Although Mysore will always be city no.1 so far as I am concerned for the rest of my life, I’ve grown to love Bangalore so much more after a weekend trip to Chennai. Three days in Chennai on band related work and within twelve hours of landing there, I was pining away for Bangalore and its weather.
Although an inefficient public transport system, bad traffic and moronic motorists and too many IT junta show up as some definite downers against the city’s name, the positives are way too many to discount.
I’d initially taken Bangalore weather for granted, given the fact that Mysore shares pretty much similar weather, although it has been the trend over the past few years to have hotter summers and colder winters in Mysore, but three days in Chennai has made me realize how awesome this city is.
I’d never ever spent more than 24 hours at a stretch in Chennai, and in the absence of air conditioned hotel rooms or an air conditioned studio, death would’ve ensued.
On returning to Bangalore, after getting off the train and heading back home, the cool breeze that kept messing up my short hair in the auto, the familiar Kannada abuses that the auto driver was heaping on other motorists that were navigating the roads as badly as he was, the fact that I could map out the entire route to my place from the railway station (as opposed to not being able to do such a thing at a new place) just made me feel so good.
True, Chennai is slightly more ordered and the infrastructure seems to be in place in a much better manner vis-a-vis Bangalore, and Anna Salai is everywhere in Chennai, but Bangalore just rocks. Period.
Good post. Food is big problem in Chennai daa. If you are ok with having idLis, masaLa dosa and the south indian variety every damn day, chennai is ok. Water shortage is also a big problem in Chennai along with the oppressive heat. Other thing me and my da found on our visit to Chennai was that we needed to know Tamil.
However, the moral of these debates is that localites always pitch in for their respective places
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Obly I agree on all counts of Chennai-bashing.
But you missed one thing- While Chennai was always the armpit of India, Whatever negatives you count against Bangalore (inefficient public transport system, bad traffic and moronic motorists and too many IT junta) are also now valid for Chennai.
If thats even possible, Chennai is even more shitty than it used to be.
food is not as much of a problem in chennai as water. if i have to ever live in chennai, the main thing I’ll look for when I take a house is water supply. you need to live in Chennai to know what water shortage means..
Ok, I admit I was vague when I wrote that food is a problem. The better way to tell is there is a paucity of hotels that have the mixture of southie and northie stuffs ? We kind of struggled to find a hotel to have even a decent meals when we visited Chennai. I remember we were around Egmore area and the only the decent place we found was Madras hotel Ashoka. Our friend on the other hand wanted North Indian stuffs like Naan and he didn’t get any.
Hope I’m right with this one ?
Amen to that Bro!
- Ram
the reason Chennai is so north Indian unfriendly is that it does not want to go the Bangalore way. South Indian food rocks, and the north Indian food available in cheaper places here in Blr sucks ass. The up market food that is available in most niche restaurants is not being considered here.
There are none or very few Bangalore Darshinis that serve good south Indian food, with most of them having mixed menus. I can’t even get a decent rice-sambar at night because of this.
Regardless, Bangalore rocks!
Okpa! Strongly Agree.