Chennai Chronicles - Part 1

WARNING: This post , as well as the previous two, are part of my WUPs ( Warm-Up Posts) to get me to start blogging consistently, which in turn is part of my NLP (Neethi learns to be patient) Program, so my apologies for the possibly ill-attempted humour , lack of originality, creativity etc.

So, we went for Saarang (IIT Madras Cult Fest) as part of the whole we-are-final-years-we-are-gonna-have-some-fun idea(my friend and I also had a secret agenda which cannot be disclosed here for obvious reasons. Suppose the whole 3 people who read my blog came to know about it?). Anyways, so here are some of the interesting (to me) stuff which happened while in Chennai (in chronological order) :

1. On the train: S was mistaken for the ticket collector. S was well, in his words, conned, into taking care of the ticket-booking and stuff and also ended up paying for half the tickets so basically, on the train, he was walking around with a long sheet of paper with everyone's (we were 40 odd people) seat numbers which he carried on a rectangular 2 fold pad-like thingy (whose one hinge I managed to break when I fell off a train, but more about that later). S then had to sit down to settle a li'l tiff with a family with three kids claiming( the dad, not the kids) that these were their seats. After that was resolved, S was still poring over the paper intently when this appoopan( old man) in the corner, who was looking all the while at S, takes out his ticket hesitantly and shows it to S. I can't for the life of me remember how S reacted to that ( or whether he noticed it at all ) but N(yup, that's how I'm going to call myself. been watching way too much Gossip Girl these days, sigh) and a few other alphabets had a good laugh over it.

2. On the 'local' train: A few wanted to have an Alaipayuthe experience ( the tamil movie with madhavan and shalini where he first sees her on a local train moving in the opposite direction as his) and hence decided to take one to iitm. We clambered onto it and grabbed on those hanging handles ( You know ones that remind you of those miniature adventure sports zones in the park where you had many of them in a row. You climb up , grab one of them and swing from one to the next till you reach the other end(not that I was ever able to make it that far). I'd be (and so would the others reading this) really grateful if someone could tell me what they are officially called.) M and N wanted to do some sight-seeing so they grabbed the ones near the exit. After a while, a man standing next to them ( a darkish man with 3 strips of chandan across his forehead with a red mark at the centre) started pointing out places and buildings for us. They nodded politely and tried to follow his hands. That's quite nice of him. Then N noticed another guy (younger, dressed in a loose t-shirt and jeans) across him rolling his eyes from time to time. Guy 1 got off the train after a while after which Guy 2 took a step forward. Woah there, have people here taken it upon themselves to show new people around or something ? ' Excuse me, but just thought ill let you know. That guy had no idea what he was saying. I'm afraid he was randomly pointing at prominent buildings and blurting out random names.'

3. So M and N were the unfortunate ones who couldn't get tickets to the Sonu Nigam Show. While they were dejected ( M not so much. N reportedly made quite 'ridiculous' noises and faces whenever SN's voice reached her ears as they wandered about outside the Open Air Theatre ) , they did get to see Monty Python sketches play put up by evam ( a chennai-based theatre group) , generally had a good time just hanging about and got to spend the night at Nut's ( a colg friend in chennai who took pity on us; one letter alphabets are strictly for the group that came along with us, others will be referred to by nicknames or anything else I feel like using to describe them..Muhahaha). They went yeaarly morning to Besant Nagar beach which was pretty cool. Most of the residents had apparently all risen and shone and were playing badminton, jogging or walking along the beach. After that, they had the most amazing melt-in-the-mouth milk pedas and badam kathali from Grand Sweets which Nut said was the best sweet shop in Chennai ( N could smell the ghee from the end of the street. No kidding.)

4. Jam prelims were fun . After which the group decided to explore Chennai, starting with Adayar Film City which according to A, was right around the corner. After walking for like forever ( the sidewalk was nice though. Neat and a nice row of trees planted along the way with a rail separating the road in places, some interesting mosaic artwork along the walls ) and posing every 30 seconds for a pic , they finally reached around the aforementioned corner to find out that Adayar Film City was closed. For almost a year now. They did meet an interesting off-his-rocker beggar who generously posed for the camera unasked with the rest of them , cursed almost everyone that went by and left his scraps and bottles to be run over by a car. As they were walking back , someone turned around to take one last pic of our beggar when he saw him trying to stop a scooter on the main road. As everyone turned to look , the man (middle-aged, in formal work clothes) stopped the scooter, got down, took a fallen twig ( quite long) , plucked off the leaves and began chasing the beggar managing to hit him often. Which needless to say, left everyone shocked.

5. M, S , P and N were arguing over whether the floor was marble or white granite at the M.G.R Memorial at Marina Beach when P saw a couple of people pressing their ear against the top of a tomb. Curious P followed suit. She heard a soft tapping noise and it took her few seconds to realize that a couple of local guys were tapping on the tomb to fool her. P quickly decided to try the trick on M, N and S. While they were arguing (yeah, they tend to do that a lot) with P whether they really fell for it or not, a couple of others from the crowd who were standing nearby went to the tomb, pressed their ear against it , began tapping on it with their fingers and stood there for sometime as if waiting to hear something back! M, N,P and S were elated !They just managed to start a new tradition ! But the Mystery of the Pressing-ear-sans-knocking still remained. They then reached the tomb of MGR himself where they found people performing the same ritual. N mustered up the courage to ask some of the locals, but all she could pick out from what they said was 'Motor. Sound' which led them nowhere (save for a few wisecracks from S). Now others may give up and decide to leave matters unsolved but not our M, N, S and P. 'Twas hard but they finally uncovered the reason - MGR's watch. It was believed to be still umm..ticking and if one strained one's ears enough one might be fortunate enough to hear it. MGR died in 1987.Wonder what make the watch was.

To be continued….:)