23C

The measly few in number who follow this erratic blog, will know me for what I am. A generally gormless, -oohh-look-at-that-blinky-airplane-oops-i-dint-see-that-car-just-about-to-mash-me. My spatial skills are non-existent and I will one day die in a crunchy road accident while crossing some vague, snarly road.
Oh,and I don't know Tamil.
You can picture exactly what transpired when I had to navigate Adyar all by myself. Yes, the three braincells residing in my tiny skull have finally reached puberty :)
Blame it all on Airtel, who have matured into a large scale annoyingly tormenting bright red bunch of jerks. They randomly go on SIM blocking sprees cutting off innocent victims from the rest of the planet.
Which meant that I was obliged to go bust their asses. It took me four hours to find the place, vent and get back. My fingers itch to type out every crummy detail of the journey. Breathe. I'm not actually going to do it. Bits off the top of my head:

1. The lady who was stuck with me for 15 minutes while we tried to cross the road. Yes, 15 minutes without a single break in the seething mass of trucks, cars and bikes. She was on the old doddery side of things and on 3 occasions grabbed my hand and almost wailed for me to wait till the traffic stopped. Our 15 minute long conversation progressed as follows:
Lady: Telugu?
Me: English, English
Lady: Telugu
Me: Hindi
Lady: *snigger*
Me: malar hospital
Lady:Telugu
Me: Cars
Lady: smile
She held my hand while crossing the road though :)

2. The auto guys. These guys are from another planet altogether. A weird yellow place whose inhabitants spout random numbers. One guy asked me for 120 bucks to cover a distance of 5 minutes. Another took me for 30 bucks and said welcome to my to my stuttered thanks. On the return trip:
Auto guy: *random tamil*
Me: What? what?
Auto guy: 60
Me: 30
Auto guy: cynical laugh

3. The dudes who gave me a lift to the gate. There is some screenwriting workshop happening at IIT-M and all these guys spoke about was words, abstracts and directors. Awesome!!

4. Every male in the age group15-22 who helped me out. And all aunties aged 40-50. These are(according to my superior reasoning skills) the best people to ask for directions if you are a female age 18-20. When I'm lost/clueless,my face acquires this helpless puppy expression. The motherly type find this irresistible.The boys are just well, just nice and very obliging. All that helps when you don't know bus routes and want someone to smile a lot and pat your arm while pointing the way.

5. Buses in Chennai are enormously confusing with numbers like 47A, 19B,29H, 23C,5E,7M. As far as I can make out, the numbers and alphabets have no logical connect. There are infinite such numbers and buses are very picky about where they drop you. Finding the right bus is a very rare event unless you know the exact bus number and the geography of the place you want to reach. I stopped a bus because it was pretty and shiny. That's it. Sole reason. It was new, clean and yellow. By sheer dumb luck,it also went to IIT-M.

My legs are screaming from all the walking they were subjected to. 3 autos and a bus later, I have that weird expression that only the gormless who have managed to find their bearings manage to have.

Made it okay va :)