the city

This is the problem with human beings. They lack definition. We need a country, religion, society to identify us. Otherwise, the problems with nationality, or that we oh-so-proudly call identity will never arise.
And this is hilarious, because we need and reject it at the same time. That’s true at least for me.

This city warms up to me gradually. Perhaps the sentence should be the other way around. I grow to be fond of it.
I remember thinking at the beginning, how reckless and...unsophisticated it is to let cows, chickens, and what-nots meandering loosely on the streets. I remember cursing the multitude of people waiting for entry into a roadside temple that caused me an extra ten minutes under the heat, inside an auto, with a wafting smell of an amalgamation of things (which I have begun to be able to split: five, six smells into one!) attacking my nostrils.
Chennai to me then was, in short, an oh-so-chaotic, oh-so-uncivilised city. I look at people as if it’s way beyond me to even try to communicate. The reason was not language barrier. You don’t go that deep on first impressions. It’s more the way they dress, and carry themselves.
Not impressively dressed, official-looking people…these are people who clutch their purses or small leather bags to their chests (I remember also, scoffing to myself when a lady takes out money wrapped up in a handkerchief to pay for her shopping), and not really caring how they look. Not because they don’t want to, I guess, there’s just simply no time.

And then everything starts to be beautiful. It’s beautiful because the city shares with you its most candid secrets. And it doesn’t require you to do anything either. Just sit back and look. And you’ll be amazed at everything. The freshly drawn kolams in the morning. The little temples around the corners. The flower girls and the small shops selling coconuts in front of them. The smell. The often hilarious billboards on shops. (My father pointed out to me that ‘hotels’ in Chennai sometimes means ‘restaurants’. I strongly contradicted him at the time, but it’s true...and amusing.)
Even the ‘blow horn’ sign at the back of almost every car.

What does that make me? I don’t know. But such a feel of familiarity doesn’t grow out of nothing, and it’s got to count for something.