Episode 74 : City of binding sights

In the ten years I lived out of Madras, my arrival to the city was almost invariably by train. When the train trundled past the Basin Bridge Junction, when advertisements of M.A. Jacob, The Carpet People, painted on the rear walls of houses by the railway tracks stared back at me, I knew I had arrived.

The first sight I always recall of Madras is the Central railway station. The brick-red Indo-Saracenic structure with its large clock tower, the people milling out of the station and the car that pulled by the exit so that we could get into it and go home.

Home. That was another journey in itself. A 30-odd kilometre journey that took us past familiar buildings in the city. Most of the journey was through Mount Road and I could see the Higginbothams store in its slumber after a hard night's work. And the movie hoardings opposite the Safire theatre and the Gemini flyover.

Higginbothams faces stiff competition from Landmark. Movies are not screened at the Safire anymore. But the hoardings are still there; only more colourful. The Gemini flyover later acquired an extension through which you could drive down and go to T. Nagar or Nungambakkam.

When you think of T. Nagar, you automatically think of Pondy Bazaar and the things you could get. The Panagal Park market for fruits and vegetables. And later, T. Nagar became the place where I used to go to attend school.

The arch at Saidapet that never made sense till I understoond TN politics. The SPIC building with the glowing face of a happy farmer. The road bridge past Guindy; now larger and wider. The Nehru statue at Kathipara junction; now moved aside to make way for a two-tier (or so they say) flyover.

The domestic and international airports. Then sleepy, but now so busy that the state government is building a flyover there so that traffic doesn't build.

The railway gates on the last mile that were there for years. A necessary evil and the bane of my punctuality. But in a couple of years, they will cease to exist...

The less you see the less you know
The more you find out as you grow
I knew much less then than I do now

The first three years in Madras were spent in denial. I did not appreciate leaving my friends behind and travel to a land I visit only during holidays. And holidays showed me that the place where I would stay doesn't have people of my age that I could be friends with.

Then I started exploring the city. And I found something new each time. T. Nagar, Mount Road, Nungambakkam, West Mambalam, Egmore, Mylapore, Triplicane. The list slowly grew each year, and every year Madras made sure I found some thing new, or some place new.

Around the time when this century started, a schoolmate sent an e-mail that had incredulity all over it.

"I heard Madras is changing! That young men zip around in motorbikes with mini-skirt clad girls holding onto them tightly. Is it true?"

Neon heart, day-glow eyes
The city lit by fireflies
They're advertising in the skies
For people like us

Malls, coffee shops, movie theatres, they were always there. But now in a different avatar. With landscaped areas by the side of roads. Parks in places I have never seen before. Flyovers to make up for the solitary one at Gemini for many years.

And I miss you when you're not around
I'm getting ready to leave the ground

No matter where I go, how long I stay there or how much fun I had, there is a palpable excitement when I return home. When I see the language script that is familiar, even though it is not native to me.

Which reminds me of an incident that happened the last time X-girlfriend and I were at her place in the distant west. I was on the phone, getting directions to somewhere when two guys on a bike pulled up beside us to get directions to go somewhere else.

The bike was registered at Madras. X did the needful while I continued on the phone. After completing the call I wanted to find them to know where they were from. All this excitement when I left Madras only the day before!

Madras began to change in the really-late 90s. It is not the same as in other metropolitan cities, but my Madras is growing up.

Time... won't leave me as I am
But time won't take the boy out of this man
Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of binding sights.