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Sunday, August 30, 2009

madras talk !

Okay, I said to myself right now... "time for my first post from chennai !"
its really nice of u guys to wish me good luck with this transition...really made me smile :D thank u!

first things first.... i'm gonna try n recollect stuff that i've been doing since I came here....

honestly, i was really freaked out about coming here initially.... partly cuz i don't know a soul in this city and partly cuz ALL my friends who've joined the same organization have gotten their posting in bangalore .....

the first week here was pretty chilled out... i was putting up at my dad's company guest house....no probs there...besides, it was in a relatively posh locality so there were nice places to hangout.....

i came across some colleagues from work who were also looking for accomodation here.... so we decided to look for one together.... to top it up, one colleague had a friend along and this guy was from chennai itself...so he helped us out a LOT ... talking to the brokers and house owner's in tamil (obviously, they'd quote a higher price if that guy wasn't a local) ..... he also showed us quite a few places to chill out...which included both types of drinking ..... coffee and booze !

there's a few things i've noticed about the city...i can't say if my observations are accurate or not though......

1) a few area-names end with 'pet' ....namely, 'chetpet','saidapet'...a few others which i don't remember...so i'm guessing 'pet' would mean an area or sumthing
2) the arterial roads are 'anna salai' and 'MGR salai'.... so it'd be ok to say 'salai' means road......but i was told it also means 'statue'....not sure
3) chennai vaguely gives me the feel of chembur in mumbai.... perhaps cuz of the architecture.... haven't figured out why...but it just does.... its one of those feelings u can't pinpoint the reason for....
4) The public transport is pretty good here... almost everyone you meet at a bus stop is capable of telling you the bus number to ur destination..... doesn't happen in delhi a lot...
5) chennai has two kinds of weather.... (a) hot ... (b) very hot
6) almost everything u get to eat is directly or indirectly made of RICE :P .... makes me think of the umpteen no. of times i refused to eat rice at home . poetic justice, perhaps? (waving fist at the skies)


Oh, n i'm trying to learn tamil..... till now, i've learnt the following :

1) counting from 1-10. it goes like this:
urr, rend, moon, naal, anji, arr, yel, ett, umbodh, patt

2) how are you : "apdi irkinge? "
i'm fine : "naan nalla irke"

3) i want to got to chennai central: "naan chennai central pono"
how much? : "avelo?"
50 only : "50 ta"
don't want: "vanda"

4) crazy : "pythium"
happy : "santosham"
sad : ....forgot this one
big: "perusa"
very big : " rombo perusa" (what're u thinking of ? don't get any ideas !)
small: "chinh"

5) i love you : "naan unai kadli kirane" ( really important , eh?! )

6) Tomato: "takkali"
Onion: "Vengayam"
coconut : "tenga"

7) yes: "ama"
yes yes : "amama" (duuh :P)
NO : "ile"


enough for today?
hopefully i'll get a chance to write soon.....
the thing is, i'm currently on training... and so wer'e kept #@% busy all week..... i finished with one main assessment this week...so have a few days to myself... that'll explain my visits to Eliot's beach, and booze sessions at bikes and barrels ;)

catch all of you later... all the new readers and especially the old ones !
mwaaah !

10 comments:

Zeba said...

Ohhh Yeah. Was waiting for this. First things first, who did you need to tell love you so soon after arriving in Chennai for the first time?

Good luck with the training. You will do awesome. I know it!

Lucky you to find a flat mate!

I can totally imagine how you must have felt when you got to know that ALL your friends are posted in Bangalore! If you had as well then you would be learning Kannada!

Tc, post soon!

Deepika said...

Good observation!! :)

specially those names of the places..

Enjoy eating direct or indirect rice :))

Have a good time thr... I have heard that Chennai is famous for filtered coffee... Don't miss that ;)

tendre la main vers le ciel said...

lol........hmmmmm i get the love youu btw...

Unknown said...

hey there u go..chennai finally calls u eh??
well u have made a great attempt there tryin to remeber things.
Some things in chennai are horrible...like the autos.They never charge on the basis of the metres.meters are just decorative peices[like an item song in a movie :P:D]

but the beaches are fab.Go visit besant nagar beach and have the roadside punjabi food there..Ull thank me for it!!

And dont u miss visitin the coffe day outlets where u get the worlds best filter coffee..have fun and explore!

mohit said...

@zeba
hahaha.... i didn't actually 'need' to say love u to neone in particular in chennai.... not yet ;)
and thank you !!

@deepika
filter coffee ..mmmmmmmmm
love it !

@hemu
mwah

@madhu
i know! i stay really close to besant nagar beach and hv been to dhabba express ....thts for the next post :P
but the beach was reeally nice!

expressing myself... said...

have u joined accenture in chennai...as in my knowledge accenture has given the joining there recently...

Anonymous said...

Hahaaa..Loved this! Don't know how I missed this post! :D
You know what...Tamil words seem very similar to Malayalam..From what you have written...But when they start talking..I cannot understand a word!

mohit said...

@expressing
nope, wipro

@ choco
glad u liked it !!

Prithwish....... said...

hey dude..liked ur post..could relate to it more because i too felt the same when i came to chennai first time...:)

Another Blogger said...

i just stumbled upon ur blog. liked this post. esp the learning tamil bit. there isn't anything tht makes one look more foolish than 'tryin' to speak a new language - and i speak that from experience. hv fun in chennai - it definitely is unique in its own way.
and .. did u knw that tamil is the oldest living language in india?!