I never thought I would ever say this
But this city I really do miss
Once the humidity grows on you and you don’t mind how the mundu rises with the temperature, it’s not so bad.
It’s the only city that I was comfortable in using the public transport. Not that that says anything about the quality of service of their public transport system but just that I did travel on buses and it gave me a kick to pay Rs. 3.50 instead of the 90 bucks I would have to shell out otherwise. Negotiating with the auto drivers is a pain but it’s not like taking a metered auto ensures a fair price either. Traffic however was easily negotiable. It is rational for a city that size to atleast have traffic like that.
The bigger the city the more there is to explore. There’s always a place to go, to see, to surprise you. The city definite had character with so much cultural zeal. Theatre, arts, music, dance, cinema. It’s not true that it’s only about classical Carnatic music or Bharatnatyam. The city churns out quite a lot of rock bands. There’s either a rock festival or a film festival or a food festival or some festival going on.
Most of all, I miss my apartment. It was the perfect little apartment on the fourth floor of an eight floored apartment in a posh colony. It was somehow always cooler than the rest of the city. It had a little balcony overlooking palm trees and gulmohar trees and neem trees and god knows what trees. It was just beautiful eye soothing greenery. The balcony has glass doors in the metal grid of which we had made little colorful patterns with glass paints. Memories that house held, so many memories, happy memories, people memories, things that happened memories.
It was an eventful year, that year in Chennai, perhaps the most eventful year in my life. I met some of the most wonderful people I know there. Some of my worst demons I faced there. Some I slaughtered, some still haunt me. I lived alone. I traveled on buses. I fell ill, lots of times. I fell on the road, once. I paid all my bills. I bought all my groceries. I cooked. I cleaned. Charlie’s little angel, I had become :D.
I can’t say if I’ve changed for the better, but I’m definitely changed.
Goodbye Chennai.