second weekend: was in the best city in the world! best, for me! reached early morning after a bumpy deccan air flight! the plane taxied and very few passengers were in a hurry to reach the doors and get down. in the conveyer belt area, could not see anyone elbowing one another to reach the starting point of the belt. no one dodged the other! no one rushed to grab a trolley! and everyone was able to identify or recognize their baggage!
outside, saw the familiar sight of people holding placards! found my name written with red ink in one a4 size paper. covered the distance between the airport to kodambakkam in 15-20 minutes.
hotel room was good, staff was courteous. first day started with a walk from kodambakkam bridge to valluvar kottam high road, with a stop at the valluvar kottam museum. it was amusing to see umpteen hoardings on the way, clicked a lot of pictures. next halt was at the famous sangitha's resturant. the same sangitha's where i used to get my lunch ordered from - by ranga; the same sangitha’s where the corp silo team had joined me to thrown a farewell lunch for rimz; the same sangitha where ankit and i had evening snacks when he had come down to chennai for a day, to meet me, to discuss starting his own content dev business!
i was tempted to call up dhana, bala, g3, sri, narayan, balachander and others, informing them that i was in their city. but for two reasons i did not do so - one, they would not understand why of all the places i would like to spend two days of vacation in chennai. two, just wanted to be there, alone. but i did meet one of my friends. that's later.
before leaving for chennai, i had asked my friends to forward me their list of movies based on classical music. or movies with good theme. i recieved as many as 49 titles. had marked few to purchase. all purchases happened from spencer plaza, landmark near the park hotel, and few other places in areas i dont remeber by name.
everything in that city attracts me. also amuses. the roads, the lanes, the people, the places, the signboards, etc.
sitting and watching people and waves in the marina beach was awesome. especially the candyfloss man -dark in complexion holding a trail of shocking pink and luminious gree colord candyfloss packets! clicked few pics and before clicking thought about each shot - sort of gave name to each picture. was in marina till 2 or3 am and walked my way to kodambakkam - liberty. no one stopped or said anything. o yes, called up a friend to share the joy of being near the sea - made a feeble attempt for her to listen to the sound of the waves.
she was also in my thoughts while i was in chennai...
next day it was a quick visit to thiruvanmiyur beach...near my erstwhile beach house :-)! the seascape was just amazing. spent few hours there and paid the waiting autowala for his patience. had a dip in the sea, clicked pictures, messaged her, had cigs, and offered cigs!
the music store at the shoppers stop has gone!! bought stuff from the store.
went back to the hotel, changed, and then was ready to meet g3 for dinner. waited for her near pizza hut in the geegee emrald bldg compound. she came by bus - anyone in delhi would have used an auto - busses there are safe to travel in for women.
it was so good to see her after over an year. went to harissons: all resturants were close - we were there before 7pm!! g3 and i then went to sri krishna sweets to buy 'dibbas' of mysore pak. she thot paying the auto wala 80 for anna nagar round tana and back was too much. dilliwalals will think of time as more important then money :-)
she helped me buy the mithai, murku, and other stuff. we then had dinner at the harissons. alonmg with our chit-chat! i dropped her home and wished we had more time to talk.
back in hotel, i jotted notes for the day :-)
early morning on 9th, i started for airport.
the aircraft was taxing on the runway when everyone got up. two-three people started fighting. one genteman from south intervened asking one of the 'male fighter' to talk nicely to the 'female fighter'. the thankless lady snubbed our gentleman from the south saying she did not require his help or sympathy. i could not help saying to this southner - 'welcome to north.'
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