Category: Around Chennai

CHENNAI: WHERE I LIVED FOR TWO YEARS

Chennai sits on India’s east coast in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.  The city was known as Madras until its name changed to Chennai in 1996.  It is a major commercial center known for its strong automotive and IT sectors, and continues to experience rapid growth.  Chennai’s Marina Beach is the longest urban beach in the world.  It made Lonely Planet’s Top 10 travel destinations for 2015, so come visit!  We live in Raja Annamalai Puram, south of central Chennai and close to the Adyar River and the beach.

Huge mango and nut trees provide plenty of shade in our yard, and the area is full of old-growth trees.  The trees in Chennai caught my attention early on.  Not just their prevalence and beauty, but the fact that development seems to work around – and not through – the trees.  Giant trees remain on the edge of the road, sometimes painted with reflection paint or preceded by a company-sponsored metal sign ‘tree ahead.’  Given the size of the trees, those warnings are definitely more for the benefit of the motorist than the tree, which would come away from a collision largely unscathed.  Large branches form arches over the roadway.  I don’t mean to give the impression that it’s like being in the forest, the endless rows of multi-story apartments and office buildings with storefronts – biryani, computer repair, grain milling, cut fruit, meter coffee, welding, produce stands, flatscreen televisions, clothes, spas, and more – never let you forget you are in the city.

Back to the neighborhood.  Produce markets and a grocery shop are within walking distance although honestly we usually don’t walk.  Sometimes I walk from the gym to the produce market but that’s only a one-block walk.  My favorite local produce shop is Lakshmi, smaller than most U.S. convenience stores but packed full of fresh tropical fruits and vegetables.  Interesting food trivia: the onions here are almost exclusively red onions.  On very rare occasion I have seen white onions, and never yellow ones.  Tomatoes sell for the equivalent of about $.25 per pound.

Our neighborhood restaurant is Sangeetha, which serves good vegetarian fare including a variety of fabulous dosas as well as satisfying filter coffee.  Sangeetha just opened a U.S. location in Sunnyvale, CA.  Relative to other parts of the city this is a decent walking area, but the roads are narrow and there are no sidewalks.  Unfortunately there just isn’t that much walking in our lives anymore, something we did on almost a daily basis in Austin.  But we do have in-home yoga class every day for an hour so that helps make up for it.

To the south Eliot’s Beach is about a fifteen minute drive away.  It is a pretty beach and the Bay of Bengal water feels refreshing, but you cannot swim – the drop off from the shore is nearly immediate and steep, and the tides are ferocious.  The fish market, adjacent to the beach but to the north instead of south, takes about twenty-five minutes by car.

Travel by car takes time because of traffic, not distance.  Since the floods the roads have worsened with painfully large potholes, and the driving has slowed even more. Of course the driving is on the left (we couldn’t bring our car even if we wanted to because the steering column is on the left-hand side). Drivers are generally friendly and cooperative, there is a lot of honking but the honking is to convey ‘here I am,’ not ‘get out of my way.’  It is a necessary part of driving because even when there are painted lanes, there are no lanes to speak of here.

Shortly before a major investor conference which was heavily promoted by the state government almost all of the major roads between the airport and conference center were re-paved with a nice blacktop and new, fresh painted lines.  I laughed out loud watching the drivers completely disregard these lines and lanes.  Apparently that is just not how driving is done here.  I have described driving in Chennai as a scrum, others liken it to a go-kart race.  You stake out your position and  hold it until you need to turn, your side mirror may get popped in by someone who comes to close, but that is all part of the deal.  Note that this is a second-hand passenger account – we have a driver and to her credit my wife drives.  I do not have my license and am okay with that.  Major intersections have traffic lights, others do not and even though there is an understood right-of-way at some intersections it is just worked out informally at others.  And then there are the motorcycles.  They are everywhere.  Motorcycles with families of five (three is the legal limit), motorcycles transporting huge pieces of merchandise being held by the guy on the back, motorcycles everywhere.

