I was never fully from Madras, aka Chennai. Neither officially nor completely. I didn’t grow up there. I didn’t go to school there. I didn’t know every street by heart. But I always felt I belonged to it in fragments, like a part of me has always belonged to it in ways I cannot explain.
I was a typical half-resident. A recurring memory in its calendar. At least once a month, like clockwork, we would go. Every small shopping trip, every festival purchase, every “important” thing had to happen in Madras. Clothes for festivals, gifts, all the big decisions. It didn’t feel real unless it came from there. As if the city had to witness our milestones. As if it pressed a quiet stamp on our lives that said, this matters.
The Chennai of the early 2000s wasn’t just a place. It was like a warm hug. A softness. A rhythm that didn’t shove you forward. It moved, but it allowed you to breathe in its stillness.
Mount Road was my anchor, the place that is and will always be closest to my heart. My aunt lived there back then, in a quaint apartment that felt like a second world. People called it the heart of the city, and I believed it. From the window, I watched life unfold.
Across those posh buildings and glittering glamour, in a small slum house, lived an old British couple. Someone once said they had failed to migrate back. I don’t know if that was true. Maybe it was just a story adults told to fill the silence. Every single morning, without fail, I would watch them sit outside together with tea in delicate cups and saucers, legs crossed, gently sipping their tea calmly, as if time moved differently around them. The uncle had wavy silver hair and carried a boxy smile. He mostly wore trousers and T-shirts. The aunty had a neat bob, big round glasses, and wandered around in a knee-length frock, like she belonged to a different decade. They looked misplaced and yet perfectly placed at the same time.
Watching them became my private ritual. I never spoke to them. I never waved. I don’t know their names. They never once looked up at me. And yet, they belong to the Madras that I know. Their stillness in that noisy, chaotic city felt like a secret I was lucky enough to witness. Sometimes I wonder if they are still there. And sometimes I’m terrified they aren’t. And sometimes I wonder if they ever existed at all, or if my memory has softened them into something poetic because I needed something steady to look back on.
My aunt would dry machine-washed clothes on the terrace at night. Such a small, ordinary chore. And yet, it was my favorite time of day. I would follow her upstairs, talking endlessly about random things just so I could stay there longer. The terrace would glow under scattered city lights. Not as blinding as today. Softer. Warmer. The breeze would move through the wet clothes and brush past my face. I would stand there, small, quiet, and unnoticed, staring at the skyline as if it held answers. As if it knew things I didn’t yet know about life.
One building I clearly remember spotting from there was an IT company named Polaris; its lights stayed on until 6 in the morning. That fascinated me. Who were those people? What were they doing? It felt like something grand and important was happening inside those walls while I stood there, just being a child.
We went often to St. Anthony’s Church, Egmore, near Presentation Convent. It was the first church I ever stepped into. I didn’t understand the prayers. I didn’t understand the rituals. But I remember feeling small in a way that was comforting. A quiet closeness, like something larger was holding the silence for me. It has been ages since I went there, and sometimes I feel guilty about that. As if I left a part of myself sitting in one of those pews.
Most of my evenings meant FM radio playing in the background. 104.8 Chennai Live. English songs drifting through the house. “Love The Way You Lie” was on constant repeat. Back then, it was just a song. Now it’s a time machine. One line, and I’m back in that living room — the fan spinning lazily, the city humming outside, and that little version of me who didn’t know how fast life could become.
Spencer Plaza was magical, mysterious, and enormous in its own way. It was walking distance from my aunt’s place, and every walk felt like anticipation. We’d pass Taj Connemara, secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of cricketers. My first pizza. My first burger. My first escalator — that terrifying, thrilling step onto moving stairs. Landmark Bookstore on the second floor meant CDs, books, and time disappearing quietly. Softy ice creams that tasted better than they ever did anywhere else or maybe it was just that I tasted them differently then.
Twice or thrice a week during the late afternoons, around 3 p.m., when the sun turned golden and mild, my sister would take me to a tiny, quiet café named Kwality Confectionery on Montieth Road. Tiny, quiet, and almost hidden from the world. Buttercream cakes and flaky pastries that felt indulgent. Coffee that was too good to be ordinary. It felt like we owned a small corner of the city there. I still feel that flicker of excitement when I think about it. And now it’s permanently closed after Covid.
There was less traffic back then. Less aggression. Fewer horns. The air didn’t feel heavy with impatience. People seemed to have time. Even boredom existed, and somehow it felt peaceful and safe. Now, when I visit, the skyline feels unfamiliar. The OG mall of old Madras stands quieter as new malls have bloomed everywhere. Metro pillars rise where open skies once stretched. Roads feel tighter. Trees that once shaded entire lanes are gone. Time moves faster now. Everyone is rushing.
Sometimes I stand there and feel like a stranger in a place that once felt like an extension of me. And maybe the city hasn’t changed as much as I think. Maybe I have. Maybe what I’m grieving isn’t just old Madras. Maybe I’m grieving the little girl who stood on that terrace at night, believing the world was endless and gentle. The girl who once thought cities and their people stayed the same. The girl who didn’t yet understand that everything, the places, people, versions of ourselves quietly moves on. And sometimes, when life feels too fast, too loud, too sharp, those memories don’t hurt loudly. They ache quietly instead, on a random afternoon, when your mind drifts back and reminds you of how things once were.
Beautifully written
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