Chennai's delights: Autorickshaws, Weather

Yesterday night (rather morning: 2:00 AM), I was having a chat with Jens Eichler, my post-doc advisor in the tea board. He was telling me about his trip to Chennai a few days back. He was one of the kinder souls who had less bad things to say about Chennai. I was expecting an opinion of complete disparagement from him, however he had other ideas.

A couple of surprises:
Chennai’s rickshaw drivers are not bad after all, it seems. I argue that they are probably the worst of their kind in the country, since they consider the meter to be as extinct as a dino fossil and second, you have to obey the AchukuInaaAchukuThaan Law*: X (u pay) = X (on a meter whose electronics are intact and not subject to thermal expansion!) * S (a number > 2, randomly generated) + P (“Meterkku mela konjam pottu thaanga saar”). Jens disagrees vehemently, and points out that the auto drivers did not try to swindle him at all. I ask him the rates he paid for his trips and they seem quite ok. A pleasant surprise? No, a rude shock rather. Kudos to the Samaritans who gave Jens a ride that day.

My ego having taken a sound thrashing (since I have strong opinions about Chennai’s customer service), I take up another issue: the weather. “Oppressive, wasn’t it?” The repartee: “No, not really it was quite ok”. The reaction: A spasm through my spine, tongue burnt by my tea. Here was a man from Bangalore saying that the Chennai weather was ‘cool’.

Wow! After all these years, someone had done it. Someone had praised my city. It gave me a lot of pleasure.

*For dummies: a famous line from Thalaivar's "Baasha".