From the frying pan into the fire

Have you heard of somebody who was looking to leave cool, temperate bangalore and go to hot and spicy city of chennai in ammaland?I just had to look into the mirror…..After getting tired of the unusual rain patterns in bangalore, chennai seemed to be the perfect getaway…….and then I moved from the rainy city to a stormy city as the rains were even worse in chennai……and the sharks aka autodrivers continue to ensure that they continue to make you feel at chennai…….Thanks to them, ive become the Rs40 guy…….My place seems to be a Rs40 drive away from any other place that I want to go to……Considering the fact that my tam language skills are little better than the chances of mr.bush speaking any sense, the only thing I can tell the autowallah is “adayar gate” which is the park sheraton(which is stone’s throw away from my place).And then their eyes light up, just as the eagle’s eyes before it swoops down on to its prey…..Under the assumption that I put up at the park sheraton(the chance of which is worse than mr.bush making some sense), they start quoting rates in dollars and sometimes in pounds……but the Rs40 trick and generous usage of the word “Anna” seems to be doing the trick…….

The client’s office is pretty much over looking the beach……..and everytime I go to the loo(from where you have an eyeful of the Bay of Bengal), I wonder………I wonder about whether I would get to see a Tsunami………and live to tell the story to one of those hindi newschannels who would put even the FMCG companies to shame with their fast-moving breaking news and exclusives……..

After a fair bit of looking around, I managed to go to this fairly expensive thai restaurant which looked more like some art center…..called Benjarong……..and ordered khao pahd saprot go(which can be literally translated to “You will pay for your sins of consuming all the non-veg you miserable demon of the chicken”) in a hurry….the thing seemed different……..infact very different……..the first bite made me feel like a cow……and it tasted sweet. The prawns were hopelessly outnumber atleast 100:1 by the pineapples and the apples……this was not just fighting a losing battle but was suicidal……redemption happens in strange ways…….

Another Rs 40 trip today took me to kaaraikudi…..an amazing place that every visitor must go to when he is in chennai……for 80 bucks, you get 9 tam dishes, 2 sweets, curd and unlimited serving of rice…….Also a papad as big as your plate…..As I was not aware of this pleasant surprise, I ordered some chicken speciality……As a guy with a good appetite for new food and who did not have breakfast,I could not finish the entire thing….I had to walk down the remain stretch of dr.radhakrishna salai to the city center mall to get over the breathlessness…..And I also saw the living proof as to why Chennai is called the land of samber(if it is not, then it should be called so). The thambi in front of me mixed samber into his curd rice!!!! I think ive seen it all now…..