 'foreigner', voila ! Its Jackpot !

6. The weather now, almost 36 degrees, is very 'cool & comfortable'. They feel summer is very hot. Few friends have already got heat strokes in this 'comfortable' weather. Let's not even talk about summer in here. Personally I think, to avoid pre-matured death I'd be 'working' in the office for 24*7 in the whole summer. God bless the office ACs !

This is more than enough for you to digest and relish the visualisation of our existence in Chennai.

I will write more, but I demand a suitable response as your token of receipt and interest.

God has been very kind to you that you are far from this place.

Coming up :
1. The Horrible House Search
2. The Campus : Lighter & Darker Side

Regards
Vivek Panda