Hasty Notes from inside a Bus- The Story of My Home

They say Bombay and Bangalore are India's busiest and most exciting urban cities. Even if that were true, I couldn’t give up my love for Chennai and its semi-active life. Life has gotten better since I began travelling around the city on my own, be it by train or bus. I seem to enjoy the city a bit more than I used to which, lucky for me, helps me cope with the mundaneness of everyday life. Apart from its general reputation for cleanliness, and affordability, there is something about this city that is so endearing to me, perhaps because I’m a child of it.

Like every afternoon, I took the MTC bus at the Meteorological Department bus stop. The bus wasn’t as crowded as it usually is, so I took a seat on the left side. I plugged in my earbuds and looked out the window.

Somewhere beyond the stretches of the bustling Mylapore roads is the Ramakrishna Mutt temple I go past everyday. The temple is squeezed between a school and a couple of busy shops. A spiritual silence among the common hustle. I shook myself from my haze and sat up for some reason I still can't figure out. A man stood behind his tiny tea shop’s counter and artfully poured a huge jar of milk into another cup, possibly to cool it, at a height from which if I were to pour, I would’ve surely bathed myself in milk. The unusual white colour of the liquid seemed brighter than everything else in its periphery. The next stop from it was one close to yet another cramped street, right next to one of Chennai’s most popular fruit shops. The simple font of Pazhamudir Nilayam presented itself proudly in bright yellow among the chaotic splash of colours of smaller, possibly messier street life around it that reminds one of an 80s Tamil film.

A little past the street, the bus took a right to a narrow road where every vehicle dawdled. An empty little shop had a man meticulously kneading dough though there were no customers. He seemed to be in his own little world, who knows, whether of dreary or duty? The other shops had their shutters closed, but he didn’t. As if watching a scene in a movie, the bus slowed down and I noticed a soft light falling on just the side where he was standing, giving it almost a cinematic appeal. Or maybe it was just my innocent attempt to romanticise the simpleness.

Chennai has so much to give that we don’t notice. Everything I’ve ever known, everything I’ve ever loved. The thick forests of MCC past which, if you ride the bike anytime after sunset, a chilly wind will caress your face, the quiet and empty railway stations before the rush hours where the world slows down for maybe a few minutes, the Bessy Beach and the limitless snack stalls, the absolute chaos of T Nagar roads.

I remember sitting on the train with a curly-haired girl opposite me. She was wearing the prettiest watch I’ve ever seen with a prism-like design on the dial. It must be expensive, I thought. The iridescent dial reflected all sorts of pinks and blues that I watched for a long time before I built up the courage to tell her I thought her watch was pretty. She leaned toward me with a grin on her face and said, “you know where I got it from?” I shook my head. “I bought it from a roadside vendor in Ranganathan street,” I laughed at the irony of it.

Ranganathan street. One of Chennai’s most crowded streets in T Nagar that harboured rows and rows of shops selling just about anything, starting from knock-off iPhones to cheap kitchen sets for kids, managed to fool me with its common richness. But there's more to this street than just its variety. The interesting traditions and histories that this city carries with it, blows me away every time.

Sometimes life throws opportunities at you that become crucial parts of what shape you into who you are. A few years ago I set out to explore the history of Madras owing to a History project to discover the difference between pre and post independent Madras. You never really know how much you’re going to love someone or something until you get the chance to spend a whole day with just that. I never knew the value of the stories the city had until I spend a day learning about her. I had taken her too much for granted. Like we always do our mothers.

The old hidden passageway to the original Connemara Library leads to the detailed conical ceiling sheltering the heart of the structure where one can see a magic door hiding books from the past with its fragile yellow pages and worn-out hardbound covers. The awe-striking Churches from colonial times, the beaches spreading across the coastline, the popular ones, the quiet ones, and the private ones belonging to beachside cafes and resorts.

The quaint little Old Curiosity Shop situated in the busy streets of Mount Road that once sold all things Indian that the British were curious about now sells all things antique that Indians are fascinated by. The Spencer’s Plaza built in the 1800s, and reconstructed in 1991 was one of the most popular haunts when my mother was a young adult. The mall that I, as a child, once saw bustling with people, now only lives with ghosts of those memories. The old theatres long shut down used to project black and white films for all to see. The carefully designed Indo-Gothic architectures that once saw fancy balls, dark prisons, and British officers walking about in their halls, now stand as silent historians with stories from centuries ago that you might just catch a glimpse of if you walked in them.

There's so much to see that maybe even other cities have, but nothing beats the feeling of strangeness in the familiar; a place, a person, a concept you’ve known all your life but not quite fully discovered, or understood. All it takes is an attempt to shift the perspective.

We are so inconsequential in this vast expanse of the universe. Our inconsequential nature often reminds us of how much we have to explore in our short lives, and maybe, just maybe, our home is our starting place.