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Most of my best memories are of Madras. But, hey, grab your tea and ribbon pakoda, get comfortable, and prepare to enter my la vie en rose.
My oldest memory is from age 1 or so. Freshly mottai, just like a group of Tirupati-bound folks a couple of doors down the street who just assumed that I was part of their goshti. A JIT intervention by the maid was required to save me from an alternate life.
An abiding memory is my grandparents' house in Nungambakkam, with its mango, guava and hibiscus trees. I once cut my foot badly while chasing a cat up the mango tree, and didn't know until I saw bloody footprints on the mosaic floor.
In that house, I played pallanguzhi with my grandmother, pumped and pulled water from a well, learned to solder electronics, build things from wood, negotiate free soan papdi.
From that house, I would walk my sister to school in Gopalapuram. It was a bit over 2 km, which can be quite the adventure when you're 8 and in charge of a 4-year-old.
Related Bombay memory: similar age, taking local train from Chembur to Wadala, unsupervised.
Related Bombay memory: similar age, taking local train from Chembur to Wadala, unsupervised.
Moving house to Gopalapuram, literally across the street from school, and having teachers send classmates home to check on me during breaks if I didn't go to school. (I had a mostly perfect attendance record most years.)
Learning to swim at the old Chola Sheraton swimming pool. Getting free nibbles at Mercara because a couple of waiters got to know me and my sister while we waited to go home to Mylapore.
Discovering that my neighbour in Nungambakkam was also my neighbour in Mylapore. Said neighbour's parents and my parents had the same wedding anniversary. Some big cities are small in unusual ways.
My grandfather would sneak me out and take me to the Woodlands Drive-in for dosai. Also a couple of other places in the Panagal Park area. He would tell my grandmother and mother we were going for a park. They always knew what he was up to. He wasn't always a nice man, though.
Trying and failing to learn to ride a bicycle for weeks with training wheels, and then, one day, getting it right quite magically, without the aids. It was a new freedom.
Going through that entirely overrated Brahminical ritual called a poonal. Discovering that my classmate and friend (with whom I share a birthday) lived across the wall, but I couldn't go and hang out because rituals.
Central Madras Bharat Scouts and Guides. Wenlock Park. Camp Tonakela in Avadi. Painting Mir Hadi Ali Kirmani's house and cleaning his motorcycle. Meeting the Don Bosco fellows long before there was #Bikang.
2 Boag Road. Which would become 3 Boag Road. Hanging out with @bigfatphoenix, @druckb and their folks. Falling asleep in their home without anyone knowing I was there, leading to a panicked search I was clueless about when I woke up several hours later.
Quizzing. The Madras Quiz. The Landmark Quiz. The Mardi Gras Solo Quiz. The North Star Quiz. Bunking school to quiz. Walking in and out of class because quiz. Bournvita Quiz Contest champions. @quizfoundation and Dr. Navin Jayakumar. AN Seshadri. @quizramana and @vembushankar.
The Landmark Bookstore, Apex Plaza, Nungambakkam. The staff would let me sit in a corner and read. My parents knew to call the store and get me to come home if it got too late. There are no more Landmark Bookstores in Chennai.
Exploring the city on bicycles teaches you more than just routes. It teaches you the best way to escape police when you're trying to steal flowers from a garden for a herbarium project. @twitortat
IIT coaching classes. Early morning and late evening. Having to leave a key with my sister at school so she could go home. Being punished with canings for saying hello to girls I was no longer allowed to be friends with. "Puberty". Fuck school. Fuck AS Ram Kalia.
#Bikang. Friends for life. Studio. Old studio. @onejubb's house. @onejubb's bike (chilling with Elvis and NSC Bose, if someone asks). Top-T. #ParabalaAsalasaw. Top-T Tuffmatch. Cuptrophy.
@onejubb Margazhi. Music season and all its Brahminical ostentation. Living two doors from Mylapore Fine Arts and listening to Maharajapuram Santhanam and T.N. Seshagopalan for free. Keeravadai at Karpagambal Mess. Pradosham at Kapaleeswarar Koil.
Sitting with @druckb and my sister at Elliott's Beach and drinking beer while watching a storm out at sea, lightning and all. A cop drove us away because it was past 11, and criminals apparently came by to dump dead bodies. Also, one gross prostitution-style insinuation. (Ugh!)
ATP Tour tennis in Chennai. BAT. TTT with @tariqakbar. Losing my racquet on the bus back home, and my dad losing his temper. Watching Leander Paes before he was Leander Paes. Knocking about with Enrico Piperno.
Recording mixtapes at Waves. Alsa Mall and Hot Breads. Dasaprakash Hotel. Museum Theatre Christmas show. British Council Library. Sathyam. Cascade. Eden.
Easwari Lending Library (E-314, I wonder if it still exists in their books), where several books were procured and read, used to have an enormous collection of porn, which used to make its way around school. They would stock them in the 'romance' section.
I recently came across a food truck on Chamiers Road that sells gentrified paneer soda for Rs. 50 a bottle. I couldn't get myself to try it. We used to get one of those and a veg puff for Rs. 7 at Damodar's pottikadai behind school. Yes, it was a long time ago.
Gopalapuram Municipal Ground doubled as a playground for our school, because we didn't have space. Many cricket matches have been played there. A less pleasant time was all the running the NCC made us do wearing starched cotton and hobnailed boots.
I learned so much about sarees at Nalli and Kumaran Stores, just hanging around because it was easier for my mother and grandmother to take me along when they went shopping.
Similarly with veggie shopping with my dad at Thanithurai market, and sometimes at Panagal Park. My dad was not very expressive at most times, but I learned a lot from him. Like the Hindu crossword, watching sports without a horse in the race, and technique in cricket.
Oh, let's not forget RathnaStoresSivaComplexRanganathanTheruMambalamRayilNilayamArugilTNagar.
My mother's cousin's wedding was on 24 December 1987. Little did we know that the original ODL would give up the ghost that morning, resulting in everyone in the family running around buying up every vegetable and flower in sight to make sure the wedding actually happens.
Speaking of giving up ghosts, I remember our teacher coming to class on 31 Oct, 1984, and telling us that school would be shut, and our parents are being informed to take us home. My grandfather came to school to take me and my sister home. It was a quiet day, no fuss, no noise.
And then, in 1991, a bomb exploded. The city, not so much. There was more violence when MGR died, though. The usual forced shutdowns of the few shops whose owners hadn't heard the news before leaving home.
There was a pretty popular cricket coach called MA Iqbal, who used to coach at our school. One fine day, we had to play against PSBB KK Nagar, and Iqbal Sir confused everyone by cheering everything on the field. It was only after the match that we learned he was their coach too.
On alternate Saturdays, our school held a havan before classes started. Middle and senior school would alternate attendance, and when the other group was at havan, first period for us was 1.5 hours long. Not fun, when the teacher was the worst math teacher in the city.
At one point, the school had taught us enough scripture that I could keep pace with vadhiyars at various functions. Apparently, this was "moral" instruction. We didn't learn jack about morality, but lots of mantras, shlokas and other such rubbish.
As everyone knows, @MumbaiCentral is one of the best things to happen to Chennai. I almost never leave Chennai without meeting her and @mdeii. (I just did two days ago, though. Extenuating circumstances.)
So, @navinrajaram reminded me that I hadn't shared a Chepauk story, so here's a snapshot of the last two balls I saw in person bowled at that stadium.
