Chennai checklist….

Chennai, India (Photo credit: sjdunphy)

Things to do before you leave chennai… Or checklist for a person to be called “Machha”

1. Have sweat it out winters here
2. Have been to sowcarpet atleast once and tried the thali
3. Tried waking across Marina  beach… Tried
4. Have been to atleast one of the multiplexes and saw a movie for Rs10 … wonly…
5. And speaking of films… have seen atleast one SUPERSTAR film
6. Lived long enough in chennai to see atleast one Rajnikant film release – and then booked a 4am show
7. Walked across Ranganathan street during festivals or first week of the month
8. Tried Murugun, Saravana, Sangeetha, Geetha, A2B and other restaurants only to realize that Idli “toh sab ek jaisa hi hai”….
9. Attended at least one Tamilian mariiage at 7 in the morning
10. Started your diwali celebration at 4am in the morning -after visiting the temple
11. ECR ride… with friends and prospective family
12. started your day with “THE HINDU“… and ended it with songs on Chennai Live
13. Strolled around in the only true multiplex EA, and then went off to Specer’s, Pondy Bazar or your neighbourhood store for purchases…
14. 15th Aug means more than independence day – its Landmark quiz @ Music Academy
15. And while we are on Music Academy – have attended atleast one concert/play there
16. Chennai style buffette – had chennai/andhra meals – with all you can eat rice and “side dishes”
17. Bhajji on the beach – and for the non-veg – grilled fish at besant nagar beach
18. Rode a Royal Enfield – Handcrafted in Chennai
19. TASMAC – hated it to the core, but still….
20. but for the quality/price seekers – got contra from Pondicherry or Bangalore – or better from your “videsh” touring friends
21. ditched the cappucinos of the world for some good “kaapi” – filter coffee
22. Ate rice all day – breakfast to lunch to dinner – idlies – dosa – utthapam – rice meals – evening tiffin – rice cakes – and still not missed the humble roti…
23. Danced to ~Gemini gemini~ or ~Apdi podu~ in clubs…
24. Missed Curd Rice in a 5-star – 7 course all-you-can-eat buffet
25. Learned the art of communicating in sign languages with domestic help (only for non-Tamil speaking junta)
26. Cursed non-tamil speaking junta for their inability to learn the language (for Tamil speaking junta only)
27. went trekking/holidaying atleast once near chennai – tirupati ranges – nilgiri ranges – coorg area – ooty region: realized there is life 120kms beyond the city in any direction (except east maybe)
28. Bought winter wear for your trip to bangalore…
29. Spent a day at Madras Race Track…

The list is endless… feel free to add more here in comments…

also see the Ahmedabad checklist:

How did it happen: Burma Bazaar

 

Pantheon Road, Connamera Hotel, Fort St George, Frazer Road… an endless list of buildings and roads remind us of Chennai’s British history. Chennai, unline other India cities does not have any pre-british historic significance. Like other british port cities (Mumbai, Kolkatta, Colombo), Chennai was established for the port with a fort at its center. Fort St. George was that anchor for Chennai. Two centuries later immigrants helped expand the city to its current shape. Like Kolkata, Chennai too has a sizeable population of trader communities like the Marwaris. Owing to its location, it also had an influx of traders from Andra. The city was a big part of the British regime in India. No wonder the first Governer of Madras was Elihu Yale, after whom Yale University is named. The City expanded beyond the Fort over year.

 

Here’s how it looked in 1921 – with the Fort at center of expansion.

Image via Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The city later expanded to take its current form.

But an interesting part of Chennai goes by the name “Burma Bazar”. While Burma has some British history, the Bazar is in Chennai for a different reason. Apparently when the Japs attacked Burma during WWII, many PIOs in Burma wanted to come back… mostly PTOs (tamil origin). The then GOI allowed them to seek refuge in Chennai where they could sell random stuff from Burma till they make decent money to start other businesses or get employed elsewhere.

