Breathing and Living in the not-so-yet-so- urbane way

I am not a starfish anymore.

I remind myself every night relentlessly as the moonlight seeps in through the cement stained windows. Fighting back the stupor crawling involuntarily into my body, I shift and fidget about until that "Ouch!" strikes. 

Sleeping on a bunker is more or less like sleeping in an elevated crib. But the steel bars end up bruising you (at least me) apart from fulfilling their conventional purpose of guarding you against a miserable fall. 

“Freaking shit, its 7 already!”, I croak every morning( except that I don’t say freaking) clutching the damned steel rods as I descend down my bed, simultaneously trying to get hold of my glasses, hairband, cellphone, water bottle, blinds and million other things that  nap with me indolently.

Jo walks in through the door, with her flip flops flapping against the floor, the bucket trailing behind. Akansha’s phone keeps ringing wildly and mind is battling against the deep urge to throw at her, the heaviest thing that my hands can get a hold of..Probably Jo’s bucket, if she would let me do the honour . But seeing akrati didi sprawled up in her sheets sleeping like a little baby in a “Bhag Milkha bhag” pose , the feeling vanishes..I wake Aishu up, practically drag her out of the bed, and march down for breakfast. Finally, after getting ready, while walking beneath the blazing hot “Chennai” sun( as I call it) having the power to ruin the 17 years of sweat and cash my mom spent on lotions, facemasks and homeopathy, I search for reasons..

A million reasons to hate Chennai.. To despise the very chunk of earth I was standing on..But in vain.,

I knew I was loving every bit of it, relishing the scorching heat, the musky scents, the dust pollution and even the tiny beads of perspiration gliding smoothly down my back. And then the question pops up…

Why?

I have never lived in Chennai. I missed my mom..Her oil smeared dosais with onion-tomato chutney and molagaipodi, the perfume of her medimix soap followed by fair & lovely and the way she keenly listened to my long screeching concerts, the old spb and ilayaraja songs playing in the kitchen, her bhajanais and the murungakais in her vattakozhambu..I missed all that..Yet, I didn’t hate Chennai.

Did I miss Tarapur? Though I badly wanted to, I couldn’t. It was the place where I scribbled my first alphabets,sang my first song, played my first game,got my first bruise, and had my last success. I remember my childhood, trudging in mud, playing with Barbie, plucking berries from trees, dancing on gulmohar’s flower beds, those  empty lanes flanked with ashoka trees ,singing and freaking out the snoozing watchmen and listening to the random melodious tunes in which the birds chirped. I just remembered…I couldn’t yet miss it..

What is so special about Chennai, you ask?

Everything. This is where my father was born, my mamas got married, my cousins studied, and everything. But what connection do I have with Chennai? After all, it was Trichy’s air that I had first inhaled as a baby to burst into tears. Where did Chennai come into the picture?

I love everything about Chennai. I am inadvertently drawn to every single element of this suburb. From the climate, the bustling crowd, the random cinema posters parked across lanes, the way winds drummed against my cheeks, the refreshing fragrance of “malligai poo”, to the most significant aspect of it, the people who speak this beautiful “Tamizh” language. They freak out seeing me speak in Tamizh, a pale faced girl sporting a western outfit, which makes it even more amusing. Ahh,the wonderful feeling of being one of a kind, feels somewhat plausible..

So yaa, I pause amidst the crowd walking under the blazing Chennai sun, laugh at Soundie cloaked in a Talibani attire and Shuchu trying to protect her umbrella against the winds and throw my arms open bellowing “Come on ! Make me as ugly as you can.” Soundie gives her dimpled grin, Shuchu nods her head to and fro and we burst out laughing. The blithesome laughter echoes in my head every time I search for more reasons. I don’t mind at all. I would gladly suppress the desire to fling stuff at annoying people, to sew few mouths that speak bitter words and to jeer at the noses always lying high in the air.

Because.. I am in Chennai. This is where I now belong/always belonged.. Ahh, the wonderful feeling of being as snug as a bug in a rug… I get it here…