The predominant language here is Tamil.  Many people speak some English, and I am told that it is a point of regional pride that few here speak Hindi.  Between the complexity of Tamil – a Dravidian language that has been around for thousands of years – and the ability to get by without it, I have not gotten far in learning the language.  Chennai has a rich history that is predominantly Tamil but also has a significant colonial influence.  The Cholas inhabited the area from the beginning of the Common Era through around 1200 and Tamil culture flourished under the Chola dynasty.  The Christian apostle St. Thomas is said to have been here beginning in 52 CE, and St. Thomas Basilica in Chennai is one of three basilicas in the world claimed to be built over the tomb of an apostle (two others being St. Peter in Rome and St. James in Spain).  There is a sizable Catholic population here in Chennai.

The area’s jagged colonial history began with arrival of the Portuguese in 1522.  The Dutch settled north of Chennai in 1612.  On August 22, 1639, the British East India Company purchased a tract of land in the fishing village of Madraspatnam and soon after built Fort St. George, which formed the center of Madras and still sits at the center of present day Chennai.  In 1746 the French captured and held Madras for three years, then it stayed largely under British control until independence in 1947.  Just three hours by car to the south is Pondicherry, a former French settlement with a wealth of French influence and architecture, along with fantastic markets and good restaurants.  But that is another post.

Chennai is a quiet city.  It does not have the glitz or nightlife scene of Mumbai, although there are a handful of bars and clubs here.  To serve alcohol an establishment must be connected to a hotel and those tend to be much more expensive than the stand-alone restaurants.  We tend to go on weekend outings during the day, to lunch, the beach, the fabric store, and spend most evenings at home either with friends or on our own.  I have opportunities to explore the city during the week.  As an attorney I used to travel an average of almost two weeks a month and thoroughly enjoyed fabulous American bars and restaurants and very comfortable hotels in the course of my work.  I am enjoying this new way of life in Chennai.

My last comment for this page is about the people of Chennai. They have been friendly and welcoming.  There are always exceptions and no place is perfect. The people here generally try to communicate through the language barrier.  The people we interact with daily, the people we see regularly at the markets, they are nice people.  And everywhere we go people embrace children.  More than once here we have been at a restaurant when a child was ready to leave, and the waiters have come to take them back to the kitchen or otherwise entertain them to make them feel better.  Being from Texas my standard for judging “friendly” is very high (just kidding, mostly, I find people across the U.S. to be friendly overall) and it is nice that we feel like we are in a relatively relaxed  atmosphere here in Chennai.

So that is the view from 10,000 feet, so to speak, of Chennai.

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George Town is a neighborhood that lies near Fort St. George, and is where the colonial city of Madras took hold in the mid-1600s.  Today it remains a vibrant and colorful part of Chennai, where many people live, worship, and work.  Some friends took me on a walk through the main part of the neighborhood.  It started quietly on Mint Street, exploring temples and going down streets that were just starting to wake up.  It ended in a crush of people, cars, heat and exhaust on the street market at Parry’s Corner where a somber statue of King George V still presides.

 

 

Our first stop was at this temple

The Gopis’ powerful devotion to Krishna is idealized as an example of supreme, divine love.  Here Krishna has taken their clothes apparently while they were bathing and scampered up a tree with them.

Here is another, colorful temple nearby.

And a younger Krishna.

Georgetown is an area of heavy commerce.  We came across a team of workers delivering huge sacks of maida, or all-purpose wheat flour, into a warehouse.

On into the warehouse.

And here are more men hard at work.

There are many different modes of transport in Chennai.  We ran into a full-on traffic jam of cars, motorbikes, trucks, ox, push-carts, and bicycles.

You can’t see him but for his shins and feet, there is a man helping from the back.  Still a huge load of spices.

Baskets and a sack of tamarind on the way to somewhere.

A family of SIX on a motorbike.  Three and four are common, and five is regularly seen, but six was a first for me.  They were happy to have their picture taken but could not see what was interesting about this.

Some families live on the streets in George Town, and there are many apartments.  We met some lovely residents of all ages on this walk.  All of their faces and expressions told so many stories.