Post independence, political landscape in Burma forced many PIOs to seek refuge in Chennai and Burma Bazar grew. The Bazar, which is a series of small shops along the road near beach station, is still buzzing with activity. The shops mainly sell grey market electronic goods, maybe due to its close proximity to the port. So while it is named Burma Bazar, there is nothing Burma-like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Bazaar

#burmabazaar, #chennai

Wrath of THE chennai rickshaw driver

‘Majboori ka naam Gandhi’

A popular Hindi line… Don’t know its origins …. But it means that sometimes we have are left with the most undesirable options… I finally had to face the deadly Chennai auto drivers. my bro says only two things do not need after sales service – coffins and Chennai auto meters. haven’t seen even a single soul operating on the meter here.

Ask anyone in Chennai, negotiating with an auto is the most difficult part, even for tamilians. And above that, you need to know the exact address. a lane travelled extra attracts additional Rs10 for sure.

but.. but but but….

But interesting part of the day was haggling, no… read it as shouting on autorick driver. And sort of feeling good that I gave him less than what he shouted for. But at the same time am afraid that he will keep an eye on me. His Rick is parked around my gully… need to be careful when i step out tomm…  wish me luck…

And mind you, these are not your ordinary drivers… these are Rajnikanth styled Schumaker Swamy union leaders.

In search of the perfect Curd Rice

Where do you get the best burgers, dosa, idli, samosa, panipuri, italian, chinese, thai, ice-creams, thali…. Bet you have the answers (or some one in first degree of association has). But do you know, where do you get the best curd-rice in Chennai… for that matter sabu-dane ki khichdi in Indore, daal-baati in jaipur.. guess you get the idea.

So am on an excursion, to find the best curd-rice in chennai. Help me if you can, cause its a pretty difficult task. Plus would need suggestions on how to cure bad curd-rice after effects.

A google search didnt help much, but for this fb link: http://bit.ly/aBqqTi… lets see what i discover over the weekend…

Options:

• Anjaneyar temple – Thanithorai Market
• Mathura Mount Road

Turtles…. not 1411, but still extinct

A certain type of sea turtles – Oliver riley – lay eggs on the shore near chennai. Simple biological stuff which happens with millions of other egg laying species. The catch though is, the species is an endangered one, and falls under the category,’species-1′ – for starters tigers too fall under the same class. So while tigers get ad campaigns and support from celebs – which is necessary – the turtles do not quite enjoy the support.
Every weekend a group of volunteers organise a walk along the beach to have a dekho at the wonderful creature and to also transport the eggs to a safer location.
What to save the eggs from? Dogs, birds,dirt,humans… the list is endless. However the most imp thing is to save them from lights… apparently, the new borns are programmed to walk towards light, which generally is sunlight reflected thru water. However, strong lighting near beaches makes them walk away from sea, which is not good, cause they are “sea turtles”.
Gist of story – these good volunteers overcome their fear of the unknown, walk 7kms in night and save the turtles. Nice thing to try, atleast once.
am feeling too lazy to give any links. So just google up these keywords for more info, ‘turtle walk chennai’

Coast to Coast Dash (Part 1 of 2)

What happens when you take two daringbaaz guys (who at times lose their cerebral screw), put them on a 200cc bike, give them smooth (like butter) 4 lane highways, single lane scenic ghat roads and the stamina to ride for 44 hours????

THE GREAT INDIAN EAST COAST TO WEST COAST DASH

Tushar, the bike owner- route planner cum chief driver, and yours truly, the treasurer- navigator – cameraman – and co-driver, decided to clear this to-do item from Tushar’s ‘Things to do in LIFE’. You can read Tushar’s story here. Now let’s here my story…

… It’s 8pm, phone rings (and yeah… am in the office..)

• tushar – when do we leave???
• maheep – tonight…
• tushar – time??
• maheep – by 2am

“Why would you want to DRIVE all the way to Mangalore?”, asks my colleague (and whosoever heard of the plot). “Why not?” i ask. Moreover, having worked madly for the week, one deserves a break. A break where you do not think anything, just drive and drive endlessly.

