Blogs from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Asia - page 29

The other day, I went to a bank to deal with some issues. Man, those guys really piss me off. Anyway, I had to wait for a while to meet up with the manager, so I thought I might go walk-about the streets. I really hate to sit on my backside and wait for someone to turn up (instead I love to sit on my backside and watch the world rush by :) ). I sat by the curb and watched the people who were rushing off to their work, vendors yelling by "Tomatoes", "old paper". I can't believe how busy life is here in chennai. I don't remember it was like this about 10 years ago. Any way, here are some interesting pics that I took while I was observing the people... ... read more

17 February, 2007 Betrayed by Bus No. 15 Today, Madras and I have had a falling out, and I have the bumps and bruises to prove it. Our fight started this morning, when I was supposed to go to a temple with Rajani and Rashmi. We were to meet at 7:30, which means that I sat outside Rashmi’s hostel until 7:55, all the while feeling the return of the nausea that I’ve been experiencing for the last few days. No longer wanting to make the hour long rickshaw ride out to the temple and increasingly annoyed that I had already lost half an hour of sleep on a Saturday morning, I returned to my room to crawl back into bed. After waking I was feeling better and decided to head to the gym. I slipped on ... read more

We've finally arrived at the project! Time to give something back to India, rather that just take, take, take! We're in a place called Kundicherry, just outside Karaikal a small town in Tamil Nadu. Build India is rebuilding a fishing village called Chandrapaddi about 10 mins drive from here. It was devastated by the Tsunami, 94 killed, mostly women and children as the men were all out fishing. The land is totally flat and the wave went as high as a palm tree (about 40 foot) and blasted houses, roads, cattle, families and travelled three kilometres inland. When the men came back from fishing, their town was gone, and they found themselves rowing through, what were formerly streets and houses, picking up people scattered over the debris, in search of their own families. Many of the ... read more

7 weeks to go in India and I'm still down in Tamil Nadu, having procrastinated on booking my train ticket to Varanasi and then not being able to get on a train for 10 days. I caught a train to Chennai on 29 Jan. I would have thought I'd got used to the fact that normally in India the beginnings and ends of journeys (and often the middle) are full of drama, but I arrived hopefully on the platform anticipating it might be straightforward. The man at the food kiosk helpfully told me that my carriage, AS3 would be at the front of the train, and he pointed left down the platform. So it was a bit disoncerting that when the train arrived, it approached from that direction. Did he mean the back? Or did he ... read more

Today is the first very humid day in the city--the sky is grey, the sun is gone, and everything is sticky. Today is also the one month anniversary of my arrival in Chennai. It's hard to believe that after waking up here for (most of) twenty-eight days, I find myself living a pleasantly adjusted, if not very complicated, life. I go to work. I go to the gym. I ride the bus, and have figured out the rules of where I can stand (as a woman) and how I can pass my money to the fare collector when the bus is too packed to make my way through. I eat with my right hand, mixing rice with vegetables or broth and delivering it in pinches to my mouth. I've determined that the guava in Chennai are ... read more