Cheers Chennai...

Last week had been hectic working in Chennai, the shift timings and the enormous tasks that I had ahead in front of me. However, I did enjoy the comfort of a cosy guest house, a private cab, and some wonderful people over there. I was a little apprehensive when I left for Chennai, thinking about how things would be there, the people, the travel, the food, the weather, and the language ofcourse. “Yeh flight aagey Madurai jayegi kya” (will this flight go ahead to Madurai?) asked me a fellow passenger in the flight, to which I had replied “haan shayad” (yes, I guess), and that was the last time I used Hindi on that day and for rest of the week. As soon as I landed on the airport there, a gentle-heated-breeze flew across my face and indeed it was a warm welcome. Out on the streets, after taking a pre-paid taxi, it was fun finding out the way to the guest house, the driver couldn’t understand me and vice versa. This repeated for the whole week with all the drivers that I traveled with, using hand signs to tell them the directions, asking them to stop, I sometimes felt that I was shooting for movie “Black” – conveying messages using hands, it was fun though and I often ended up laughing, smiling, giggling at myself. While going to Chennai, I was thinking what kind of place, what am I going to take back from here. But there were few things I was gathering to take back, at least when I am alone I can laugh to myself remembering of the above activities. Though there was something coming more, least expected, and that incident would go down as one of the most cherished moment in my biography.

The week finally ended after tight schedules and it was now time to rejuvenate with some weekend masti on Friday night. I was joined by two of my local friends and they short listed some of the best places for their guest (me that is .. heee heee heee) to unwind with some music and beer. We finalized on one spot and rushed to it (11pm is last order in Chennai, officially ofcourse…I missed Mumbai at this time) so that we get enough time to enjoy, I heard some music oozing out as the door opened and closed, relief – some English music at last (I had ruled out Hindi quite obviously). Like every time, I started to walk confidently through the door, greeting the gatekeeper with a smile, but he stopped me…how dare he, I thought, no one ever in Mumbai or Pune did that, on the contrary I have always walked inside a bar, restaurant, pub, disco with some huge fellow saluting a tiny chap like me. This stunned two of my friends as well, they spoke to him in Tamil asking him what the matter was, is the restaurant closed but its not 11 yet, and so on. The gatekeeper, a massive man that he was, humbly replied pointing at me “age proof saaaaarrrrr (sir) for this boy”. And all three of us broke into laughter, so much so that one of my friends sat on the floor holding his stomach. I also felt so much pity for that poor gatekeeper that my entire ego (when he had stopped me) had vanished. The gatekeeper gave some stern looks to us and stood there gazing in confusion. “Baassss (boss) he is not a kid, he is a married man” said one friend and continued laughing. The gatekeeper was feeling a little shy now, his face showed. I slowly composed myself, removed PAN card from my wallet and showed it to the gatekeeper, he got more confused and rapidly moved his eyes from my face to my photograph on the PAN card, and then he looked at the card more closely to check the birth date. After he was thoroughly convinced at I was 18+ he let us in. We all finally entered still laughing and almost coughing by now, weekend had started we said, what a fun.

“I bet nobody can tell your correct age”, said the other friend who finally started talking after that hilarious laughter storm. “Yeah, I know”, I replied.

“Seriously man, no one can ever understand your age by just looking at your face”, the friend continued.

“Hmmm….I know that too and I don’t use Santoor soap either…haa haa haaa haaa”, I said. We continued laughing again at lower decibels this time, and started sipping on our beer. What a way to end the week and the Chennai trip.