I came to live in Chennai 14 years ago with Rs. 40,000 of my father’s hard-earned money, which remained concealed throughout the train journey in a special pocket sewn onto my vest by my mother (at that time, electronic transfer of money was unheard of and ATMs were almost non-existent).
I was aware that landlords in Chennai usually demand 10 months’ rent in advance; and I had no one to turn to except my father, who nursed an unexplained fondness for the city and was happy to help his son settle down there.
It took me about 10 days to find a house to my liking. By then the bundle of notes had thinned down to almost half. But fortunately for me, the landlord asked for only five months’ rent as deposit. With whatever little money was left after paying the broker, I bought a mattress and a pillow and — on February 1, 2001 — moved into Kamakoti Flats on Murugesan Street in T. Nagar. I formally became a resident of Chennai, with an address of my own.
Kamakoti Flats has been my home ever since. This piece, needless to say, is being written in the building, in the same silence of the night that gave me company for 14 years. But by the time it appears in print, I would have moved out to another street nearby. The ‘packers and movers’ arrive tomorrow morning.
I am suddenly facing an identity crisis. Countless articles may have appeared under my byline; my name may appear on the spines of three books; but my identity is invalid without an ‘address proof’. For nearly every basic requirement in life — from opening a bank account to buying life insurance to getting a phone connection, not to mention applying for a loan — you need to prove that you reside in a certain address; and now that I am moving out of the address that had served as the proof of my identity for 14 years, I will have to start from scratch.
And all this while, I toiled night after night, believing that I was building an identity for myself.