George Town is a fascinating place of life and action.  Its beauty reflected by its vivid colors is outshone only by the friendly personalities of its people.

I love seafood markets.  In Austin my go-to places are Central Market, Whole Foods, Quality Seafood and the seasonal offerings by Costco of Copper River salmon and Pacific halibut.  Katie’s Seafood in Galveston sits on the pier and has fresh shrimp and whole red snapper that can be cleaned any way you like it.  I always made a point to walk by the Citarella display on the Upper West Side in Manhattan whenever I could, and spent too much time looking longingly at the offerings of The Lobster Place in Chelsea Market.  I really tried to like  Maine Avenue Fish Market in D.C. while we were there.  My favorite seafood market of all time has to be Pike’s Market in Seattle, where among many other outstanding offerings, they make the best hot-smoked salmon in the world.  Here are some pictures of that happy place.

 

 

Before I arrived in Chennai I researched the variety of local fish available.  Alas, salmon – which my family loves most of all – simply is not.  Not that it was locally available in Austin, the difference here is that no commercial transportation infrastructure can bring it from points across the world to Chennai.  Depending on your point of view that can be good or bad, but at the end of the day you can be sure that what you get here will be very fresh.  Nor is the fish displayed on artistically landscaped beds of snow-white ice chips.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, either.  In the U.S. I loved the colorful presentations of whole fish, fillets, plump headless shrimp, oysters, marinated fish, steamed shellfish, the eye-candy of local, international, and prepared offerings goes on, heaven in a deli case.

To get to the Chennai fish market you drive to the center of town, and the last stretch takes you along the beach where the fishing boats are already in for the day resting on the sand.  About a quarter mile off the beach road (just under half a kilometer, I should say) is a complex of thatched stands all tied in next to each other.  There is no mistaking from the smell that you are at the fish market.  You enter through a narrow path stepping up from the street, sometimes dirt, sometimes mud.  There is barely room for two people to walk past one another on this path.

 

Tables of fish are out on both sides, and as you walk away from the beach the fish tend to get smaller, although that is not always the case.  In contrast to my favorite markets in the states, what you find here is fish, plain and simple.  Fish with the fishing line still in his mouth.  Tiny fingerling fish and big fish weighing over 20 pounds (over 9 kilograms, or “keej,” I need to teach myself).  And plenty of shellfish.  Small squid and big squid, shrimp (not shrimp, prawns here), tiger prawns, langoustines, live crabs.  The fish are proudly displayed on wooden tables and nothing else, just the fish.  If you even cast a glance with your peripheral vision the woman behind the table exclaims “fresh fresh!” and bends back the gill to show how bright red and recently alive it was.  For the seafood purist, it does not get any better than this.

 

It is openly acknowledged that the offering price for a non-local is about three times the price for locals.  I have the option to send someone local to buy for me but I just can’t stay away.  The prices are still pretty good, especially when you remember you are dealing for seafood that was swimming in the ocean just a few hours earlier.  The women – for some reason all of the fishmongers are women – are friendly and they are tough negotiators.  The prize fish here is Kingfish, locally also known as seer.  My favorite here is sankara, a close relative to red snapper, and there is a huge variety of other fish to explore.  Once you have completed your transaction you head back across the street to have your fish cleaned.

 

 

 

Across the street a row of men sit in front of huge cutting stumps, ready to clean your fish however you like it.  The cost is about a dollar for one large fish or a couple of small fish.  They are mostly friendly but can be aggressively territorial with their customers.  Not much talking goes on here.  Once you tell the cleaner how you want your fish he goes to work, and very methodically turns your whole fish into something more suitable for the kitchen.  Every now and then he will run his knife across the cutting stone to maintain the razor-sharp edge.

 

At the end of the day, however you get it, fresh seafood is just unbeatable.  That is certainly what you get in Chennai.  And as much as I still love and miss my favorite seafood markets in the U.S., I am a fan of the market here.  It is brimming with personality, always a bit of an adventure, colorful, fresh.  Everything you need and more in a seafood market.