I got a chance to make my 2nd trip to Chennai early this week. I was there for a couple of days to attend a few meetings. The meetings, particularly on the 2nd day, were quite eventful and thought provoking and had left me drained. We had a couple of hours before the return flight to Delhi and we thought to go to the Besant Nagar beach and just relax (even though it was pretty hot) for some time.
Now - I am really a beach person! Mountains, valleys, monuments are good for a very short trip but it’s always the beach and water sports that fascinate me the most. I can spend days on a beach and do all sorts of water sports. Speed on water thrills me - hell, I even have a speeding ticket driving a water scooter (something that I am not very proud of!). Having said that - another fact that is true is that I loved Seattle, where I spent 3 good years of my life, too. And Seattle is anything but a beach place - it has amazing natural beauty when it comes to mountains, valleys. Probably the only bad thing about Seattle is the number of months it rains there! But - then - you get used to it and the Seattle summer more than makes up for all the rainy season.
But this 2nd trip to Chennai made clear that I had a very wrong notion about Chennai from my friends (both North Indian and South Indian) and I wouldn’t mind being in the place for even a few years. The other thing is that there are many more startups there doing some real amazing stuff - which is something very interesting to me. Just meeting and interacting with them opens so many windows with great ideas - and those are not always related to the stuff that we are doing - which is awesome!
Overall, I had an excellent trip to Chennai!
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January 20, 2006 at 12:37 am
Actually you are first person whom I have heard praising Chennai (I myself have never been there). Even recenly I was discussing about Chennai, regarding a job, with a South-Indian friend and even she was very discouraging… about the weather and language, etc. Nice to know people have different opinions.. and better ones.
January 21, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Seema - I also don’t know many who would agree with me
January 21, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Have you been to vishakapatnam. You can find both the beach and valley there.
January 23, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Howcome Chennai Yaar!…….Chennai has been termed as the most unfriendly place, specially for North Indians…..and the troubles get multiplied if you don’t know Tamil.
My experience with Chennai was bad, but that was 2 years back, when I had to go for some training, and stayed there for 2 months.
But ya, the malls and beaches are blessings.
January 24, 2006 at 5:49 am
Hey ashish,
Can you email me some info on the conferences(Entrepreneurs specific)in india
and where i can find info on the dates.
Anything related to this would be helpful.
January 24, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Nice to read good about Chennai… I worked there for a year and liked the place… esp. for someone working in Tidel Part and staying in Besant Nagar (all nearby), its a pretty enjoyable place…
January 24, 2006 at 4:44 pm
dunno abt chennai but totally agree with you about meeting ppl from startups. apart from the inevitable flow of ideas, its the positive energy of possibility that makes these meetings worthwhile
January 28, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Thanks a lot for the comments, guys! Raj - something that is useful for entrepreneurs is TIE. Other than that - there aren’t any specific sites that publish entrepreneurship related conferences - nobody is really doing the aggregation work (as far as I know). And I really don’t think that there are too many entrepreneur specific conferences either.
January 31, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Well, am quite surprised to see your praises about Chennai. I have worked there for a few years though I do agree that there are quite a few good start-ups and good work happening there but culturally its quite a turn off.
Cheers!
Sandeep
February 9, 2006 at 11:08 am
Ashish, Well missed a chance to meet you..:-)
Hmm.. I have never had problems living in Chennai, which i have done for the past 8 years or so. But I am not sure if there is any specific problem being from the North. Of course the most commonly mentioned one is that of Hindi not being a well known language. But I think you can get along very well in Chennai with English…
May 29, 2006 at 11:12 am
Hi Ashish
Can you tell me the names of any start ups in Chennai that you came across? I live in Chennai and am trying to move away from the big corporate scenario. But I am back here after many years and out of touch. So I would like to explore.
Thanks much.
June 13, 2006 at 5:53 pm
I am also north indian.Some guys are giving wrong opinions. but the people in chennai are very friendly.I like chennai
July 6, 2006 at 11:21 am
I think people are always confused about chennai because it is undergoing such a rapid change that it feels different now. I am a long term resident of Chennai but went away for 5 years from 2000-2005. When I came back, it was like another city because it was more cosmopolitan (Chennai took a long time to get over its parochial, village like feel). It is actually possible to find things to do other than a carnatic music concert.
I think the north Indian thing can be attributed to language alone. If south Indians were to go to the north, they would have the same problems. language after all is a big part of the culture of a place. But hey this is India, we are used to the idea of having so many languages.
December 8, 2006 at 10:53 am
Eventhough there are difficulties adjusting to different parts of India,
it is very sad to see people dividing into north and south. we are from the same country… It goes to both parties in the situation.
July 23, 2007 at 5:17 am
I have born n brought up in chennai. But the fact remains that without hindi, this place definitely looks different from India. Eventhough you can manage with english, this place is totally unfriendly without Hindi. Langauge is definitely a major issue and people seem to have some sort of a complex as far as langauge is concerned. I am sorry to say this. But once I was mentioning this to someone and they said, it is shameful on you to say unfriendly about your motherland.
My reply was:
I think of chennai as a part of India and hence it is my motherland. It is not that I was considering tamilnadu as my motherland. It is India which is my motherland and chennai or TN is a part of it. He got pissed off. I am wondering what was he expecting me to say??
June 30, 2008 at 12:26 pm
well, i am feeling good though he is a north indian who is praising chennai. but many peoples having wrong thoughts about chennai. tamilians hate hindi & hindi speaking peoples, they wont reply fo the questions, etc. even every one will face little bit problem if they come to new place in all over the world & tamilians are very friendly with other people…very helpful, even read many incidents regarding that. if they understand , will also started liking chennai.
luv india