<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/aug/Mayank-Shekhar-op_e.jpg" alt="Mayank Shekhar" width="150" height="83" />What if I told you, <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/article/rocky-aur-rani-kii-prem-kahaani-review-just-hand-ranveer-an-oscar-someone-23300582" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Chennai</a> was the Ibiza of India? No, I did not say that. Only asked, what if I did!&nbsp;
If an insider, you&rsquo;d rightly resort to how conservatism is at the core of Chennai. Which is a clich&eacute; that, by definition, emerges from truths. And which necessarily conceal their unequal opposites/contradictions.&nbsp;
As an outsider, the other clich&eacute; you will cite is there is a &ldquo;language problem, you see.&rdquo; Meaning, if you aren&rsquo;t rich enough to circumvent the street altogether&mdash;and that&rsquo;s the best mode to navigate life in the Third World, anyway&mdash;it&rsquo;s hard to get by, without following Tamil, in Chennai.&nbsp;
Same, if you didn&rsquo;t know Hindustani, in North India&rsquo;s prime meridian, <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/what-to-make-of-barbenheimer-23300015" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">New Delhi</a>. My sense is, corroborated by those who know better&mdash;&ldquo;Tamil is merely an advantage in Chennai&rdquo;.&nbsp;
As with rattling off Kannada in Bengaluru, it ensures a quicker escape from traffic cops, to start with&mdash;and, of course, helps you localise more easily, if interested.&nbsp;
As it is, technology&mdash;whether Google Translate (why isn&rsquo;t there a voice-dub, yet), or apps, for everything, cab onwards&mdash;has lessened the world&rsquo;s &ldquo;language problem&rdquo;, considerably. India&rsquo;s main language is the mother tongue of its region.
Chennai, formerly Madras, being the capital of Tamil Nadu. Which is not why old North Indians call all South Indians, &ldquo;Madrasis&rdquo;. That probably comes from Madras Province/Presidency, which occupied practically all of the south of British India.
Madras, renamed Chennai in 1996, was its winter capital. It is India&rsquo;s oldest metropolitan city, established by East India Company, in 1639&mdash;a few decades before Calcutta, Bombay.&nbsp;
This explains such vast, quiet, posh neigbourhoods/bungalows, signifying old money/elite, still. They&rsquo;ve generationally earned enough to buzz off builders, offering penthouses, in return for constructing high-rises. Of course, with time, that will change.&nbsp;
What does Chennai have in common with India&rsquo;s oldest city, Varanasi? Sheer number of temples. Not that anybody&rsquo;s maintained official records&mdash;Varanasi&rsquo;s estimate exceeds 23,000. If you add up countless, cute, colourful small plus miniature temples, old and new, on Chennai&rsquo;s squares, pavements&mdash;surely the figure will far out-total the reported 300.
A skip across from those temples is a mindboggling number of &lsquo;biryani houses&rsquo; (serving meat, what else). Or the Buhari chain of hotels, serving various versions of their invention, Chicken 65. That&rsquo;s when you aren&rsquo;t hopping across the city&rsquo;s high-end restaurants, that match the world&rsquo;s, at any rate India&rsquo;s, most diverse.&nbsp;
In sharp contrast to Chennai&rsquo;s traditional rep of a Brahmanical, vegetarian, old-town. Sharper in contrast still to when I visited it as a child, in the early &rsquo;90s&mdash;cribbing about the overload of rasam&mdash;only rasam, mummy?&nbsp;
Is there a more under-reported truth, about a surprisingly super-clean Chennai? Its nocturnal bar scene, in a decidedly conservative, morning city. Ah, what?
I got introduced to Chennai, over a-decade-and-a-half ago, because of my brother, Alok, a flighty night-bird himself. He&rsquo;d moved from New York, for a few years&mdash;obviously not for the anticipated night-life!&nbsp;
This is when we&rsquo;d also hang in what&rsquo;s supposed to be a &lsquo;city that never sleeps&rsquo;, i.e. Bombay&rsquo;s bars/pubs. Such as the one, where a movie-star, who&rsquo;d just returned from a village in Haryana, having learnt local dialect there (for a role), asked my brother, where he lived.&nbsp;
Superstar&rsquo;s reaction (common): &ldquo;Chennai! Why?&rdquo; &ldquo;Same reason you went to Haryana&mdash;work, what else,&rdquo; my brother said. &ldquo;But I get paid a bomb,&rdquo; superstar retorted. &ldquo;What makes you think I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; my brother responded.&nbsp;
Home is usually where work takes you. That, post-liberalisation, more professionals moved to the South, is explained by its economy, that&rsquo;s performed better than the rest of India&mdash;which, itself, until 2012, was nearabout booming enough to invite the First World over. Hyderabad&rsquo;s blessed with space. Bengalaru&rsquo;s got the weather. Chennai is oppressively hot&mdash;but, equally, so is Singapore.&nbsp;
The Chennai of my brother&rsquo;s social circle&mdash;often expats (international/domestic), living away from home; single, or single-minded&mdash;that I entered, felt a shocking surprise, by India&rsquo;s depressing post-midnight standards.&nbsp;
Whether at Bike &amp; Barrel, similar but better bars, over to ECR&rsquo;s sea-side bungalows, packed with potentially ferocious party animals, grazing, well-behaved, over a never-ending, wild scene.&nbsp;
Or even the first, proper, local Chennai person&rsquo;s house, after-party, I went to&mdash;with a discotheque&rsquo;s floor lights, flashing in primarily colours, at his private den! The scene was still small enough to crack&mdash;for the new &lsquo;outsider&rsquo;, to feel like the instantly connected &lsquo;insider&rsquo;; you developed &lsquo;contacts&rsquo;!
Nobody in Bombay, including that movie-star, would believe me. No, it&rsquo;s not Ibiza (that I&rsquo;ve not even been to!). The point is to report an immeasurable change/ascent, that might surprise the &lsquo;Madrasi&rsquo;!
I returned to Chennai, after a decade, to find the city&rsquo;s boozy nights on a further upswing. Only issue, at some places, seem to be slippers (chappals), and stags (only men) not allowed.&nbsp;
Despite loud music, bars often host families, with children! Anna Nagar, until recently, a retiree&rsquo;s address&mdash;with bars, Sundays, and Living Room, I&rsquo;m at, I&rsquo;m told, &ldquo;houses 50 of these in 5 km radius&rdquo;!&nbsp;
I look gob-smacked, travelling from the incredible Black Orchid (buzzing at 3 am), to live-techno, at Leather Bar (5 am), and oh, we skipped the scene, same hour, and even later, at Pasha, Brasa&hellip; What&rsquo;s up, bruh.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com The views expressed in this column are the individual&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;t represent those of the paper.
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Returning to India’s oldest metropolis after a decade, when it was already good, and now it’s even better

Boozy cheers to Chennai, ah what?

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Boozy cheers to Chennai, ah what?

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