चेन्नई! ऎंड व्ह्य इस मय ब्लॉगर मकिंग एवेर्य्थिंग इन हिंदी?

Lets start with a description of Chennai:

To those of you who have never visited chennai (such as me), it has been described as the worlds largest village. It has a population in excess of 7 million, and wikipedia claims that it is 70 sq miles large. Of course, a search on bangalore claims that Bangalore is 209 sq miles, which is clearly nonsense!

Anyway, back to Chennai. Chennai is a BIG CITY. Those of you who are used to big cities might say...yeah so what? But to a small town chap like me, travelling 20 kilometres every day to work is pretty insane...if you did that in Bangalore, you would be outside the city very quickly!

While a city like Bombay frequently compares itself to New York and lately, aspires to be Shanghai , it would be difficult to imagine Chennai comparing itself with, or wanting to be anything else. A visitor might justifiably think that inside this metropolis is the heart of a small town struggling to get out, but he would be wrong. It is not parochialism that characterizes Chennai; it is self-assurance (source...Wikitravel)

The above statement is actually amazingly true. The first thing you notice about the city is its lack of pretentiousness. Perhaps this self assurance is why the city does not learn other languages! :)

Now, Chennai is also a place where value is truly appreciated. From bus fares to Car prices in a showroom...here, people don't care that much about absolute price, as much as about whether whatever they are buying is worth the cash they shell out. It makes for an interesting viewpoint, especially as a marketing guy

Next, public transport in chennai:
Transport in Chennai is a cinch. Get into bus, pay the ridiculously low fare that they charge, and get off at where you want to go. Almost every area is covered, and the bus and trains systems work brilliantly. Very good indeed!

Movie Mad?
Channai is described as movie mad...and from first sight...guilty as charged. The sheer number of movie advertisements and hoardings is incredible. You cant move ten steps without hitting a cinema hoarding. And each hoarding claims that the movie concerned has broken dozens of box office records.

T-Nagar and Pondy Bazaar: A note on Sarees
This is a shopping district in Chennai which seems to mainly sell sarees. Huge fantastic buildings, each one more garish than the next, all promising to sell you sarees that are special, unique, bridal, and several words which you would not usually associate with clothing. Its the only area in Chennai which has traffic jams. And the sheer number of people buying sarees makes me believe that we must be wearing out sarees at a spectacular rate in order to justify this intake!

Last but not least: The weather.
In three words, "Hot and Humid". But from all those chaps who kept telling me horror stories, I was expecting a lot worse. Its not as bad as people say. There is a sea breeze in the evening, and while the weather is horrible, it is not unlivable! :D

So all in all, a fine and entertaining city. I am sure I have missed out a lot of things, which I will try covering in future editions, but for now, sionara!