Southern Comfort -- A Chennai Diary

The Marina Beach is my favourite destination in Chennai

Oh,The Heat!

The airhostess on the Kingfisher flight had already warned that the temperature outside was 40 degrees. What she forgot to mention was the nearly hundred per cent humidity. Even as I stepped down to the tarmac, I was soaked with sweat. Hello Chennai, I murmured to myself. Combine the dry Delhi heat with Mumbai's humidity, and you have the nightmarish weather of Chennai in May.

Don't get me wrong though. I might have just trashed the Chennai weather here, but this remains one of my favourite cities, from the days it used to be called Madras.

For one thing I love the food here. No, not the idli-dosa-sambar routine. No veggie me, despite the clogged arteries. I am talking about the mouth-watering spicey fish and prawn curries, mmmm. Apart from the excellent food, I have met some really wonderful people in this city -- something I can't say about most other places I travel to.

Fisherman’s Cove

Chennai has one of my two most favourite hotels, Fisherman's Cove, the Taj property on the road to Pondicherry, the other one being Brunton’s Boatyard in Cochin ( let me not get started on that one, that will require an entire blog by itself).

Fisherman’s Cove offers an excellent view of the sea from most of its rooms, and serves the best beach barbeque you can have anywhere. This time I have business in the city, so I wouldn't be able to stay at Fisherman's Cove, but surely time can be found for a lunch or a dinner there. Despite the sweltering heat, I was in a happy frame of mind as I made my way into the airport, daydreaming about the possibility of a beach barbeque, accompanied by a very chilled glass (more likely, several bottles) of beer.

The Business of Kidney Selling

I am in Chennai as the pointsman for a BBC Scotland documentary team which is hoping to interview a few people who have sold their kidneys. Though the government of India has banned the sale of kidneys, it is a fairly well known fact in the murky world of organ trade that Chennai is the place to come to, if you are planning to buy a kidney.

Five years ago, I had come to Chennai on a similar story and stumbled upon an entire residential colony in downtown Chennai where more than 300 people had sold their kidneys. In his piece to camera, the BBC correspondent had referred to the place as “Kidneypuram”.

I intend to visit Kidneypuram over the next few days and locate few people who have recently sold their kidneys and persuade them to be interviewed on television.

Shouldn’t be tough. I have done it before. I do this for a living. As do the people who sell their kidneys, often for a final price that is far lower than what was originally promised. More about that, later.

Water Bodies

Methinks there should be a law which would allow all people born with water signs to stay close to water bodies. I am a Piscean who spent the first few years of my life blissfully close to water, living in a house practically on the edge of the beach in Port Blair, the capital of Andaman and Nicobar islands. After more than thirty years in Delhi, I have come to terms with that city of nine months of summer, but I sorely miss not living close to the sea.

I don't know about others, but in my case surely proximity to water sooothes me, calms my jangled nerves. It is my third evening in Chennai and so far I have managed to visit the Marina Beach every morning before setting out for work.

The Marina beach is the second largest beach in the world, inside city limits, that is. It is 12 kilometeres in length and at its widest point is 437 metres long.

About one hundred people died on Marina beach when Tsunami struck this beach and other coastal areas on December 26, 2004. The toll would have been much higher had the Tsunami hit in the evening instead of morning. Every evening thousands come to this beach, and on Sundays the crowds swell even more.

Me, I just love the peace and quiet of this beach in the mornings. One can just sit on the sand and watch the waves for hours. When I go back to Delhi, I think I will miss my daily trips to Marina beach the most.

Jags and Anwar

I am going to modify what I said earlier about Chennai. You don’t even have to be in Chennai to meet nice folks from there. A few (light)years ago, I met one sitting right in the BBC Delhi office. L Jagdeeshan aka Jags aka Jaggu Dada. Jags is one hell of a journalist, and an even better human being. BBC Tamil Service sent Jags to Delhi to give a sharper edge to its political coverage. He did all that and a lot more – he regaled us with his collection of Chennai jokes (some very politically incorrect ones about “Amma”).

I can’t remember the countless number of stories he has helped me with. Every time I prepared to visit Chennai, or for that matter anywhere south of the Vindhyas, he would have some valuable (and always useful) advice for me.

One of the best things Jags ever did was to introduce me to Anwar, a friend, photographer – and as I discovered this time -- a historian. Last evening I met Anwar over dinner. We talked about diverse subjects, from how politics is getting increasingly polarised on religious lines to a certain common friend’s fascination during his younger days for a leftist politician of the opposite sex. And then Anwar very casually informed me that he had been chosen to write on the Islamic history of Madras for a gazetteer on the city which was going to be published in a couple of months’ time.

Anwar is an interesting conversationalist, but very rarely – if ever – talks about his own accomplishments. So it was only after sustained and skillful interrogation on my part, he let out that a number of experts had been invited to write for the gazette, and he was among the chosen few. That was when I discovered for the first time that our man dabbled in history too.

DVD Treasure Trove

This is my last evening in Chennai. Must say it has been a most fruitful trip. Not just because I found the kidney sellers I was looking for, but because today I found a shop with the most amazing DVD collection. Hollywood, Bollywood, old classics, European stuff, Iranian movies – you name it and the fellow has it. Each DVD costs just Rs.50. Yep, just fifty bucks. Woohoo, and what a collection!

After I greedily sifted through the collection, I bought well beyond what any realistic DVD buying budget would allow. The best buy is undoubtedly two full seasons of MASH that I could lay my hands on. The miracle man (the shop owner, that is) has promised the rest of the seasons of MASH as well.

My wife is going to kill me when she finds out how much I have spent on the DVDs. If I have seen all the movies that I have bought, then I am going to die a happy man though.