Home, Home Again

I know. I didn’t put a farewell post before leaving USA. Well, I won’t be leaving USA for good. I have a very weird feeling that I will be returning to the land of opportunity.

So, it’s been 10 days since I returned to Singara Chennai (as referred to by the locals, a la Aamchi Mumbai) my place of birth, and my hometown for the past eleven years. A lot of things have changed for better, as I have witnessed, due to my diligent exploration of the city’s administrative sections and food joints. E-governance is definitely making the government machinery more efficient in Chennai (and India on the whole). I was pleasantly surprised to see government officials sticking to their timelines as far as processes were concerned. However, e-governance cannot change lethargy and the rather feudal nature of the relatively high-placed officials, known as under-secretaries, in front of whom we still have to procrastinate for rather straight-forward requests. The roads are in a pathetic state, but that is due to two reasons – 1) Untimely rains due to the cyclonic depression and 2) Digging up roads, especially after they have been laid out new, is one of the favourite pastimes of the corporate and administrative Babus in Chennai.

I was pleased to see that some of my favourite (Whee, I can use British/Indian English again )  eat-outs were still operational, albeit with astronomical prices, which can be attributed to inflation and their general awareness of the fact that the IT and BPO junta dominate the (South) Indian middle class today and they are willing to blow a considerable sum of money at anything and everything. I believe a Samosa should be priced at `5 indefinitely and not `20. Same goes for Ghee Roast. It should not cost more than `15. Jughead’s Special at Fruit Shop on Greams Road (Besant Nagar Branch) continues to rock though.

My cousins are doing well. They haven’t changed much in character, though their marital/relationship statuses are changing rapidly. That does put someof a pressure on me especially from my grandmother and grand-aunts and uncles, considering that I NOW more-or-less satisfy all the requirements of an eligible and ideal Tam-Brahm bachelor (minus the my dear paunch).

The biggest change? I am unemployed now. Since most of my savings will be invested in my Yum-Bee-Yay education, I am not financially independent even for a month. I am supposed to be more frugal and think twice before purchasing anything. Considering that I have lived quite lavishly and spent more liberallly in the last 11 months than at any other point of my life, this change is quite sudden. And I love it! Not many people know it, but I love change. I start feeling weird if my life gets set to a pattern. And therefore I am looking forward to more such challenges in life!