Here comes a lot of LUV and a BIG BEAR HUG  to all my dear iLand Friends.

For the past couple of months, I have been totally inactive on the iLand, from a contribution point. I am aware that quite a few missed me  and for some it was good probably riddance  but I am back again . 

Blame my absence on my job. This new assignment has been exacting to say the least. It is consuming a lot of my personal time, which otherwise used to be spent with family, and that includes all you great people out there.

Working hours have become crazy, add travel to that and bingo! you have the perfect recipe for stress disaster. At office, for hours, attending seminars, meetings, dinners and then sitting in a hotel room, away from family, staring at the ceiling and the lifeless artwork around, just not my kind of lifestyle. It sucks, to say the least. Lahore was so much more interesting than Geneva and Zurich. Kasam Se!

But the silver lining among all that gloom has been my recent visits to Chennai (on work off course). It has provided me with the opportunity to meet one of our favorite iLanders, PK Madhavan. I met Maddy first in Feb and then again recently a week ago. I had wanted to write about it since, but time proved to be a spoil sport.

I arrive at Chennai on a Sunday in Feb. Having suffered quite a bit of the traffic chaos in Mumbai and B’lore I was expecting something less stressful in Chennai. I soon realized that Chennai was to be no different. The traffic bug has hit Chennai too, you can’t get across from one place to another without waiting endlessly at about a million traffic signals, which makes you wonder about the utility of these signals. Aren’t they suppose to improve the flow of traffic and not otherwise. Somehow I always feel that in our country traffic signals are made at the wrong place for the wrong reasons. Recently I heard that at Bannerghatta Circle in B’lore, after building an underpass and a flyover to remove a perennial traffic bottleneck, the road authorities have now installed a traffic signal on the flyover. Now that seems to be an extremely innovative idea. Doesn’t it? I guess, planning doesn’t exist even as a concept, in our Public Sector institutions. Sorry, the pent up frustration made me digress from the main topic.

Back to Chennai.

My previous acquaintances with Chennai was mostly limited to the Rajaji Salai stretch, more towards the Clive Battery end, adjacent to the port, where my uncle used to live in a company accommodation. My brief Chennai visits during those days were mostly spent walking about the small shops that litter this part of the Rajaji Salai, starting from Paris Point until midway to Clive Battery, selling various imported (not sure whether original) goods. This market place used to have a name, can't remember now, Moor market perhaps.

A walk on the Rajaji Salai would usually cover you with a visible layer of black soot like substance, which I was told is coal dust. However the vicinity of Park Sheraton (a.k.a Adayar Park) at Nungambakam and my route to the vendor’s office at Sterling road, was a far better experience, compared to Rajaji Salai one. The pollution around this area was not that bad and the nearby Ispahana Center (I guess I got it right) and the City Center provided ample opportunities to spend an evening.

I found the Feb weather to be quite nice as well, especially during the early part of the day, which was a pleasant surprise, because Chennai to me was synonymous with sultry conditions. The Park Sheraton, where I was holed up is a beaten down structure of a  hotel, when compared to all the cool ones in Mumbai, which includes the Sheraton Grand Maratha and Sheraton Central. The strong mushy smell of moisture laden fabric, the not so spic n span toilets and the drab upholstery did not seem to be too promising for a comfortable stay. Now I am not trying to be too uppity here, just demanding the quality that the price deserves. Within the first hour of stay, I had made up my mind that I wont be staying there again, little knowing that there was more inconvenience to follow.

The Lufthansa flight crew who happened to be sharing the same floor with me, decided to let their hair down just around midnight. These guys and gals got themselves into one of the rooms and just went berserk, yelling, shouting and doing what not. Given that CET is about 4.5 hrs behind IST during Feb, for them it was just the beginning of a great evening, but for poor me who was already 2.5 hours behind in sleep time (Singapore vs IST), it was too much to bear. Frantic calls to the reception fetched nothing but the standard response of “We are looking into it Sir or We are sending somebody there right now”. The din however didn’t ebb and I guess whoever went up to stop it, perhaps ended up joining the gang.

Bleary eyed, the next morning I went down and lodged a strong complaint with the management and they had the balls to say that they were not aware of such an incident. So much for customer care and service. As India embraces consumerism, customer service still leaves a lot to be desired. But I am hopeful that we will improve.

I was planning to meet Maddy urf PK Madhavan later that day. A phone call later we decided to meet in front of my vendor’s office on Sterling road at 5:00pm.

Holding back my excitement was going to be difficult. Whoa! I was going to meet another iLander.

PS - I noticed that PK M has tagged me. I will be responding to the tag once I have finished my Chennai piece.


To be continued...