THE "CHENNAI" BASH
M y grandpa used to take me to the
So yes, this is going to be an all-out
pessimistic rant. If you don’t like a rant
about your favourite city, you might as
well move on to the next article. Okay,
for those of you who have chosen to
stay, let's establish a few things first.
Drive-in Woodlands on Saturdays.
There, we used to have Chole Bhature,
followed by an ice cream. Then, I’d get
on the swing and would go up in the air
shooting toward the blue sky,
impervious to the harsh reality of life
preparing itself to snatch me in the air.
That was 17 years ago.
First of all, I can safely assume every
one of us right now in college was born
post-1996, so none of you used the
name Madras until it became cool, so
stop using the fake ‘Madrasi Da’ shit.
Now, Semmozhi Poonga stands where
Woodlands once stood. Where once
innocent laughter could be heard, you’ll
hear cheesy lines from stalkers; where
once creepers used to crawl, now creeps
reign, where one used to get the fresh
smell of filter coffee, you’ll get the
pungent odour of dead moss. A beloved
childhood memory now tarnished by a
not so welcome change.
None of us were even born in Madras;
we are officially Chennai-tes.
I was born and brought up in
CHENNAI, and I’m only going to talk
about how CHENNAI has changed,
not MADRAS. I’m not going to speak
about things I don’t know about. With
all of these things pre-established, let’s
move onto the Chennai bash.
A wise person once said, “Somewhere
between the heat of Chennai and the
warmth of Madras, we all grew up.” A
lot has changed in our city, right from
its name to its people, and most of these
changes, for some reason, just don’t
seem to agree with me.
My life literally revolves around the
Gemini circle. With every passing year,
chunk by chunk, some or the other
aspect of it is being replaced.
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