More new ground in India! Chennai is not typically part of the Indian tourist circuit, so I’m all the more happy to be adding this piece of context to my understanding of this great nation. Truth be told, my original interest here was in the coastal town of Pondicherry, not Chennai. But Chennai is the closest major airport to Pondicherry, so why not spend a couple days here as well, right? It’s about the journey, not the destination. But to be fair, Chennai is absolutely a destination unto itself, as I would soon discover…

An Intro to Chennai & the Tamil identity

With a metro area population of roughly ~14.5 million people, Chennai is currently the 4th largest city in India, behind only 🥇 Delhi, 🥈Mumbai, and 🥉 Kolkata. It’s also the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which is the formal administrative division corresponding to the Tamil cultural identity.

India is an extremely diverse place, with many different distinct cultural identities coexisting under a single flag, all practicing different religions and speaking different languages (22 of which are “official” languages). For all the violence that has historically occurred between these various groups, it’s an incredible social experiment and testament to our capacity for cultural tolerance that India remains so strongly unified today! But this country should absolutely never be viewed as a monolith, and within its cultural landscape, Tamil culture is an extremely important feature.

Tamil culture is unique because it is one of the most ancient surviving cultures not only in India, but in the whole world. Its roots can be traced back to ~300 BCE and the Tamil language—one of the world’s oldest living languages—has more than 2,000 years of recorded literature. The Tamil-verse includes multiple different religions (such as Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), so religion’s typical role as a cultural unifier does not apply here. In its place, the language itself has taken on a unique level of significance. When Tamils think in terms of “us vs. them”, the primary dividing line is language. And, by this standard, “us” includes about ~75 million people within India alone (there are many more internationally), making it the 5th most widely spoken language in India. Unlike the Sanskrit-derived languages of Northern India (such as Hindi and Bengali), Tamil is a Dravidian language, which is a completely different universe. To give you a sense of just how far apart these universes are, Tamil vs. Hindi is like English vs. Arabic. Dravidian languages—Tamil included—have exotic-looking scripts dominated by curvy and circular shapes. There are almost no straight lines because, in South India (where Dravidian languages are spoken), writing was traditionally scratched into palm leaves; straight lines could tear the leaf, so curves were more practical.

ANYWAY, the Chennai area had been inhabited since prehistoric times, but it didn’t exist as a centralized population center until the British came along. Similar to Goa, this was originally a decentralized cluster of coastal villages and the Portuguese were actually the first colonizers, but control of their little slice of this coastline passed between a few different European powers before the British fully consolidated power here, centralizing control of this region in ~1640 under the name Madras. The city developed under this name until 1996, when it was renamed to Chennai. This was part of a broader trend of India renaming cities to purge the anglicized, colonial nomenclature from the map and reclaim their own cultural and linguistic autonomy. As a part of this, Calcutta became Kolkata, Bangalore became Bengaluru, and Bombay became Mumbai. Likewise, Madras ➡ Chennai.

BUT THAT’S ENOUGH CONTEXT! These places are endlessly complex, but there is only so much information you can take in at one time and honestly vibes are just as important. So let’s talk first impressions, yeah?

Arriving in Madras Chennai

I have to start with this: Chennai has a very nice airport. I was impressed. And it also has very nice hotels. During our first of 2 go-rounds in Chennai, we stayed at The Raintree Hotel and, surprisingly, it was one of my favorite hotels I’ve ever stayed in… like, ever. It wasn’t a luxury resort by any means, but—for whatever reason—I loved it enough that I was still actively missing it on my next trip with every new hotel I checked into. Hell, I am missing it right now as I write this article! Chennai is not a place with much for tourists to see, but I came away from this visit thinking “I really hope I come back here on business someday!” That’s definitely a ‘first’ in the history of this website. 😂

Anyway, amidst the many regional differences/nuances at play within India, I think the North/South divide is one of the most basic and pronounced. Northern cities have the reputation of embodying India at its most crowded, frenetic, and… dare I say… unpleasant? There’s a lot to love up there as well of course, but it can be challenging. The reputation of the South of India is for being music more peaceful and laid back. Chennai definitely delivered on this promise. It was still India, with its crowded streets and constant movement, but it was much less stressful than what I’d experienced in other major cities. People were walking slower. It was less crowded. People tried to sell me things or ask for money less often. The baseline level of noise was lower. The energy was different. It was still India, but somehow I was less stressed. Here are a few snapshots from the top of our hotel, and from the surrounding streets. I especially love that photograph hung from the ceiling of the rickshaw…

Chennai was the first time that I realised that you can now call rickshaws on Uber! They’re a helluva lot cheaper than normal cars, and they are a much more “Indian” experience, so we took them everywhere in Chennai. With the exception of the final night when we made the mistake of taking a rickshaw through a rainstorm, it was quite fun. The ceilings and dashboards of many of these little vehicles had been decorated to reflect the personalities of their drivers, which is not something I’d seen elsewhere in India. Here’s a gallery of the views from the back of these noisy little golf carts as they drove us back and forth across Chennai. I can still feel the warm breeze hitting my face and hear the sounds of the street when I look at these pictures…

Kapaleeshwarar Temple

Kapaleeshwarar Temple is one of the few tourist attractions that Chennai has to offer, and (therefore) it’s very much worth a visit. Today it’s located in a neighborhood called Mylapore, which has been a sacred site for more than 1,000 years, but the exact location of this temple was originally a bit closer to the sea. This temple was apparently damaged by Portuguese colonists in the 1500s, and had rebuilt in its current location by the mid 1600s.

