It is not even the height of summer here, but yet I feel i am going to melt away. The heat and humidity is so much in Chennai that you can literally feel yourself getting dehydrated. Sitting directly under the ceiling fan has no effect. It is end of April, the famous ‘Agninakshatra’ – a period of 25 days which also marks the hottest days in Chennai with day time temperatures touch mid 40’s. Throw in the near hundred percent humidity and you can as well imagine how hell would be.
In my school days, the summer time was the most anticipated time for us – it meant days and days of cricket. We even played 5 day test matches 😀 . Be it mid-day or early morning or the not-so-cool evenings, cricket was in our minds. We used to play starting at 10 in the morning until 1 or 1:30 in the afternoon until the burning need for food exceeded the temperature outside. A quick lunch followed by a waiting period – becos my mom would surely kill me if i ventured out again, it was bad enough I played all morning. The next session could only start at 3 in the afternoon. This happened to be the most difficult period to play, barefoot as we were, the ground would be unbelievably hot for us to stand for seconds at a strech. This made the game far more interesting as the fielders are all jittery, the batsman is moving around the crease and the bowler ever so eager to bowl.
Isn’t is strange ? “As children we welcomed the sun as it meant summer holidays and days of cricket, as adults we despise the summer as it meant searing heat, sweaty days, sweatier nights. As children we loved roaming around in the sun, as adults we are in constant search of shade or the air-conditioned room to cool off”. Nothing has changed. Yes nothing definitely has changed ( NO you global-warming-greenhouse-effect-worldisdoomed-polaricecap melting- supporters go away and read something else or sit around in circles and talk about your impending death when the Bay of Bengal visits your home)
The energy sapping heat that chennai is famous for makes life very miserable.
But this is a place where I have lived for so many years and have got used to living in this hot and humid conditions. The heat is one of the reasons why millions of people make a beeline to the famous Marina beach, the second longest beach in the world. The cool see breeze is a relief to many. People in Triplicane, Mylapore are blessed with the sea breeze every evening, not so much for us unfortunate people in far away areas of K.K.Nagar and Virugambakkam.
Chennai is famous for many reasons. First and foremost is for the heat and humidity. North Indians and foreigners have made it famous for Idly, Dosa Sambhar. Though in interior Tamilnadu you would find better Idly and Sambhar than in Chennai. As a city Chennai is filled with immigrants from all over the country. Goto sowkarpet and you would thousands and thousands of North Indians settled there. Keralites have long since blended into Chennai. T.Nagar still has Telugu speaking people. Goto pallavaram and nearby areas you might come face to face with people who speak ‘Madras Telugu’, I do not have a name for their language, but they still follow some Andhra traditions but their telugu has long since lost the charm of their native language is now mostly tamilized telugu. You can also hear different forms of the Tamil itself, from coimbatore to Tirunelveli and not to forget the famous Chennai tamil and the local Tamil with words from slums added to spice it up.
It is a city ever stuck in transition. It has long been seen as a city becoming modern but still has managed to retain its heritage. Come December and the tamil month of ‘Margazhi’, all the sabhas of the city will be filled with the sound of music – the carnatic. All artits young and old, famous or not do their bit, the veenas and violins are out and the entire city is filled in the carnatic festival. I have seen people travel the length of the country to Chennai just for the Music season in december.
It also used to be a base for Tollywood and Kollywood before Hyderabad came up with its own set of studios. The people of chennai do have a lot of fighting spirit and do tend to adjust a LOT. Be it with the sahara like climate or the acute water shortage which makes them run around streets to fill up plastic pot after pot of metro water, or the water logging in roads even for a miniscule shower (The rain water drain is a non-existent system, authorities assume that the Sun would dry up the water in any case, so why bother with drains? ) The red clayey soil makes life little bit interesting. I have a lot of happy memories of cycling down roads filled with knee deep murky water to reach school. Those were days me, vivek, Gopi and karthik enjoyed a lot.
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