My Locality....

A Man’s home is where is money is made

This was the adage, which drove a whole generation of young men from Deep South of tamilnadu away from their homes to the city of promise – Chennai. My dad was not an exception. He was a central government employee, a species which used to top the matrimonial market with regards to demand and dowry,but thanks to influence of IT and the 6 digit earning programmers, they have totally lost out. My dad settled in the heart of Chennai with this central government job which gave a decent living, a good bride with a not-so-good dowry..err..kanya dhaan to be politically right. Thought I will pen down a few things about this locality in which I spent the first 14 years of my life.

It was not the affable adyar or the posh besant nagar, neither was it a cultural hub like Mylapore. It was a locality called Thousand lights, aayiram vilakku in tamil. Those who have been to Chennai may have noticed the huge thousand lights mosque near the anna flyover on your way to spencer’s plaza. Opposite to this huge mosque in those lanes, by lanes and cramped allies lies a place, which is home for more than a million people. Thousand lights is a place where people of different language, religion, culture and even race – its home to many Tibetans and srilankan refugees- live together.

The people, yes they are the most integral part of this locality. If not for them there would be nothing to speak about thousand lights and it would be yet another lower middle class locality.The most attractive section of the population are the local goondas whom even the cops dread..did I say dread..yeah only the cops dread them. We can see these goondas getting thrashed by the local lady vendors when they demand too much. What’s more interesting about them are their names. They had names like dolphin kumar, plastic pandu, iron ranga and so on. And the reasons for their names are a local folklore..like they used to say dolphin kumar possesses this sharp knife which can slice a dolphin into pieces with a single swish. No body can authenticate these stories, as the truth was lot funnier. In fact I personally knew the true story behind plastic pandu’s name. He was called so because the first FIR that was filed on him was for stealing plastic bucket from an old lady..so much for bravado… but ofcourse the folklore has a totally different story. Need to build the aura around them you see.

The locality was not just a residential one; it has its share of shops especially wine shops. In fact a friend of mine used to tell directions using these wine shops as landmarks. “Go straight you can see the Ponnu wines right? Take the road opposite to it after a 10metre walk there will be the aishwarya wines..take the right next to it, the street where you find karuna wines is the one you are asking for”.

Next to wine shops the other shops that were high in numbers were the teashops. You can call it cliché or stereotyping but somehow all these shops were owned by malyalees. And too add to the stereotyping all of them were addressed as nairs, just as how a person coming from any part of north india is called as set-ji. Of course these nairs had some titular differences like the munda banian nair, one legged nair, bald nair… It was a kind of fixed equation. Mallu tea shop owner = nair, even if they belonged to different religion..so we had Jacob nair , mohammad nair and also a nizzim nair. A jew who was a nair.

Then there was this small but vibrant Anglo Indian population. There were two good things about them. One is the way they live their lives, though they were not well to do they carry themselves with a Victorian elegance and lived life king size. Two, is the pretty Anglo Indian girls. I had a friend called Sharon, a very pretty little girl whose English I always used to admire. I had this misconception that Anglo Indians are rich folks getting monthly cheques from queen Elizabeth, all these misconceptions took a beating ..... One fine Saturday morning when I went to Sharon’s house, she was having her breakfast, but kind of covering and hiding it up and me being the curious cat was trying to peep in. At that time Sharon’s mom came in and seeing the cat and mouse game screamed at her “Sharon why cant you share it with that kid!!”..she called me into their 7x8 feet kitchen and gave porridge. I was totally enthralled..porridge!!!...I am gonna have some British breakfast. I took the bowl with a royal look and a body language which would have made Prince Harry feel like a rickshaw puller...to my utter shock, surprise and disgust what she had given me was old rice mixed in butter milk..something we call as pazhaya saadham in tamil…if this porridge had been served at my home the porridge along with the bowl would have been flying out of the window…but here I was gulping it down and exclaiming to Sharon… “the porridge of your mommy ..tastes so yummy ”

As said the thousand lights area had a huge mosque, so a noticeable number of Muslim families lived there. The best thing about the Muslims bred in thousand lights is their ability to fuse 3-4 languages and speak in it. An instance…. When me and my friend khaddar play cricket on the street his little sister used to call him for lunch from the balcony…the announcement goes something like “baayi ammi therey ko bulathi hein..soru daalna hein” so you had urdu[ammi], hindi[bulathi hein], and tamil[soru-rice]…they can speak for hours together is this dialect.

With folks of almost every religion and community living in my locality, there has never been the smallest communal clash in the area. A perfect locality where you can stand and scream “Mera Bharath Mahan”. Its not just we the kids of all communities play together even the adults socialized very well. Infact I know the ceremonies that happen in any Indian marriage a Hindu, Christian or a Muslim. Hats off to my locality which has taught me the biggest mantra in life religious tolerance – a concept very relevant today.