Chennai-First Impressions
Contrary to popular public perception, chennai is not just about hot weather,bananas,coconut trees, beaches and madrasis who refuse to speak hindi.
it s also about........about..........ah well........
After almost two months in chennai, i can add to/modify that list :
1) "HOT" weather
2) water shortage/dirty water
3) lots of bananas and coconuts
4) long clean beaches (i have yet to visit one)
5) madrasis who are trying to learn hindi (about time too)
6) good traffic sense (far better than mumbai....you'll find traffic policemen at every signal,junction and street corner actively managing traffic.....in mumbai this happens only when a minister or some big shot visits)
7) Clean Streets (a complete contrast to aamchi mumbai)
8) well disciplined people
9) overcharging autos (there is no meter system here......autos charge as they deem fit......say if you need to got to a place 1 km away, one auto will quote 50 bucks while another one barely 5 meters behind him will quote 20!!!!!!!!!............so bargaining helps - and thats where the next problem comes in)
10) language problem- im not contradicting point no 4. its just that apart from the numbers, madrasis have still a long way to go as far as the national language is concerned.......even the limited hindi they speak is difficult to decipher because of the inherent tamil accent........so lesson learnt ....learn tamil to survive in chennai)
11) big shops.........believe me a single sarvana store can compete with any of our malls in terms of number of products and size. there are almost 10-15 such shopping complexes in my area... and god knows how many more all over chennai..the biggest of them being spencer plaza which i can safely assume to be almost as big as our crossroads and r mall put together, if not bigger.
12) all in all. its a city which was very traditional,dull and slow... and is now on the threshold of being a truly cosmo city like mumbai of delhi.my bet is that in probably 2-3 years time it will be developed enough to truly deserve the tag of being one of the four metros of India.
maybe i have missed a few points here which i will post as and when i remember but this is as much as i can think of.
it s also about........about..........ah well........
After almost two months in chennai, i can add to/modify that list :
1) "HOT" weather
2) water shortage/dirty water
3) lots of bananas and coconuts
4) long clean beaches (i have yet to visit one)
5) madrasis who are trying to learn hindi (about time too)
6) good traffic sense (far better than mumbai....you'll find traffic policemen at every signal,junction and street corner actively managing traffic.....in mumbai this happens only when a minister or some big shot visits)
7) Clean Streets (a complete contrast to aamchi mumbai)
8) well disciplined people
9) overcharging autos (there is no meter system here......autos charge as they deem fit......say if you need to got to a place 1 km away, one auto will quote 50 bucks while another one barely 5 meters behind him will quote 20!!!!!!!!!............so bargaining helps - and thats where the next problem comes in)
10) language problem- im not contradicting point no 4. its just that apart from the numbers, madrasis have still a long way to go as far as the national language is concerned.......even the limited hindi they speak is difficult to decipher because of the inherent tamil accent........so lesson learnt ....learn tamil to survive in chennai)
11) big shops.........believe me a single sarvana store can compete with any of our malls in terms of number of products and size. there are almost 10-15 such shopping complexes in my area... and god knows how many more all over chennai..the biggest of them being spencer plaza which i can safely assume to be almost as big as our crossroads and r mall put together, if not bigger.
12) all in all. its a city which was very traditional,dull and slow... and is now on the threshold of being a truly cosmo city like mumbai of delhi.my bet is that in probably 2-3 years time it will be developed enough to truly deserve the tag of being one of the four metros of India.
maybe i have missed a few points here which i will post as and when i remember but this is as much as i can think of.
posted by Vishal at 4:28 AM
3 Comments:
I feel that you've not explored Chennai better. Else no way on the earth would you say that Chennai is clean and has got disciplined population.
I think
- You have not seen the Ranganathan Street (The one stop shop in TN)
- You have never been on the sides of a stationery bus where the ones sitting inside split out caring very little about those moving along the side of the bus.
- You've never seen the auto wala on a 'No entry' route cursing those coming in the right direction.
But if you see it is still better than Mumbai... then God Save Mumbai
Hi Vishu,
Thnk u havin grt time over thr..
Looking forward for ur next post and yup hope tat is in MADRASI..
Hi Vishal,
Check out more on Chennai here.
http://chennai.metblogs.com
Regards
sRi
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