Mind your Language...

Chennai , Tamilnadu, India

I went to India for my further education. I completed my undergraduate in commerce from chennai(It used to be Madras). I spent more than 3 yrs in Chennai, Tamilnadu (South India). That is the one of the hottest place I have ever been. Actually Chennai doesn’t have winter season at all. She does have three seasons and those are hot, hotter and hottest. However cool breeze from seashore sooth you some extent. You don’t have to spend too much for your clothing in Chennai. As you know winter dress is more expensive than summer clothing. Half pant and t-shirt is more than enough for whole year. However you might need a pair of jacket if you are a travel jockey.
People are very conservative and religious. They put bar to segregate male side and female side in public transportation and you are not suppose to be seated in female side, though the seat is empty. That is really bizarre. I have never seen that kind of bar culture anywhere other than Chennai. You should be familiar to run and catch the bus to board into, since buses don’t stop long enough to get in and get off. It doesn’t make a sense to a driver and conductor the number of passenger getting in and getting off. Quick stop and fast run as usual. This is oppose to the riding system of Nepal, where conductor would be waiting for you even if you have just started from your house, if he knew that you are coming to ride the bus. However public transportation is good in Chennai. That is owned and operated by the state government itself. Though Chennai is a part of India, they want to differentiate themselves from other India. That’s why they don’t speak Hindi, even though then can speak Hindi. I just want to remind you that Hindi is the national language of India. India has lots of ethnic languages and people from different places practice their own mother language. However they will speak Hindi with you if you initiate the conversation in Hindi language unlike in Chennai. They don’t mingle with other people easily if you are not Tamil. That’s why I have very handful Tamil friend compare to friend from other part of India. Normally people from northern part of India are friendlier than southern part of India. Nepalese cultures and Indian cultures are similar in various instances. Like food culture, religious culture, social culture etc. But that didn’t hold good for me in Chennai, especially in case of food. At the very beginning we had to have food from restaurant and it is very difficult to get the food of our taste. However after few days we did manage to cook food at our apartment itself that gave us some comfort. We wouldn’t have hard time if we had got north Indian cuisine, which is quite similar to our food. Famous dishes in Chennai are Shamber, Dosa, Idly, Rasam, and Uttapum.

I don’t want to put the whole list right here. At least it took more than 6 months to be use to those food. However I started missing those foods once l left Chennai. That’s why I frequently visit south Indian restaurant in USA as well. USA is the diversified country in the world, where you can get everything you need. If you are an Asian and missing Asian people and Asian food, no problem, just Google it, you will get the same. Even if you want to narrow it down and want to meet Nepali people and Nepali food, you will get it. However Indian restaurant is widely available compare to Nepali restaurant and they are cheap compare to Nepalese restaurant. If you are in big city like New York and Chicago, you will get everything you feel like to have. Oh… I am sorry, I went far away form Chennai, let me come back to Chennai again. Hmm…what I was telling is….yap! I got it. Ok I have talked enough about food mania in Chennai and want to go some other things. Chennai was my first foreign country far away from my country and of course from family. I used to miss my place very much at the beginning though I had some Nepalese friend along with me. I feel very happy when I see Nepalese over there. Once I meet Nepalese I break the ice and start asking their name and the place in Nepal they are from. In this way I had become familiar with lots of Nepalese within short span of time. But later on I got to meet lots of Nepalese almost every day and I got to know there are lots of Nepalese working in different field including students.
Let me tell you one very funny and critical incident took place in Chennai, which I would never forget in my life and I keep telling this to my friend and colleague whenever I get a chance. It goes like this: we were new to the place and had to go to our institute. One of a senior gave us a direction, bus route and the stop to get down. And he told us to look at the flyover (Anna flyover) coz the stop after that flyover is our destination. I and two of my friend left home for institute as per his direction. Everything was smooth till we find the flyover; once we saw the flyover we were so excited and happy since we were on track. As you know how curious and excited you would be when you have to find out a new place, moreover you would have kind of fear to lose. Due to that fear one of my friend suddenly shouted pointing at the flyover, “Pool ayo pool, sathi aba aune stop ma ta hami jharnu parcha”. That means flyover has come, so next stop is our destination. Suddenly people started looking at us like they have never seen people like us before. At the same time other friend supported his statement and repeated the same. The environment turned into hostile. Then I told them to keep quite. We got off the bus and went to the institute and get our job done. But we were thinking about situation and trying to figure out that, why people stared at us. Everything was fine before that. We went back home and told seniors about the incident. Even they didn’t get any clue.The day passed with curiosity being unsolved mystery. Tomorrow we asked a guy next door. He is from Bihar and Muslim, you could imagine what kind of guy he would be, I bet you are thinking something bad about him, and if so you are 100% wrong. He was very nice and helpful guy. He speaks Hindi, English and Tamil as well. He has been Chennai for 6 yrs. It had come to our knowledge that unknowingly we had spoke out very bad word in Tamil. Then he told;" Bach Gaye ho tum log”. That means thank god you guys are safe. The word pool means male sexual organ in Tamil. Now you could imagine the situation where some guys are calling out male organ in public bus. Heheheh…..One more secret, don’t tell anybody o.k., then after I learnt all bad words in Tamil language. I still remember some of them. “W…..t……” fill in the blanks and try to read it if you know Tamil, else just forget it…