Life takes you through several places, several situations, and several people. Some of those places you remember, all your life. Some you cannot forget, no matter how hard you try. There may be times when you want to turn back and be there again. There may be those few times when you wish Life had a fast forward button just so you can get out of that place as quickly as possible. But every time you reach a place in Life, you look around, full of hopes and dreams about your time at that place. This is a little bit about my experience with such places.
Chennai is a city where nobody wants to be. With its extreme heat and humid climate, people don’t even wait to hear more of the city before they run away screaming to some sad place in some corner of the country, or even the world. Even so, when I set foot on the soil of Chennai on this surprisingly long stint, I had a lot of expectations of the place, frankly, not great expectations, bur simply expectations. I landed here on the last week of December, with the hope of getting independent and fly free from what I’d thought was the never ending bondage of dependency on my parents. I’d got this new ray of hope from getting my first job at a reputed IT company, which I was here to join. I came to Chennai with my roommate, college-mate and long-time best-friend, and we managed to get a room at a hotel near the station, thanks to a great friend of my father’s. When I took in the first look of this place, I did not expect any of what this city gave me, and I most certainly did not know that few months from then I’d be cursing the climate of this city. On the other hand, I found the weather quite likeable, and I was glad to start my new life at a metropolitan city. My new job demanded a three month training that included a month of basic training and two months of job-based training. I entered my first session with cold feet, and trembling hands, and the moment the session started, it all ended. My mentors were the awesomest people on the planet and they were nothing less than perfectly equipped to train and guide us through the scary beginning at our first job. For the first few months here, Life was spread out as a series of getting up early, running for training, projects, deadlines, and gearing up for the real scene. At the end of those few months, I had loved the city a lot dearly- for it had some people I loved and cared for. I had friends, and we hung out at all the top spots of the city. It was a noisy ride, and we were all passengers in the best place ever.
Then came the time where training was over, and we had to move to work. Work started, and it was crazy, like getting out of a cage only to find out you’re not ready for the open sky yet. The city started getting more crowded, and we moved to a different part of the city, and of life. Friends started going farther away, and life started getting more serious. The city I once learnt to love started getting darker and I started seeing the downside of the city. The summer got hotter, the crowd more crowded, and the air more polluted. Work was hectic. Weekend plans made had to be cancelled. I missed being in college, or even at training. Life was getting serious, the city was getting serious, and I didn’t like it. I kept on hoping for it to get better. But it didn’t.
Now I’m home, at Kerala, sitting at one of my best friends’ place. Life here is simple, and great, and I love it here. But I still miss the city- the city I’d loved to hate. I see everything I’ve missed to see in the past few awful months- the time we’d taken out to meet each other even in the midst of work, awkward situations at workplace, watching the latest season of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ with my roommate, going to church, where I sit and pray peacefully on Sundays, and all those little things that made me miss that hateful city so much. In all those desperate attempts to hate the city, I’d started loving it like my home.
My first job has its flaws, but my friends, my new found gang is the awesomest, noisiest, coolest most radical gang ever. Life is great, and I’ve learnt to love the city with all its flaws and shortcomings, and the noisiness. I’m out of the cage, but this time, I’m ready to fly.
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