Chennai (Madras), India   See Map

Barb and I arrived in Chennai in a jet lagged daze, and were driven to our hotel. After resting for a little while and checking our email at the hotel’s “business center”, we looked through my guidebook to figure out what to do for the afternoon we had in the city before leaving for Trichy. We got a driver for the afternoon and set out. We wanted the see the Bazar, the Government Museum and some other sites. Barb had gotten an email from Emily, a Grameen staff member who had worked in Tamil Nadu helping to launch the Village Computing Project which we are going to see. Emily suggested having dinner at the Park Hotel and visiting one of the coffee shops. Our driver was very personable, but took us almost nowhere we wanted to go. When we asked him to drive us to one of our selected locations, he would say “yes, sir” and take us where he wanted instead.

As we drove through the city, India hit us with full force and impact. The roads were filled with auto rickshaws, vehicles of every description with drivers insanely weaving in and out of their lanes, at every moment threatening to run over the many pedestrians, bicyclists or other vehicles and then pulling out at the very last moment to avoid the collisions. Cows and water buffalos roamed along the sides of the road and, uncaring onto the roads. They own the place after all in a country that considers cows sacred. We passed women walking along the road, most in brightly colored saris, and men sometimes in western dress but more often in langhi, a piece of cloth wound around the waste and over the thighs. There were people everywhere. Along the sides of the road, people sometimes congregated in groups, sometimes around cooking fires. And of course there was the third world smell.

First, our driver took us to the Fort Museum instead of the Government Museum, and we saw some exhibits in the British period. This seemed an amusing mistake at the time, but it soon became clear that there would be little or no correlation between were we asked to go and where we eventually ended up. It was all good, though, since all Barb and I really just wanted was to see a bit of the city.

Our driver took us next to a beach on the Indian Ocean near the IIT campus. The beach was very deep, and the distance to the water was considerable from the parking area. There were dozens of vendors selling food and drinks along the beginning of the beach and scattered along it almost to where it met the ocean. There were many people on the beach, most in groups but some alone. Every one was fully dressed as they enjoyed the beach on the hot day. Only when we reached the water did we see anyone less than fully dressed, and only those actually in the water were not fully clothed.

As we drove through Chennai, it was impossible not to think that we were in a profoundly different place from the one we had left behind. The riot of colors, noises and smells placed us securely in a place not home, in a place where we had no good idea how things worked or how anything got done.

Our next stop was at a Hindu temple. The place was cavernous, with people milling around. There were many shrines to the different gods in the various nooks and crannies of the temple. From the parking lot, I saw a huge cone shaped tower rising up over the temple covered with very colorful and vibrant depictions of the gods, some in the form of large statues. In front of the entrance was a woman selling flowers next to the place where all who enter the temple must leave their shoes. And there were beggars everywhere. They begged by bringing one of their hands to their mouth to beg for food.

We eventually made it to a hotel that was not the Park Hotel for dinner and then fell asleep in the car on the way back to our hotel.