Two Bad Days

Two days after the beautiful evening in Pune, I landed in Chennai. I have mixed feelings of this place. I like this place for the birth of On Our Own (travelogue - part 1, part 2, part 3) - the blog that was, the orkut community that was, and the many nice people I came in touch with. I liked the place for it had the beaches that Bangalore doesn't have. And for the white chutney (Coconut chutney), which is, according to me, world class! And then, there are reasons that I don't like Chennai.. the reason being the latest one.

The hotel stay was a bad experience. The food this place had to offer was bad. There was a powercut in the hotel for an hour! (no, it was'nt on the day when Chennai went batti bundh). I had nightmares in my dreams. Waking up in the mornings made me feel sick. This visit wouldn't stay in my memory for a long time, except for what happened during the return journey in Lalbagh Express.

Unable to withstand the power cut in the hotel, I meandered forth to Odyssey store near Thiruvanmiyur and thought I spend some time there. I must say, they have a really good collection of books, even though the number of books they stock is not anywhere near Landmark or Crossword. I have found this even in the Odyssey outlets that I've visited in Jayanagar & the one in Cosmos Mall in Whitefield (both in Bangalore). This collection had me hooked for more than an hour and I ended up buying Shashi Tharoor's The Elephant, the Tiger & the Cellphone, Moshin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and a couple of DVDs, just in case I find the books boring during the journey back to Bangalore. Even though Shashi Tharoor's book was tempting, I decided to start The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Four hours later in the train, I had finished the book! This one sitting finish is what it makes me not forget the journey for long.

More about the book, later, but, for now, that were the two bad days in Chennai.