That pretty much raps up the WHY part for me. Now the details… I left office at 2am and we started from Chennai for Bangalore at 2.30am. After travelling some distance thru halogen lit chennai streets we hit the moon lit national highway. Now let me take this opportunity to thank the Indian Govt for building good roads. The road to Bangalore is simply smooth, with low traffic during night time, so we drove comfortably at >80kmp & <110kmph for the whole stretch and 60kmph for a small patch when the bike ran in reserve. We rode in turns, and stopped whenever we felt that our posteriors couldn’t handle the pain (more on that later). By sunrise, we were greeted by scenic mountains immersed in clouds near krishnagiri. A quick tea and we were off to hosur. Hosur, for the uninitiated is located in Tamilnadu and is known for the mfg facilities and proximity to Bangalore’s famous electronics city. Having said that you can guess how badly our speedometer would have travelled counter clockwise. After Hosur, it was electronics city and then bangalore city, the traffic kept getting worse. We managed our way through the ‘Bangalored Traffic’ and crashed at Santosh’s place. After a day’s long work and 350 kms, 2 hrs of sleep “banta hai yaar”. The recharge was complemented by hot Parotha’s at Santosh’s place. But to my dismay, the recharge was cutoff by Tushar’s plan to leave bangalore ASAP (btw, i’ve started to hate this word). We took a country road to reach hasan form bangalore. The road, as described in Tushar’s own words is ‘Biker’s Paradise’. This was not a commercial route, so was free of heavy vehicle and luckily potholes too. I was sleeping though out the stretch. I woke up at the end only to find that we have reached the highway. This part of the highway is WIP all the way till Mangalore. The roads converted from 4 lane to two lane to single lane (through the ghats) and no lane at all (near mangalore). The roads were bearable till the ghats. After which only the serene environment kept us motivated, coffee plantations and lush green forests in specific. Tushar drove through most of the bad roads like a warrior, but finally had to give in favour of some rest. but to my surprise, when i was in the drivers seat, the roads got better. not just that, when tushar drove next, the roads got as worse as they can get (guess i was lucky with the roads). A smal 20km stretch just before mangalore took us around 1.5 hrs to complete. The road was under construction and had hell lot of potholes. To add over that, it was raining and the vehicles passing by were splashing the muddy water all over us.

The stretch made us rethink about our return journey. We decided that we would drop our bike at mangalore and catch the next train to chennai. Atleast our body would get some rest. So anways, we somehow reached Mangalore by 7pm. Shivaditya had pretty much everything ready. Had some good hot food and medicinal brandy.

will continue the rest of the story in part 2

Chennai Autorick guide….

Having lived in chennai for quite some time… i sympathize empathize with this poor fela, but am happy that someone has come with a comprehensive guide on chennai autos….. hopefully many lives, rupees, stamina and minutes would be saved with this guide….

Zen and the Art of Hiring Autos in Chennai

Here’s a guide on how to hire an auto rickshaw in Chennai….Never ask the auto that is waiting on the stand………………Be
prepared to be ripped off…………..

http://carefullywordednonsense.blogspot.com/

Enjoy reading….

Escapade to the unkown

When was the last time you went on for a unplanned journey? Well thanks to Amir Khan (yeah u read it right… the actor), I went on an unplanned journey last weekend.

Flashaback

It’s Thursday and the watch reads 10:23pm, I’ve returned late from office and am having dinner while watching TV. Suddenly I see this new Titan ad. Aamir khan asks us to “be more”. Among a lot of other things, he asks the viewer“kabhi kissi anjaan sheher ka ticket kata ke dekho” (get urself a ticket to an unkown station). Maybe I haven’t been outside Chennai much, or maybe I desperately needed a vacation or maybe out of pure excitement, I decided to spend the weekend doing exactly this. Escapade to an unknown destination. I asked ‘mb’ (my flat mate). He gave the idea a thumbs up….

And 33 hrs later, on a Saturday morning, I’m at Henry Irwin designed railway station. We tried getting others in the adventure, but some where either busy with work or sleep. Anyways, we proceeded with our unplanned plan. A quick look at the destination chart, and we had chosen our destination. It was to be a town called kavali, 227 kms away from the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The name sounded more like the style of sufi devotional music, made popular by the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

It took some time for us to reach there ( 240 mins to be precise). Since we did not know the arrival time, we kept looking out for our station. On our way we passed thru’ a fairly big city called Nellore. And we finally reached the place. The town is a nice small sleepy one which gets active at dawn. We had lunch and then went on to explore the area. To our surprise, a beach called ramaypatnam, was just 12 kms away. We hired an auto and went for the place. The beach was amongst the best beaches I’ve ever seen. All pristine beauty. Far from all the crowd and clutter of city beaches. We roamed around the beach. And then, took an hour long nap on the beach. However, thundering clouds made us do some thinking, and we headed towards Nellore.

