Madras Nalla Madras

the song from the 60s Tamil hit reverberating in my head with Nagesh in an open car singing about good old Madras....so good to be back in Chennai...the original "tharavad" of the Thomas clan (at least in the post Kerala phase). Jyothi came to the airport to pick us up...Kavi missing in action....Back in the glory days Dr Philip Thomas with full police escort would have met us at the plane and we would have taken a goverment "mantri vandi" to the City in style, with red lights flashing etc etc....now I come back to Madras like any other "commoner" and to add insult to injury stay in a Hotel...how times have changed.

Mount Road and the rest of Madras is a bloody mess. All traffic is one way due to the Metro Rail project. Its horrendous....anyway we take a really nice airport Taxi (Toyota Innova) into the city....Imiss the landmarks...the Metro Rail towers are blocking everything so nothing is familiar except the noise and the traffic.

Kavi and Arjan meet us at the Mariott as we check in....its the former Srilekha hotel but of course its been razed to the ground and we sink blissfully into our little air-conditioned oasis of America in the middle of Mount Road....feels good to be back in the US (just kidding :)