Walkabal disstence saar!, only 1 'kilometers' (kilometers!!! god!) dhaan.. said the assuring shop keeper when we enquired about the thirumana mandapam (the wedding hall, you see) we were headed to. This was in Velachery, which we managed to get to by bus.
As we walked the walkabal disstence as instructed by the shopkeeper, we realized there must be a slight judgmental error when the shopkeeper used the word 'walkable'. It wasn't walkable. We asked another guy after walking for 27.5 minutes. he took a long puff in his cigarette and said, Walkabal disstence saar!
The first thing that came to us was to slap him. hard. hmph! walkable distance!
Before we started this walkathon, Anish had spoken with his friend who promptly advised him to take a rick from the bus stop to the wedding hall, which we chose to disregard. Lesson learnt.
We walked the walkable distance for another 10 minutes and reached the place where they serve food. (the dining hall, for the uninitiated). Better sense prevailed and we went to the place where the action was taking place and found a couple of Anish's friends Mukesh & Aparna there. Little did we know that Mukesh would be our companion, friend, guide, god (in that order) for the rest of our stay in chennai.
One thing of interest here, which i won't elaborate. Heavy breakfast at 0853hrs. Two glasses of Juice @ 0912hrs. Lunch at 0940hrs. Thats Chennai for you.
So completing the formalities (wedding, wishing, food, bye bye, etc., etc.,) anish and I were done with attending the marriage. while discussing the plans for the day, we explored a lot of possibilities like going to mahabalipuram, zoo, snake park, beach, himalayas, bangalore. etc., then mukesh offered we go to his hostel.
he's a bangalorean, did his masters in IIT Madras. We decided to drop our bags in the hostel. Boy! IIT Madras hostel deserves another post. I won't elaborate here.
We caught a glimpse of the final india - pak one dayer in the TV room and off we headed to Peters road!
Now, when we checked www.kiruba.com , as said in part 1, we actually were looking for a place called amethyst, which kiruba has talked about so beautifully. We reached amethyst by bus and leo publishers. (kiruba, thanks for mentioning about it, without which, i wouldn't known about it)
Amethyst is a coffee shop and a mind blowing (no, you can't use skull shattering this time) place! I personally didn't believe it was in chennai that such a beautiful place is located. Its worth all the dime you have in your pocket. Please visit amethyst. You'll find the details about it here. (please scroll down this page and you'll also find the directions).
Being in Amethyst was being in a paradise. It was a miracle. From there, we moved to Marina Beach. The sight caught us silent again. We didn't speak a word for 47 minutes, 2 cups coffee, 4 pcs pineapple. It took the chennai damsels to disturb our experiencing the here and now. in marina beach. This was like a miracle.
We took a rick back. I jogged in IITM campus. (wow!). lost my way inside. spotted 4 deers. made a couple of calls to anish, in an attempt to find my way back. found my way back. met a common friend from college in the camputs (miracle!) . met mukesh (he was of so much help). freshned up. had dinner. spoke about the chiefminister of karnataka, his allies. theri food habits. their sleeping habits. their beeeeeeep! habits. packed and mukesh led the way till Chennai Central!
We felt a lil' bad that the miracles were coming to an end. that we had to get back to work the next day. we didn't speak much (didn't have to) after that until once inside the Sharma transport airbus which we boarded, left anish and went for about a kilometer. anish joined in later. and we tried to settle the accounts, which put us into a deadly silence. didn't speak a word about anything else once we came to know the expenditures.
Awrite! that brings us to an end of our wonderful journey. Am looking forward for more such trips. We've decided henceforth whenever we land in any relatively new city we would buy the map first. and travel by train.
Rright. Now, bring your questions / rotten tomatoes / eggs (bird flu - free only) on!
Thats that.
2 comments:
Amethyst is one place we Madrasis are proud of..
Sadly, its not walkalble distance from either my office or my house :)
Bangalore doesnt have something that good, Im born in bangalore, brought up here in Chennai...and the heart's divided :(
i think you Madrasis must be proud of amethyst.
having learnt a lesson, i don't treat 'walkable distance' as just another word in english language nowadays. :P
no, no, there's no reason for division. Chennai has beach. so, whenever bangaloreans feel the need to go to the sea, we go to chennai. else, everything is available here. ;)
umm.. i have to agree on amethyst, we don't have one here, but after the beach, we should have cofee right?? ;)
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