What's up Chennai?

Seriously. What is up with you, Chennai? You have changed. Changed much.

Your streets are choked up with an astounding number of vehicles. Your products and services are sending their prices skyward at a speed comparable with our GSLVs. Your residents are multiplying at an alarming rate. And your people...Oh, your people. What happened to them? Where are the friendly ones I used to know? Why is everybody in a foul mood?

The people of Chennai were never a laidback group. In a fast growing metropolis which is competing for attention and businesses at a national level, the people cannot be laid back. They have to be driven. They have to be smartworking. But they were never rude as a matter of fact. Some chivalry was always alive among the Chennaiites. Road rage was never this widespread. The societal values never hit such a low.

I was never hit intentionally by a motorist simply because I had no place to move and he thought I was blocking him, until now. I was never serviced by rude salespeople who couldn't care less if you did not buy a product, until now. I was never shocked with Chennai's notorious autodrivers' haphazard driving and shameless haggling, until now.

What caused this? Is this the payoff for 'Development'? Is this because there are too many people? A few months' stay in the US has taught me to 'blame it all on the immigrants'. Do I do that? Is it because of the immigrants - people who have moved to Chennai from elsewhere in the state and the nation? But, hasn't Chennai always been a potpourri of diverse cultures?

I'm still waiting for answers from you, Chennai. I'm bewildered and saddened at your change. I wish that all these were only a product of my feverish imagination.

What, you don't worry?

That will be the surprised rejoinder Alfred E. Newman will get now for his favorite phrase, if he were to talk to the same people I talk to.

When you take a slightly different path than the well-trodden one, when you are not following the same stream, when you do not go by the popular conventional methods, people who are so solicitously enquiring after your health and wellness have already decided that you must be miserable in your new walk of life. Any assertions on your part that you're actually enjoying yourself on this new journey leaves these people doubting your word.

They shoot probing questions at you, determined to find the real you unhappy.
They of course don't ask ouright, but you can easily imagine them saying, "How the heck can you profess to be happy?", "Why are you pretending my child? Why don't you come clean and accept that you're living a sorrowful existence now?", and more in the same vein. There's some kind of an undetected sadistic pleasure these folks enjoy, that makes them sit back in contentment to see their opinions come true, however negative they may be.

Just because someone has done something unexpected, does it automatically have to follow that they cannot be happy doing that? No! But it's as hard for people to change their preconceived notions as a leopard its spots! If its a rule, it must be right! There's no argument about it. Much the same way, if you're different, you must be a weirdo. There's something not real about you!

People, wake up!!! Nothing's the same, ever.