Most of all, I think, it feels more like Chennai to me now, as I introduce the city to my toddler, and see it through his eyes.
Krupa Ge
Nov 22, 2024 14:44 IST First published on: Nov 22, 2024 at 14:43 IST
Last week, I made a few small changes to my writer’s bio (the short introduction that accompanies anything I write; it’s something I’m still getting used to―writing in third person about myself). I added a line about my toddler and his toy shelf in the spirit of honesty because that’s where I spend most of my days now. I also changed the name I call the city I live in, from Madras to Chennai. It’s fair, I felt―I’d spent most of my life in a city that was called Chennai after all. Not to offend the “It’ll always be Madras to me” people ―I was one of you. But somehow 2024 feels like the year I embrace Chennai for what it means to me.
It is, after all, the city I negotiate with, not some place of nostalgia. The one I live in with the people I love. It’s where I have forged new friendships filled with kindnesses I never could have imagined possible. It’s where I like to have my old friends over, dazzle them with the best tuna nigiri and chawanmushi this side of the Indian Ocean.
Most of all, I think, it feels more like Chennai to me now, as I introduce the city to my toddler, and see it through his eyes. I see how invitingly chaotic the large, new pavements of Pondy Bazaar are. I never fail to notice how many lights there are on those pavements. I’m in awe at the wrath of the waves in Eliot’s beach and the thousands of “kaakaas” swooping around. There’s the thrill of watching little annas and little akkas learn silambam, nimble with long sticks at the neighbourhood park. The dense foliage, and the game of hide and seek the Adyar River plays with us at the Urban Forest in Kotturpuram―which was once nothing but barren land but is now, a 1,000-tree strong home of beautiful birds and butterflies. There’s that stately, towering banyan tree in Cholamandal Artists’ Village, littered as it is with tired little indies and invaluable installations. The noise and humidity of an evening in Chepauk stadium, and the near-empty amphitheatre of Semmozhi Poonga at sunset. Not to forget that sweet couple that’s making the most of the near-empty amphitheatre, but stop whatever they are up to to oblige us and help take a family portrait. The flight of a peacock at a friend’s home by the beach on the East Coast Road, and that rowdy cactus plant that’s taller than all of us stacked on top of each other. The light-as-air bun butter jam at Bilal’s from where we admire the new heart-shaped red signal lights, the hundreds of board books at the generously free, ginormous children’s book section in Anna Centenary Library, the barbells at Ladies Club where I go to lift some weights, listen to good old Tamil cinema music, and talk about missed protein goals.
Allowing myself to acknowledge how much I like the city just as it is now, also allows me to expect the best from it, for me and my loved ones. It’s where my parents lost nearly everything in their home to the floods, it’s where I live sharing a collective fear of anything rain-related with millions of others. It’s where we need little reminder of our own insignificance in the large scheme of the universe. Every other year we see how little power we have over our fates. Now a 1,000 mm rain, then a cyclone that parks itself over an ocean, or rips through the city, here’s a little flooding, there’s a lot of heat waves… We sure see and feel a lot out here. When we see the AQI flash for other cities, it’s hard to not feel a little smug though.
Chennai is where I ate poricha parotta (at the Urban Square in Kathipara) late one night as I battled both cravings for something extra crunchy and extreme nausea while pregnant. It’s where I became a nervous wreck of a mother two weeks sooner than I was meant to, it’s where I received endless advice to “cover the baby’s head/ears/legs/hands” from every well-meaning stranger as I went haggard, from home to hospital, and back, wondering why he wasn’t gaining weight. It’s where I now meet other parents with a kindness I’ve never felt before for parents of children of all ages (just call me humbled). It’s where I look forward to many milestones, for both my son and me.
And as happy as I am to encounter his Chennai, I also look forward to bringing him to the Madras I grew up in. To the taxidermy lion in MGR’s home, the choppy waters of VGP Golden Beach, the labyrinthine stalls of books at the Chennai book fair, cutlets from that hole-in-the-wall in Adyar, to Little Folks which used to be an amusement park, but is now an Airbnb you can rent for a poolside party. To my mother’s Madras, and its once-famous Spencer Plaza to see the tree decked up on Christmas. To my grandparents’ Madras, and its crisp dosas at Palmgrove. My father’s Madras, where he walked and walked, Mambalam, DMS, Mount Road. And to my brother’s Madras, with its charmingly tiny Raviraj lending library.
Ge is a Chennai-based writer
