Chennai – Few First Impressions

We have been in Chennai for almost a month.  We have never lived in Chennai, or for that matter in India, as an adult.  Visited many times and stayed at hotels and the homes of relatives.  This is our first experience of “living” here.

 

Since our stay here will be a short one – 6 months to a year only – we wanted to rent a fully furnished flat.  But it is very difficult.  Lot of people advertise as “furnished” and in reality it is not.  We finally found a “almost” furnished flat and rented it for 11 months.  (I don’t know why 11 months instead of a year.  But works out to our advantage.)

 

On the whole it is not all bad.  We do like a lot of things.  Here are some:

 

Milk is more tastier than USA.  I don’t know the reason.  In USA, milk is cow’s milk.  I don’t know about the Aavin milk in Chennai.  Is this also cow’s milk?  May be some Chennai friend can tell me.

 

Movie theaters in the malls are far superior to movie theaters in USA.  Neat, nice, and plush seats.  Great sound quality.

 

Vegetables are very tasty and fresh compared to USA.  The sellers even give free kariveppilai (Curry leaves).  I am amazed they give almost half of the tree.

 

Can rent an air conditioned Indica car for 4 hours for Rs.650.  Coming from USA, that is very cheap.  An air conditioned car with a driver and gas (petrol) for 4 hours is only around $10!

 

So many restaurants – we are enjoying eating out.

 

Of course, there are some things that we are not that much thrilled.

 

Too hot and air conditioners are not working due to some voltage problem.

 

If someone says he/she will be here in a few minutes, that means it will be a minimum of 2 hours before that person shows up.

 

In the stores in USA, if you do not find an item you want and it is not available, the sales person will tell you which store carries that item, even if that store is a competitor. Here the sales person’s reply is the same always in any store: I don’t know.  (I even asked a few people “you don’t even know where your competitor is located?”. “No Sir”.)

 

(Side bar.  Bill Gates wants all his Microsoft sales people to even know the birthdays of all their competitors and their family members.  That much thorough.)

 

We never had a servant maid in our home so far.  This is the first time.  Learnt a valuable lesson.  Do not have conversation with the spouse when the maid is present.  She has the habit of joining the conversation.  So we keep quite until she leaves.

 

I realize I am slowly becoming a rude person.  I am always polite and courteous to servants, delivery guys, sales people, taxi and auto drivers.  The problem is if you are polite and courteous, they think you can be cheated very easily.

 

More good things to come.