CHENNAI

A city is no different from a human being. It wakes up at the crack of dawn, stretches lazily and sets about its chores. It works during the day, enjoys in the evening and retires to bed at night. It has its good qualities and its flaws, as well as its eccentricities. And like all humans, it also has a heart and a soul. And its moods.

Sometimes it behaves like a pampering mother and sometimes like a sulking wife. At times it gives you a cold stare like a stranger and at other times it embraces you like an old friend. Only that a city has an infinite lifespan. The people who live in it are incidental: they come and go. But the city goes on. …. Like Chennai.

I have been living in Chennai (then it was Madras) from 1975.that time for few months till mid 1976 .. .and then after a gap of 10 years, in 1985,I came back to this city and literally made my home town …My children grew up here, had their education here and my family continued to live there, even if I choose to work in any other place.. Not very sure or unable to attribute any specific reason why the city clinches on to you..,,and makes you its slave ???

Until 1996,Chennai was known as Madras

The name Chennai is a shortened form of Chennaipattinam, the name of the town that grew around Fort St. George, built by the British. There are two versions about the origin of the name Chennai: according to one version, Chennaipattinam was named after Chennaiappa Naicker,(the then Raja of Kalahasthi and Vandavasi- villages which are part of Coromandel coast) from whom the British acquired the town in 1639. — acquired by two East India Company employees, Francis Day and Andrew Cogan

According to the second account, Chennapattinam was named after the Chenna Kesava Perumal Temple; the word chenni in Tamil means face, and the temple was regarded as the face of the city.

The city's former name, Madras, is derived from Madraspattinam, a fishing village north of Fort St. George. Some believe that the Portuguese, who arrived in the area in the 16th century, may have named the village Madre de Deus. According to some Indian resources, the name Madraspattinam derived from Mutharasa Pattinam, with ruled by King of Muthurasa (Mutharayar) in earlier stage before British rule. The sequence of the name began with Mutharasa to Muthras to Matras to Madras

Some time after the British gained possession of the area in the 17th century, the two towns, Madraspattinam and Chennapattinam, were merged. The British referred to the united town as Madraspattinam.

The state government officially changed it to Chennai in 1996...after all what’s in a name???   

That makes the city 371 years old. During these years  it contributed to the history of modern India in different capacities — as the seat of the British power in the South, as the capital of the entire South India, the base for South-Indian Film Industry, as the venue of some defining political movements and, of course, as the capital of Tamil Nadu.

But what has survived the political changes, and is still flourishing, is the culture — something that accords Chennai its unique place. Idli-sambar, Bharatanatyam, Carnatic music... these are things you can happily take out of Chennai, but you can never take Chennai out of them.

Chennai is different from other metros.. Chennai exudes warmth — something rarely found in the other metros. Bombay is too busy… Delhi loves to show off. Calcutta, is too snooty —(it never tires of celebrating itself ..May be I happened to live there during all important festival seasons..  )

I am little confused..whether I am a Chennaite or Madrasee? Again, what’s in a name! Thayir saadham tastes as good as curd rice.