Chennai, my hometown and the only place I can call home turned 375 yesterday. For some reason, I have a strange love-hate relationship with Chennai. There are days when I’m completely contented with being here. On others, I would like nothing better than to get the hell out.
While I love the beach and everything associated with it, I could do without the heat and humidity that make life so difficult here. To me, Chennai means both freedom and stifling discipline. Chennai is where I can feel completely at ease. It is also where I feel constrained and restricted by social mores and everything that surrounds it.
Chennai is an oxymoron. Chennai is beautiful, but also annoying as hell.
But whatever it may be to everyone else, for me it will remain home. Perhaps my only and definitely my first.