Revisiting a Topic: Weekends in Chennai.

Friday evening: rally the troops across the city (International Justice Mission friends, IIT folk and flat-mates) for a free jazz concert at the Alliance Francais. Arrive ten minutes late thanks to Chennai’s typically horrible rush-hour traffic to find the concert completely full. Loiter about as the troops slowly trickle in (everyone being caught in similar traffic), and make the decision to relocate to local outdoor hookah/coffee spot. Stroll through the wealthy backstreets, enjoying the tropical evening and the general feelings of safety despite my gender and my skin colour (both a relief after ten days in Delhi). Smoke strawberry-mint sheeshah, drink delicious Indian coffee and revel in a rare chicken-pesto panini. Home by 10pm. Have the landlady’s 10-year-old son teach me The Electric Slide, which he just learned at his local dance class, in the middle of our empty street. In bed by midnight.

Saturday: Snooze through my intention to go to the gym. Up in time to shower and apply sunblock before wandering through our neighbourhood to the bus stand. Meet up with Ari’s friends and wait and wait and wait for the bus south to Mahaballipuram. Take a share-auto with five other foreigners to another bus stand, where we wait only 5 minutes before catching a bus that will take us to our destination: Ideal Beach Resort – the favourite getaway for Chennai’s resident expat population. Slightly-spendy beach resort sandwiched between two local fishing communities. Spend the day sleeping in a hammock and drinking Kingfisher beer with intelligent and engaging Americans before driving home together along the coastal highway at dusk. Home by 8pm.

Sunday: Make it to the gym. Leave said gym early to come back home for the first-ever “10^th Cross Street Neighbourhood Watch” meeting. This meeting was organized by my landlady after one of our fellow tenants had her cell-phone snatched from her hands out on our street by two men speeding by on a scooter. I was amazed that twenty-plus neighbours showed up to sit in a circle in plastic chairs to argue and talk over one another and make suggestions on how to best protect the houses from “hooligans, burglars and snatchers.” There is something quite encouraging and optimistic about the grassroots activism that takes place all over Tamil Nadu. Such small meetings and impromptu collectives are much more efficient than the larger bureaucratic systems. There were both men and women at our meeting, and many of the women acted as representatives for their households. We’re going to petition for a police booth (these are notoriously empty all over the city) and for more apathetic, overweight policemen to ride their motorcycles down our street at more regular intervals between 11pm and 5am. We’re also hiring a man who will walk up and down the street all night, ostensibly keeping would-be burglars at bay. Finish quitessentially Tamil meeting, nap, then meet Mr. A (Arumugam) to do our Hindi homework together (have started twice-weekly Hindi classes). Come evening, visit friends, visit folk art/tribal crafts bazaar, lazily attempt to cook myself dinner, write current blog entry. In bed by midnight.

Post-Script: The Kalekshetra Craft Mela is absolutely fantastic! There are rows and rows of handmade crafts, silks, artwork and artists. I’m planning to go back tomorrow, and will probably find an excuse to browse on several more occaisions this week. Durga Bai, one of the artists in The Night Life of Trees, is there selling her work, and she is very sweetly letting me practice my apalling Hindi with her.