Madras 'nalla' Madras!

A montage of Chennai...then and now by V. RAMNARAYAN.

MADRAS, NALLA Madras! So went the opening lines of a popular Tamil film song of the 1960s. It is sung by a village yokel who arrives in the Tamil Nadu capital and is totally bewildered by the contradictions of a teeming metropolis, which seemingly has no time for the individual.

To many of us, who were born and raised in the city, a college degree was an enticing passport to a job outside Madras, far from its stifling conservatism. You were dying to get out of this overgrown village where everything from the drainpipes you wore to your long hair and irreverence towards time-honoured institutions was put under the microscope by a whole range of aged relatives, neighbours, teachers etc.

And as luck would have it, Hyderabad beckoned soon after you left college, your job taking you there via a stint in a smaller town. What a soothing change that was, with the twin cities' laidback attitude to life and your relative anonymity there! There was an old world charm about your new environs; people seemed to have a great deal of time, friendships blossomed, a whole new culture opened up for you. Here you were your own man, not so-and-so's son or grandson or second cousin twice removed. Your cricket too flourished in a seemingly more nurturing environment.

A decade passed and you became a bit of a somebody in what was essentially still a small town, where the weather was cool for most of the year and multi-storeyed apartments were still in the future. You got to know everyone there was to know, and throughout the year, you were socially busy, in a nice, middle class sort of way; there was classical music of two kinds to soak in; there was a bit of theatre, mostly of the amateur variety; there was a small circle of friends within the wider group, who kept you on your toes on matters intellectual, literary and political.

It was not a bad life overall, provincial, yet alive and vibrant in many ways. On your visits home, however, you noticed little things you missed in your daily life, back in Hyderabad. Even as you took an autorickshaw from the station, you noticed how early the city woke up, how beautiful and GREEN Madras could be before the sun started beating down mercilessly. You also noticed the delicious onset of the seabreeze in the afternoon, something you had taken for granted all those years ago. The idli sambar and filter coffee at Woodlands drive-in created an acute sense of nostalgia, almost too painful to bear. The Carnatic music concerts somehow seemed to be of a higher standard here, even if by the same artiste you'd heard in Hyderabad, the ambience something special. Even the mutilated, sometimes unintelligible "Madras bhashai" was music to your ears.

It was time to come back, as clear as the sky in the Birla planetarium. Soon the decision was made and you packed your bags, said your tearful farewells, and landed at Central Station, with hope in your heart and dreams in your head.

A rude shock, it turned out to be. The colleagues at the new workplace were cold, even hostile sometimes, after the courtesies and camaraderie you had enjoyed in familiar surroundings back in the Deccan. Shopkeepers were unfailingly rude, and friends seemed to be perennially busy, with little or no time for you. Professionally and on the cricket field, you had to prove yourself all over again. Your wife, a lecturer of years of experience, could not find a job anywhere for reasons apparently unconnected with merit, and no one seemed to care. Your survival instincts come to the fore, and you fight for your rightful place, and slowly, ever so slowly, your luck begins to turn. Gradually you establish yourself all over again, and you begin to see the brighter aspects of living in Chennai - the relative sense of security, the reliability of the services, the professionalism at the workplace, the wide variety of cultural activity and entertainment the year round, the presence of family and friends who stand by you through thick and thin. No doubt about it, Chennai is Home.

Two decades pass. Chennai is getting crowded. There are too many cars and two wheelers. The traffic is unruly, the roads are congested despite the mini-flyovers, the driving is stressful like never before. The pollution is getting quite insufferable. Water is scarce and getting scarcer by the day. It's no longer as secure a place to live in, though still safer than most other cities.

You go to Hyderabad on a brief visit and are struck by the spotless cleanliness of the city, the orderly development, the wide roads and miraculously improved traffic, the lower cost of living, the cool climate, and wonder of wonders, the graciousness and hospitality which growth seems to have left untouched. You are tempted to consider another move, even if you are too old to take such a step.

Maybe Chennai is not what Madras used to be.

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