Chennai: Take it OR Leave it!

I recently had a mini trip to Chennai on the pretext of a cousin's wedding. Well, the hidden meaning of course was a loud, extravagant reunion of sorts among relatives, family friends and others! Personally, I am an ardent lover of South Indian weddings. I mean I thoroughly enjoy the bling, the glamour and all the gossip behind the screens. However, attending this function was a big concern to me considering my existing "Chennai is yuck" kind of an attitude and "Geee....I'm never going to Chennai" mindset.

Nevertheless, I did make it in one piece to the city and to the function. But as I spend those two days in that frying hell, I couldn't help but notice every little thing that's a part and parcel of Chennai. Starting from the railway station, to the taxi/auto drivers; they are real specimens to observe! Trust me. I still remember rambling myself out of the super crowded Chennai Central station and suddenly found myself surrounded by atleast a million drivers waiting to take me on. "Amma enge ponum?", "Amma taxi venuma?"...when my grey cells managed to understand all these one-liners simultaneously at light speed, I looked up and said with a smirk, "Vandam". However, the minute i asked them directions to the car park, they all fleeted away in a jiffy as though I was a ghost waiting to pig out at them.

And even weirder are the people (only those that I encountered during my stay so ignore the generalization). I mean they take their own sweet little time to scan you upfront when you are introduced. I understand it as a mere expression of "Oh, look at her/him! Where has she/he come from?". Before I start sounding like an absolute complaint box, I have met blokes of this nature everywhere but what sets the Chennaites apart is the funny way they do this act!

Despite the pot boiling heat, the meter-less auto rides, the trying to shoo away cows and buffalos from the middle of the road, the unbeatable and over-filling kalyanam saapadu, the lavish glittery silk sarees and the conveniently uptight veshtis, the not so clean yet loved beaches, the endless idlis, dosas and upmas, Chennai is a unique place after all. I mean for a nothernized Tamil brahmin like me, it turned out to be a pleasant (seriously) surprise and a refreshing outing from the usual metro fun and frolic. At the offset, all those (including me) who often under-estimate this city for obvious reasons, could well be charmed by the warmth and "being loved" feeling that one gets here.

What Women Want?

Finally i got myself to start blogging and as my first blog, I'd like to share the tiny piece of writing that won me some good appreciation and kudos on the recent Women's day!

Read with a pinch of salt!


Oscar Wilde once quoted: “Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood”.

When I first read the flyer from the TED team on this pretext, my eye balls froze on the three golden words: WHAT WOMEN WANT! I call them golden for the mysterious aura they create when pondered over, just as the way women truly are. Mysterious. Well, as a young woman myself, I can hardly deny the fact that we Venusians personify the word.

It took me a while and I hemmed and hawed before accepting that yes, women are complex souls but definitely not confused. We want to be loved, BUT not to the extent that emulates a melodramatic Yash Chopra re-production; We want to be protected, BUT don’t really expect our better halves to do a superman plunge; We want to be buried in gifts, BUT only the kinds that we love to endorse. While women, more often than not, know what they really want out of every miniscule circumstance they are in, they are seldom open about their thoughts. Hence, the complexity.

Time and again people have debated over why women are this way and that. While women love to bask in the glory of their acclaimed prowess, they bravely acknowledge and accept the ‘too complex’, ‘hard to interpret’ and ‘not understandable’ accusations from men. With deliberate efforts in penning down some unbiased thoughts, I personally see this as a “Self Viewpoint” disorder among both men and women. I have often noticed both the sexes deriving and interpreting situations through personal outlook and perspective with convenient neglection of the other person’s point of view. The direct consequence of such encounters is nothing but assertions on both the sections of being crazy and difficult. If men argue that women are complicated, I counter-argue that men are impossible! If women cannot be understood then they should definitely not be mis-understood.

With long proven theories and endless validation of stories, one thing is certain. Men and women want and expect different things from different scenarios. They are wired differently and simply adhere to their natural behavior of counter-arguing to prove their point. While both know what they really want, they clearly do not realize what the other wants! This verbatim clash of the sexes has flourished over several centuries and the “You are complicated” battle has managed to survive through the tides of time. As an after-thought, its high time people (men+women) rose above such petty mis-quotes and looked together towards a broader horizon of possibilities and encounters.