Chennai'D

Chennai’D

My first impression of Chennai was that it was very similar to Paris.

Paris?? Did I hear it right?

One might wonder what is common to a ride along the Champs-Elysees and a walk on the Mount Road? Well nothing in common between the two places as such, after all what could in common between one of the most ordered places in the world and one which is one of the most hap-hazard in the Asian region. Doesn’t every Auto rickshaw driver think that he is the natural choice to replace Michael Schumacher in formula 1?

Well among the IT destinations Chennai or Madras as it was known in the olden days is the least preferred. Friends of mine always preferred Bangalore or even Hyd to Chennai. Their common concern is the lack of friendliness of the local population in Chennai. What they don’t realize is that Chennai folks are as friendly as any other place in the world. What sets the Chennai people apart is like the French, is that the Tamilans are big time linguists. We can call it their second French connection, the first being Pondicherry.

The French are one of the most tolerant people in Europe. If we look at the composition of the French team in the recently concluded World Cup, it was dominated by people of origins other than French. The likes of Zidane, Karembu, Henri are naturalized French and not of French origin. The only Indian in the world cup Vikash Dhorasoo was also on the French national team.

Now who is the biggest phenomenon in Tamilnadu after Jayalalitha well it’s our own “Mottai Boss” Sivaji Rao Gaikwad the ‘Talaiva’ aka Rajnikant

Rajnikant is not a Tamilian; he was a Marathi bus conductor in Bangalore who made it big in Tamil cinema. So why do people down south love him so much? Well more than the combination of his charisma and association with the common man, the fact he speaks Tamil has endeared him to the masses. Other famous non-Tamilian residents include Kushboo, Simran, Prakash Raj, Robin Singh, and Hemang Badani among others. So I realized they were more open to non-Tamilian who could speak Tamil than to Tamilian like yours truly who could not speak Tamil all that well. This is clearly the pattern in France where you’re French as long as you can speak French.

In the US IT professionals have created a term when they lose their job to outsourcing, they call it ‘Bangalore’d’. Going by that nomenclature I have taken the liberty to describe the love that the residents of this state share with their non-Tamilian guests who have been here for along time accepted as a part of their culture, they simply love this place. I simply call it ‘Chennai’D’.

So till you pick a bit of Tamil it will take a while to get Chennai’D