Nellore is famous for its food. So we tried out a pure Andhra tiffin (meal). Never ever has I eaten rice in so many combinations. There was chutney, sambhar, rasam, curry, some masala, curd, and god knows what…. But all to eaten with rice. Post meal, a Russian variety of potato extract made sure that I sleep well in the hotel. Next morning and it was already more than 24 hrs since we last saw Chennai central. But, we had more to explore. A small trip (1hr btw…) to krishnapatnam port and we realize the port is still under construction. Then a bystander came to our rescue and led us to krishnapatnam beach. Once again we were mesmerized with the beach’s sheer beauty. But, we couldn’t stay there longer,for we had to catch a train back to Chennai. We thought the escapade couldn’t get better, but we were in for some big show. The train got cancelled. We had 2 hours to kill before the next train. So we came up with this daring idea of searching any wheat based food item. Roti/chappati/sandwich/burger/pizza… we had a long list, but no where in Nellore could we find these. We had to give in and settled for dosa and idli.

And now as you are reading this, I am back in the city, in my office, in my cubicle. Waiting for another escapade.

Ps: If you go for an escapade, make sure that u hit the sack on return. And sleep for at least 8-10 hours before going to your office. Or else, you’ll end up sleeping in the office like me

a day in annaland

A day (evening to be precise) at my karmbhoomi (read “pays my bills”bhoomi)…..

its 6pm…. i got some work.. but before that, i’m on office terrace for quick snack break….
then… back to work.. and more work…. now it’s 9, and i leave for home…. i reach home only to find my roomie on his new bike….

…. but to my dismay…. he’s just checking out the bike…. (the bike belongs to Rao, the one in the background, he just gave the bike… not the keys… smart guy… )
anyways…. after dinner…. i go for a walk… although the roads are deserted by time… but this one had a special guest…. no prizes for guessing her name…


And if u culdn’t yet guess whr i am…. this road side graffiti should clear all ur doubts…..

ps: pics courtesy, my mobile cam (hence the low quality)

Sunday at Murray’s

300… 350… 400… 450… 500… 500… 500… 500… 500 One… 500 twice… 500 thrice…. Sold to the gentleman in 5^th row.

My first time at an auction, and I get a rosewood TV table (or a radio table, even the auctioneer couldn’t decide) for Rs 500. Not bad haan… Its Sunday morning, and we (read me+bansal+omkar) are sitting in Murray’s auction house. We are surrounded by at least 20 typical south Indian rosewood cupboards, 10 sofa sets, an equal number of dining table sets, antiques, chandeliers, ACs, refrigerators, chairs, beds, stamp books, antiques, wrist watches, TV, Sofa, dining table, designer mirrors, PCs, Phones, Fax machines and what not. You name it, you got it. And once the feeling sinks in, you take notice of the bidding wars going on. And if you thought the whole process was boring, think again. The auctioneer makes the process interesting with his witty comments. And if an antique is on display, he gives some gyan about the same (mostly from wikipedia… hail wiki). And there’s always the “guess the final price” game you can play.

The place is excellent for bachelors who want 2^nd hand stuff for their new house. The place is also a must for antique collectors and art lovers. But an important disclaimer: The goods are auctioned in “as it is” condition. No guaranty/warranty is offered on the goods. So it’s better that you first have a look at the items on display a day earlier.

Some tips on buying through auction (am no pro, but they’ll come handy )

1. Set your upper price limit for the goods well in advance.
2. Don’t go with a pre decided mindset of buying any specific item. Buy only if you like it and it’s below the set price limit.
3. Don’t bid aggressively. It shows that you are desperate for the item.
4. However in a one-on-one bidding situation, you have to get aggressive. But even in such a case never forget point 1.
5. Never ever forget point 1 and 2.

And even if you are not interested in buying, I suggest just try it for the experience. Moreover, you never know what you could find there.

Venue: Murray’s auction house, LIC compound, Mount Road (Nr. Spencer Plaza) Chennai

Date & time: Every Sunday 10.30pm – 4.30pm onwards.To inspect the items on display, one can visit the auction house a day before, i.e. on Saturday.

Happy buying…