We are now up to daily telephone calls to India. Yesterday a group of classmates from ye olde Leading Institute of Management in Western India connected and I have a side trip arranged to Bengaluru. Since the domestic air fares seem so frightfully expensive (the automatic dollar converter keeps clicking away in my mind) I shall be travelling by train from Chennai to Bengaluru and back after many, many moons. Reading all these stories of vermin and insects on the trains (other than of the human kind), I gingerly asked my friend, 'How clean are the trains ?' He replied back, equally gingerly, 'Very clean', and, then hastily added, '...by Indian standards.' What these standards are I will figure out soon.
My train to Bengaluru leaves at 6.00am...I remember a time in the 60s when going to Madras Central was quite an expedition. Anyway, I am hoping that loving niece will drop me off. Actually, I am quite looking forward to going into Madras Central, which I have not been inside, for nearly thirty years now. I remember the romantic 'date' I had with bharya priyaa at the 'Non Vegetarian Refreshment Room' in Madras Central, when she was travelling once from Tirunelveli to Bombay, circa 1970. We used to frequent these non-vegetarian eateries to avoid family members who might see us if we went to a vegetarian eatery. Being both vegetarians, all we could have was a cup of tea. Needless to add, at that stage in our romance, the food did not matter.
And all those visits to receive and see off uncles, aunts, cousins et al...If anyone was coming by the Howrah Mail which came at 4.45am, we would ask them to wait at the station till we reached, because there was no way on earth we could make the trip from Adyar to be there before the train arrived.
And the sheer joy of listening to a good Dravidian railway announcer settling scores of years of injustice wreaked by the Aryan hordes by massacring the Hindi pronounciation and grammar as he/she proclaimed the arrival of the Grand Trunk express from Dilli. Mercifully, the anti Hindi agitation of 1965, put a brief stop to these acts of linguistic terror. Nowadays, I think there are sufficient number of North Indian announcers who can speak and pronouce Hindi the way it is supposed.
Here is a YouTube link of a recent flash mob at Chennai Central...things have changed in thirty years...love that music...not exactly the genre of music one would hear at the Music Academy during the season...nevertheless fun alright
Facebooking around yesterday I saw this 'walk' advertised for December 15, of Musical Mylapore. These walks have been started, a la London, of historical places in the city. The Madras music season will be on and a walk of Musical Mylapore fits in ideally. After booking myself on that walk, I realized that I would be landing in Chennai only a few hours earlier. So, if you see a jet lagged moi crawling around North Mada and South Mada Street at 6am that Sunday, you know my commitment to music...
So, it all goes on...the gifts have been bought...the passport and OCI card checked...and this weekend the suitcases will be brought down and packed.
Oh, I understand beti priya will also be in the motherland at that time. However, we shall not be meeting up. I threatened to land up at the wedding she is attending and she hasn't given me the address, yet.
My train to Bengaluru leaves at 6.00am...I remember a time in the 60s when going to Madras Central was quite an expedition. Anyway, I am hoping that loving niece will drop me off. Actually, I am quite looking forward to going into Madras Central, which I have not been inside, for nearly thirty years now. I remember the romantic 'date' I had with bharya priyaa at the 'Non Vegetarian Refreshment Room' in Madras Central, when she was travelling once from Tirunelveli to Bombay, circa 1970. We used to frequent these non-vegetarian eateries to avoid family members who might see us if we went to a vegetarian eatery. Being both vegetarians, all we could have was a cup of tea. Needless to add, at that stage in our romance, the food did not matter.
And all those visits to receive and see off uncles, aunts, cousins et al...If anyone was coming by the Howrah Mail which came at 4.45am, we would ask them to wait at the station till we reached, because there was no way on earth we could make the trip from Adyar to be there before the train arrived.
And the sheer joy of listening to a good Dravidian railway announcer settling scores of years of injustice wreaked by the Aryan hordes by massacring the Hindi pronounciation and grammar as he/she proclaimed the arrival of the Grand Trunk express from Dilli. Mercifully, the anti Hindi agitation of 1965, put a brief stop to these acts of linguistic terror. Nowadays, I think there are sufficient number of North Indian announcers who can speak and pronouce Hindi the way it is supposed.
Here is a YouTube link of a recent flash mob at Chennai Central...things have changed in thirty years...love that music...not exactly the genre of music one would hear at the Music Academy during the season...nevertheless fun alright
Facebooking around yesterday I saw this 'walk' advertised for December 15, of Musical Mylapore. These walks have been started, a la London, of historical places in the city. The Madras music season will be on and a walk of Musical Mylapore fits in ideally. After booking myself on that walk, I realized that I would be landing in Chennai only a few hours earlier. So, if you see a jet lagged moi crawling around North Mada and South Mada Street at 6am that Sunday, you know my commitment to music...
So, it all goes on...the gifts have been bought...the passport and OCI card checked...and this weekend the suitcases will be brought down and packed.
Oh, I understand beti priya will also be in the motherland at that time. However, we shall not be meeting up. I threatened to land up at the wedding she is attending and she hasn't given me the address, yet.
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