Chennai in winter

My connection with chennai is very long  .... very very long  ... I am a malayali but my early years was in chennai i think 1-3 yrs .Call it childhood alzheimers i dont remember it at all . But what i do remember is the time i came to this city to write my plab exam long ago and my first mall visit to spencers plaza in chennai , my first five star experience of grand dinner at park sheraton etc ..

But recently having visited this city many times i am as much a tamilian as a malayali . I am at home here especially since i find the tamilian humble manners very very attractive . Knowing enough tamil to easily get by and thrilled by their culture as well as drinking sambar and rasam by the litre this city is my second home .

But recently i went in winter to this city . Those who knows chennai for its notorious weather knows why i stress "winter " . Its not chilly but the weather is superb far away from the scorching heat of may chennai weather when even the air conditioners think why they are working .

No visit to chennai is complete without visiting the famous beach Marina beach of chennai .  Its countrys longest natural urban beach and worlds second longest . Beaches are exciting anywhere in the world and near new year the atmosphere was festive to say the least . From the distance you can see the ships at the port and being high tide time there was even a horse police (thats also historic for chennai ) was asking people to be careful in the beach . We had some snaps taken of the horses backs as we were unprepared for the "horse police patrol " on the beach a relic of the colonial era .

God or food next . Of course God first . Chennai is home to its on set of famous temples and vadapalani muruga temple is one of the beautiful serene temples within the city .And since my work took me to hospitals i was curious to see that all hospitals had a proper temple within  even with some architecture included . Impressive .  Though there was some debate whether tamilians humility was because they were more religious i still believe this presence of God around them may be one reason for their humility .

Film studios AVM as well as vijaya studios where the yesteryears actors like MGRs footsteps must have fallen is still thrilling for me as one of the places is a hospital now . So for me its both official as well as a pilgrimage as i am a mivie buff and MGR fan ..And when i talk about filmstars for the first time saw Ms Jayalalitha the cheif minister and also an actress of yesteryear . Cool  to even think about it  ..

Food there is only one word .... awesome .. Be it the authentic tamilian vegeterian fare including the dosa , the sambar and all varieties of chutneys to the medicinal rasam to the non vegeterian delights of tamil nadu like kaaraikudi restaurant dishes the culinary fest is superb . And being winter the appetite was on high gear .
And if you thought "conservative "chennai had only tamilian food joints think again .. I had superb thai at Grand Siam this time just making one more spot in my food adventure map of chennai which includes japanese restaurants also . And try the kozi dajaj at the arabic restaurant zaitoon ... I found it even better than in gulf .

And lastly on the jasmine clad tamilian girls ... Oh god ... this is a blog on chennai in winter i forgot  .. The last sentence was a typo :) happy new year