As I sit in the train on my way to Bristol from Edinburgh, it is only 5.30pm now but the sun has gone down almost 2 hours back. Generally I like to gaze outside from my favourite windows seat and try to absorb as much as possible of the fleeting by sceneries. But right now hardly anything is visible apart from my own reflection from the glass. So I thought to pick up the piece that was due for more than 2 years. I tried hundreds of times but fell short of words every time. Let us see how it goes this time.
Time has flown
by since I left Chennai. But the memories are as fresh like yesterday. This
piece is dedicated to all my friends in Chennai and especially to my room-mates
without whom it would be never as enjoyable as it has been.
When we stepped
in Chennai for the first time from Mysore on 7th September 2009, we
were all apprehensive of the place. I still remember the grim faces and painful
squeals of people when the posting locations were declared in Mysore at Infosys
GEC2. But in the 2 years that we spent there, we learnt to love the place &
the life there… mostly, the Freedom.
Most of us grew
up thinking about getting decent grades in the education system, secure a job
with high possibilities and a respectable income. As we move on one step after
another, the last step seems less and less relevant as we strain to reach the
next milestone. But sometimes it occurs to me, all of these are important, but
may not lead to a so-called Happy Life. Happy Life is a very complicated
function of health, money, relationships, career and attitude. But mostly attitude.
Attitude
triggers & controls everything else. This is one of the foremost
realizations that I had so far. When we were in Chennai, all of us were very
alert and felt alive. It was not just about going to office and performing good
everyday, but you had to think about the other aspects of your daily life that
we had never thought of before. From the daily chores, arranging food, turning
off the water pump in time, washing clothes, cleaning the house, it taught us
everything step by step. We made mistakes everyday and learnt to overcome them.
It was as thrilling as learning to walk for the first time! We learnt to
appreciate the subtle efforts needed in everything around us that used to go
unnoticed when we were at home, leading a selfish life and thinking about only
us all the time. The experience in Chennai taught us to adapt & to evolve. We
finally got a taste of life, slapped by it, spanked by it and also kissed by
it. As I returned from Chennai to Kolkata after about 31 months after I left
home, I felt myself to be a stronger, better & more independent individual.
My room-mates
were a very important part of my life there. All our lives revolved around each
other everyday. We were support systems for each other and stood up for
ourselves against all adversities like a single family. The happiness expanded
manifold on distribution and tough times got cushioned. Without them, I admit,
it would have been very difficult to live there all alone. In fact, I truly
believe that all these years were actually a part of my extended college
experience. We were trained almost from scratch, started working under the
guidance of able team lead and finally learnt to deliver independently.
In Chennai, my
typical day would start from 7.30am when I would get up, reach office within
8.45 and work till 12pm and take a long lunch break when all of the roomies
will meet together for a daily dose of gossips and food; then resume work till
5.30pm, go to salsa class (my first formal dance lessons!), go to gym
(sometimes), jump in the swimming pool and do some quick laps, play snooker for
couple of hours, have dinner at the food court and return home by the last bus!
Whoa! I did everything that Infosys offered. I had a tendency to jump in the
waters of every beach that I went to. From getting the stick of the police at
Marina Beach, to Thiruvanmiyur, Besant Nagar, Kovalam, Elliots, Mahabalipuram,
Pondicherry, I swam in every beach no matter what season it was, how the
weather was or what I was wearing at that time! My most favourite memory in
Chennai was of the day when we had lunch at our friends’ place at SP Koil,
where we decided to spend the evening to Mahabalipuram (45mins far by bus), and
reaching there we decided to spend the night at Pondicherry (2 hours from
there). We reached Pondicherry at 2 in the morning and just roamed about in the
dark till morning due to unavailability of vacancies in hotels! In the end we
felt tired, but happy! With our friends, there was hardly a day without any
happenings. As I type this now, I feel a major part of me totally numb just
because of their absence here.
Fixing a
destination gives you a direction but also takes away the flexibility to stop
and relish the present. When we keep on dreaming about the future, the present
slips away without notice. When I moved away from Chennai, I started to miss
the people who I hardly talked with! The people who I played snooker with
everyday, we exchanged hardly anything more than a quick appreciation or a tap
on the table, but that is what remains etched in my memory. The pretty girl who
used to come to have breakfast at the same time I went and used to sit at the
same seat everyday. The rowdy group of boys who used to splash around in the
swimming pool for hours, without even completing a single lap. The stout little
man who used to lift 80 kilograms in the gym, without even weighing the same
himself! All these insignificant memories keep swirling into my subconscious
time to time.
People from
other parts of India generally have a not-so-correct perception about the
life and people in Chennai. Yes, people do not speak much Hindi. But tell me,
which English person would speak French with you? People in Tamil Nadu are very
protective about their own culture. I do not see any harm in that. Even if you
drop by to Madurai or Coimbatore, you would get a flavour of the life and language
that is hundreds of years old. Mixing of culture makes the people open but
spoils the distinct flavour. In Kolkata, we accept all people as our own. We
try to adopt habits that come floating by from any direction. But if you go
around Kolkata, how many things in daily life can you find out that is very uniquely
Bengali? We are the most adaptive, like a cockroach. We will live long and
spread everywhere in the world. But we are gradually losing the ability to
retain the uniquely Bengali culture within ourselves.
Tamil Nadu’s
strategy is admittedly a bit extremist. They intentionally create a distance between
themselves and the non-Tamil people. But that is what made them one of the
richest cultural places. From the taste of dosai & sambar, the Tamil language,
the gajra on the ladies’ hair, the smell of strong alcohol in every other guy’s
breath, the periodic whistle of the train passing by, the hot insufferable
summer, the dark countryside of Paranur lit by silvery moonlight, the soothing
sound of waves crashing on the Besant Nagar beach, swimming in the rain… all
were a part of my day-to-day life and are a savoured memory now.
I have learnt to
love Chennai as a whole, as a part of me. As I sign-off the Parable today, all
I have is a big smile on my face. Thank you everybody for making the journey so
beautiful.
