Brahmin issues!

I have been in chennai for over two weeks now. Never in my 35 years of existence have I ever mentioned to anyone that I am of the Brahmin caste or that I am vegetarian. 

But in the last two weeks I must have mentioned it at least a dozen times. You can't run away from these monikers that have been thrusted upon you by the accident of birth. They are part and parcel of this city and state. In fact they go a long way into legitimising you in a city of conventions.

I can't but think about all the North Indians and the Muslims who have tried to rent a house here. It must have been a very painful process for them. 

I have, in my itenerant life, never subscribed to the currency of caste and religion. The fact that I am forced to do so has left me with ambivalent feelings. While on one hand I am glad that I am getting a house on the other I abhor this caste based justification. 

This state is a funny one. It has the maximum number of temples and yet it elects an atheist party that was formed primarily to root our Brahmins from the political equation. The state also has a deep cult of personality and the concept of nepotism is widely prevalent in the two mainstays of the film industry and politics. 

Again all these are my pet hates and I hope that I have immense patience and insurmountable will to outlive my stint here. 

So far the signs don't look that good. 

Different but Same

There is no better way to get to know the city than by running with the locals there. I left for Chennai on a nippy Monday morning from Mumbai and i reached a city, hot and in a state of political fervor. Amma, the local high priestess of politics, was still in custody and the city was in anticipation of an imminent bail.

I went to my new office, met my office colleagues and the day passed away in a breeze. It was only when i reached my guest house that i realized that i had left my past life behind and embarking upon a new one.

I slept fitfully. Trying to adjust to the new smells and sounds and not wanting to see the break of dawn in a new city.

However i had made plans to run with a local chapter of runners and here i was at 4.45 am outside my guesthouse much to the bemusement of the watchman and walking a few blocks to the assigned place where the runners were supposed to meet.

I was thinking about how people can get up at 5am in the morning on a weekday as usually people wake up at 6ish for a run in Mumbai. Anyway i reached the place and found to my surprise a sprightly bunch of people numbering almost ten chattering away at such a early godforsaken time.

Someone clearly identified that i was a new comer, came up to me and introduced himself. Soon i was chatting with the others. All typical white collar professionals working in software, education, banks etc. Typical middle class Indians united with the common theme of running.

And so i set off for a 10km run traversing various city points and touching the beach at the halfway mark. On the way i saw several hundred runners of various groups practicing flyovers and hill raises. All in cheerful spirits and shouting their hi/hellos.

I finished my run and all of us took the mandatory picture and i was soon added to the whatsapp group and all kinds of jokes and random forwards were soon embellishing my phone.

Wait a minute, this is exactly the way it happens in Mumbai.

I just changed my pincode. But its all the same everywhere. And somehow i am mighty glad about it.. 

Blogging

I used to write quite often before. Then tiredness crept in when there were more 'annotated' versions on offer that make communication easier. I got used to the 140 characters bug as well as updates on Facebook so much so that I concised everything into a line or two. 

But I have always felt that I wanted to say more. As the saying goes 'brevity is wit' and that applies perfectly to social media but so does a long dawdling message that tries to capture what I have to say. It's almost like a stream of consciousness theory that I have always found fascinating. I guess that's why one of my favorte authors is Virginia Woolf but that's for an another post. 

So I have decided to come back to blogging. It's not that I will have anything earth shattering to say or that what I write or put down here through my ramblings will pull down governments or become viral posts that people share on social media with glee. 

For all you know it may not even affect anyone. But I will have the pleasure and satisfaction in knowing that I put something that I felt or cared about in a proper way without feeling the need to shorten it for social media conventions. 

And for me, who used to have a long cursive hand and get rewarded for beautiful handwriting, it's like a throwback to the past or in some atavistic way trying to connect to my roots of writing. 

I think I will be a much better man for trying. Or not. There is no adjudicator here. And I guess that's one of the charms of blogging.

New tidings!

A new beginning.. a new city to explore and partake... I will be moving to Chennai for what will be a first and i am looking forward to it..

Watch this space for my random ramblings and more...