It’s a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, and it an excellent example of Dravidian architecture. It’s most distinct features are its towering, colorfully sculpted “gopurams”. These are steep pyramids that mark the entrances to the temple, which are so covered in ornate, brightly-painted figurines that you can barely see the structure beneath them! It’s like one of those crowded classical paintings come to life. These towers are SO intricate and yet so tall and steep, that they are bit difficult to observe or appreciate, especially with the mid-day Indian sun beating down on them. The rest of the temple complex is also fascinating to explore, as it is not just a tourist attraction, but an actively functioning temple! All around us, colorfully dressed locals went about their business and there were many rooms where non-Hindus (like me) were not allowed to enter. We knew this because some guy appeared to us like an apparition when we entered the temple and served as our guide whilst we were inside. He did ask for money at the end (which he claimed would fund the temple), but that’s okay; he’d earned it by that point.

Here are some pictures from around the temple, and then inside of the temple. The blocks around the temple are actually an interesting walk, as they go through small markets and ornate ghats, so this is where the gallery begins. However, by the end we’ll be properly inside the temple.

Fort St. George

Another prominent feature on Chennai’s short list of tourist attractions is Fort St. George, which is actually quite cool if you’re interested in colonial history. Founded in 1639, it was one of the earliest permanent British settlements in India, and THE oldest surviving British-built fortress in the country. Its construction effectively served as the founding of Madras as a centralized city. In the early days of British rule on the subcontinent, they managed the whole place via 3 administrative jurisdictions (which they called “presidencies”) and Madras was one of them. The other two at that time were Bengal and Bombay, but as British influence on the subcontinent expanded the systems evolved past this. Regardless, this was always an important piece of colonial infrastructure and was known to its inhabitants at that time as “White Town”, whilst the neighborhoods outside of it were referred to as “Black Town”. Any guesses as to why that was?? 👨🏻👨🏾

Nowadays it houses lots of government offices which are not open to the public, but there is also a museum here which is full of fascinating colonial artifacts, and is, itself, a wonderful relic of colonial architecture. Yes, colonialism was obviously bad… but the architecture it left behind is still pretty cool. We were among the only visitors when we arrived here, but if you’re in Chennai and want to learn a bit about its colonial history and the role it played in the Indian independence movement, this is your place. It’s also interesting to see the buzz of activity around government buildings in other countries.

I said that I hope to come back to Chennai on business one day… and in the very unlikely event that I don’t stay at the Raintree again, I’d go to the Park Hyatt. On our final night in Chennai, before flying back westward, I had the best Butter Chicken of my life here, right before the restaurant turned into a club, complete with a live DJ and giant bottles of Grey Goose. There is some luxury here if you know where to look! Outside, there was a beautiful pond full of massive water lilies and lotuses. It was raining cats and dogs, so we sat under the shelter and concluded our night out with a cup of tea. It was very relaxing until I began to wonder whether the weather would cause any sort of flight delay…

While the rains cleared and we ultimately got out of Chennai with no issues, it would later turn out that I was right to worry. Cyclone Ditwah had made landfall in Sri Lanka (just south of us) a couple of days prior and was rapidly devolving into a humanitarian crisis that killed hundreds of people. It seemed like South India had been spared initially, but starting after we left, the rains set in again across Tamil Nadu and Chennai soon had flooding issues of its own. Here are a few sources for further reading if you’re interested:

Add this to the list of near-misses on this site! 😅

Here are some pictures from the flight out of Tamil Nadu, just before the rains resumed…

The above pictures were taken out of the window a flight that would carry us out of India, BUT FEAR NOT! There is still one more article in the queue of this Indian adventure. Up next we’ll drive south to the small Tamil town of Pondicherry, which I think we will both agree is really something special.

For now, I’m going to leave you with one of the many songs from Indian cinema that is now in my regular rotation. Most of these were Shazam’d at actual Indian weddings, and this one is no exception. At some point this was blasted into my ear back at the Delhi wedding that brought us to India, and I kinda sorta liked it. To be honest, there’s a spectrum of how much appeal I’d guess that these tracks could hold for Westerners… and this song is definitely on the “probably less appealing” side of the spectrum. But against all odds, it got stuck in my head, and is now associated with Chennai because I was listening to it in the back of a taxi here one night. And now it can get stuck in your head too! 😈