At 9 pm, the moon shines over the vast dark expanse of the Thiruvanmiyur beach. Four hours ago and 20 kilometres away, I was watching a different kind of horizon, at Kasimedu harbour. According to research and analytics firm Economist Intelligence Unit’s report this year on Worldwide Cost of Living, Chennai is the world’s ninth cheapest city to live in. We put this to the test by going around the city, to explore how much we can do for 99 bucks. The first on our list: travelling from the North to the South of Chennai using every popular means of public transport.
Kasimedu to Washermanpet: Share Auto Rickshaw: ₹25 for 4 km
Waves crash at the tetrapods in N4 beach and a few canoodling couples scuttle away from their hiding spots like beach crabs. I follow one of them back to the main road, where we wait for auto rickshaws.
The auto rickshaw I get in has two other women, and when the third comes in mid-way, the driver suggests I sit on the bar on the left side and enjoy a convertible-style view of the city.
If North Chennai’s roads seem dusty, it is because they are forever caught in the flurry of development. Our three-wheeler sputters through the choked lanes with its matchbox houses, garlanded by multiple cable wires. The smells and sights shift every fifty metres: from freshly made snacks, to meat being cut, to garbage left open, back to flour mills, to the slight burning of wood and metal being worked on.
This is the home of the ‘working-class heroes’, it’s where Chennai began 380 years ago.
Washermanpet to Central: Metro: ₹20 for 4.5 km
Washermanpet is currently the last stop in North Chennai. The first phase is set to be extended to nine more kilometres, until Wimco Nagar. Despite the initial phase being completed a few months ago, people still haven’t gotten used to the ride. Even now, I see two men clicking selfies on the escalator.
When we arrive at Central, the doors open on the right. However, a man engrossed in watching a video on his phone, stands at the left, ready to exit. Meanwhile the rest of us, instead of leaving, are at the door, gaping, chuckling and wondering when he will look up from his phone. Bless his heart (and absent mind) for making strangers share a laugh.
Park Railway Station to Guindy: Suburban Railway: ₹5 for 14 km
You can always expect some form of entertainment in local trains. Our main show for tonight is a reunion of two former bank colleagues, A and B. These two men, possibly in their late forties, can’t believe that of all the trains, in all the towns in all the world, they walked into each other’s. “You still at Chrompet?” “No, we shifted to St Thomas.” They shake hands. It’s 6.30 pm, and yet, in the most Indian way possible, A asks, “You’ve had food?” They shake hands yet again. Meanwhile, a third friend, C, most likely A’s current colleague, politely smiles and nods.
“Oh you remember Murthy?” “You know who retired?” “He’s now in Kolathur” “No, I heard he went to Bangalore.” “You hear that C, he went to Bangalore!” C smiles and nods again, desperately reaching for the company of his phone.
After confirming which of their friends had high blood pressure and whose kids were how old, they proceed to exchange numbers — sheepishly admitting that they weren’t sure of one another’s names.
It’s 7 pm, time to get down at Guindy and rub arm sweat with fellow strangers at rush hour.
Guindy to Adyar: Bus: ₹9 for 4 km
“Adyar, AdyAR, ADYAR.” Share auto drivers outside the subway at Guindy bus depot seem intent on taking you there whether you wish to or not. I pass them by in favour of the 54F.
CHENNAI, 21/11/2018: MTC buses do not halt at Madhya Kailash Bus Stop (Towards Gandhi Nagar), Sardar Patel Road in Chennai. Photo: M. Karunakaran
Normally, a bus at this hour is chock full of passengers. The traffic at Guindy is almost as bad as Tondiarpet, if not worse; however wider the roads may be. (Why is it that the south of Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata are all better developed than the north?)
A statue of deer under the flyover near IIT Madras catches my eyes and I think of the full moon night three years ago, when my friend and I chanced upon four deer that had wandered into the Asian College of Journalism hostel campus at Taramani, With the Guindy National Park here, rescuing free-ranging deer is a task cut out for the city’s foresters. Today there are no deer, today there’s grime and more road to cover.
Kasturibai to Thiruvanmiyur: MRTS: ₹5 for 2 km
The train is just about to leave the station as I jump on, flushed with pride at my timing. In one corner, sits a bearded man, looking especially tired. A quick Google search confirms that he’s indeed city-based comedian, Baggy. I walk up to say hi.
“We’re headed to watch the IPL match,” he says. My first conclusion isn’t that I’m on the wrong train, but that there must be a new stadium in Velachery that I’m unaware of. After five embarrassing seconds, I realise my mistake and get down at Greenways Road to change trains.
Thiruvanmiyur station to RTO, to beach: Share auto rickshaw, walking: ₹15 for 3 km, ₹0 for 1 km
Thiruvanmiyur is where the IT crowd’s at. Glass buildings housing hordes of worker bees. It gets a bad rap for its rush-hour traffic, and bears the brunt of all excuses for reaching work late. Getting a car past the RTO to OMR is as bad as navigating to the Mambalam railway station on Sundays.
Chennai: 19.05.08. For City: Share Autos at Thiruvanmiyur. Photo: M_Karunakaran
However, once you make the left towards the beach, the blaring horns give way to quiet canopies of sterculia and bougainvillea. Here, on the literal last leg of my journey, I spot a woman selling dosas. T Suganthi sits surrounded by four stoves and huge containers of tomato and coconut chutney, sambar , payasam , idlis , pongal , tomato rice and more batter. “I don’t need a board for my business, people around here know me,” says the former travel agent and single mother. With ₹ 20 to spare, I down two ₹4 idlis , and amble on — fresh breeze signalling that the beach is close.
