Chennai Through My Senses
Chennai in 1999 was just transitioning into a modern metropolis. It is my birthplace and has been synonymous with family, food, temples, traditions and the ocean. 12 years on, when I still think of Chennai, I think of the color grey.
Grey like the ashes that fell out of the burning incense sticks in the prayer room.
Grey like the thick, stormy clouds that came rushing in from the Bay of Bengal, causing incessant rains which flooded the verandah of my house.
Grey like the crumbling ashes from the cigarettes that my grandfather used to smoke, not so discreetly.
I wonder what it would be like, to taste this grey. It would probably taste like the bitter decoction of fresh filter coffee and the chunky milk payasam that I indulged in every Friday.
It would taste like the salt water that slipped into my mouth while I played in the large, untamed waves of Marina.
This grey, tastes like the bitter cough syrup and the porridge my mother made me consume on days when my fever soared higher than Chennai’s afternoon heat.
My time in Chennai went by in a quick flash but parts of it now remain in my memory like an old black and white film that I play over and over again. I remember Chennai also through sounds. Sound of the raindrops on the roof of my auto while I got back home from school. .
The sound of a hundred frogs croaking in my backyard at night or the sound of M.S Subbalakshmi’s voice that resonated in the living room every morning.
I guess it helps. To attach a color, a taste, a smell or a sound to a place where you no longer belong. For the reappearance of those sensory experiences is the closest shot we have to time travel. It helps you concise to certain extent what you feel when words fail.
I have now moved on and fallen in love with a different city, a more colorful one. Yet, I sport a tinge of grey on most days. I stop for a moment every time I catch a whiff of the filter coffee aroma, I play the hits of MS Subbalakshmi on Thatha’s recorder. I carry a bit of Chennai with myself wherever I go.
