Of Earth and water: Chennai takes great pride in what it is

The sight of a beached olive ridely turtle however consumes my attention. Stranded on the shore, this ancient mother couldn’t make it back to the seas by night. Crows yarak above her and flies impatiently hover beside her. She was born on this beach. She seems reconciled to die here.

As the sun rises, the activity on the beach increases tempo. The yoga group on the beach — attended by maamis with dupattas tied around their waist and men with hitched up lungis — throws itself into the deeper stretches. The elakki banana seller, wearing leopard-print earmuffs (to keep out Chennai’s December chill), cranks up the volume of his radio. The man plying cornflakes, piles sugar into cups.

On the way back, I stop and take photos of the elaborate kolam designs made with rice flour. Drawn on the thresholds of homes this is street art at its finest. With a flick of the wrist and the swerve of the hand, women dressed in maxis with a towel decorously thrown over the front, draw patterns at their doorsteps early in the morning. These geometric lines house parrots and lotus, flowers and ambis that sparkle with the whimsies and pride of its creators. A young girl with a comb stuck in her long hair rushes to her doorstep when she sees us pause to admire the art work. “Very beautiful kolam,” my father tells her appreciatively and she bursts into a large smile and a thank you.
Coming from Delhi, this is an extraordinary morning for me. But in Chennai this is every morning.

December is the time when Chennai reaches its zenith. Visitors flock back to the city and crash with relatives endlessly, NRIs run a house here just for the winters. Kanjeevaram sarees rustle, diamond and gold ornaments shimmer, and music fills the city’s many venues. The Margazi is a music and dance festival like none other.

With the flood ravaging the city in early December, there were critics who believed the festival should have been postponed, if not cancelled. TM Krishna, the most articulate detractor, wrote in a weekly magazine, “The plain fact is that holding such an event in the context of this “once in a century flood is a vulgarity.” While there were a few cancellations, the Margazi did go on.

I am in no position to comment on the calibre of the musicians, the response of the rasikas or the economics of the festival. But the fact that are over a thousand dance and music programmes are being held in a single city over a month’s time, reveals much. It tells us that art is not an event in Chennai, it is organic and intrinsic to it.

I remember a few years ago going to buy vegetables and then walking into a community hall, near an ashram for the elderly. The details escape me. But here in an unpainted hall, packed with plastic chairs (and possibly senile listeners) an acclaimed Carnatic musician was belting out numbers for the neighbourhood. Chennai is exceptional because the arts make up the everyday. Where else would this be possible? Where else do drawing room conversations centre around the merits of Sanjay Subrahmanyan vs TM Krishna, or the changing repertoire of Malavika Sarukkai or the rising stars of the classical arts?

While “authentic” is a word that is problematic in all too many ways, it befits Chennai. This is a city that takes great pride in what it is. Delhi and Mumbai are often pitted against each other. But Chennai will have none of that, because it refuses to partake of that contest. Because it knows that it is different, not better. It is no surprise that Chennai and “simply” are often uttered together, because this is a city wonderfully devoid of pretension.

I do not pretend to know this city fully. This is not my elaka. I lived here for a few years as a child and then as a student of journalism. As a 10-year-old, Madras meant blue and white school uniforms, doughnuts bought from Hot Breads (and eaten at Elliot’s Beach); Bharatnatyam classes at Kalakshetra (which I gave up to watch MASH), Saturday movies at the Gymkhana (ET was the ultimate favourite), star gazing from our terrace in Adyar (shooting stars thrilled us to bits) and holidays to Bangalore and Kodi, Kerala and Ooty.

As a student of journalism, our enthusiasm smote our failings. My classmates and I knew neither the language nor the customs of the city, we were more familiar with butter chicken than sorra puttu (shark mince). Every batch of students chronicled the detectives of Mount Road, accompanied the police one their daily patrols and ascended the lighthouse at Marina Beach. And we all thought we were the first to do any of the above. But Chennai was a good city to students a decade ago. The front row at Satyam cost Rs 10. Lunch at Vasanta Bhawan was less than Rs 50. We ate vadas and pongal every breakfast at the Mallu store. We once found a dead cricket in our food. The owner shook his head, replaced our plate, and the morning went on just as before I have never earned a living in Chennai, never set up a house here, nor navigated it on my own. I know it through vignettes and in moments, and often see it through the eyes and experiences of family and friends. People accuse it of being parochial and conservative, Brahamical and snobbish, and there is truth in all of that. But having lived in Delhi for nearly 15 years, I find the Capital a place of fire and air, whereas Chennai is all earth and water.

It is now the city where my parents reside. And where relatives send patrams of food — crab masala for lunch, pork curry for dinner and almond-lemon cake for tea. For all of us who live alone in distant cities, the coordinates of home are favourite foods and the murmur of familiar conversations. It is here we come to rest, to recoup, before we return to the busyness of our lives. But we will find comfort in the fact that the sun will rise once again at the beach and that the olive ridley turtle will lay her eggs, paddle back to sea, only to return to the Chennai’s shores once again.

Nandini Nair is a Delhi-based journalist