The road from Puducherry to Chennai was a symbol for me of two worlds coexisting in today’s India: the modernity of the smooth asphalt crossing over the countryside, where men wearing dhoti (piece of cloth wrapped as shorts) and women wearing sarees farm without any machine help. One cannot hide a smile when a random cow or goat crosses hastily the road, to rejoin its flock.
Welcome to Chennai, formerly known as Madras, capital city of the Tamil Nadu State. 12 to 13 million inhabitants, making it the 4th city in India in terms of population. When we saw for the first time policemen stopping the cars for pedestrians to cross the street, we knew that we were in a different setup. Walking up the road bording Chennai’s never-ending urban beach (the 2nd longest urban beach in the world!), you are moving from government offices to high education institutes. Pro tip: don’t do this 1h30 long walk at noon like we did. (-:
We wanted to understand a bit more where we were, so we headed to the Fort George. Fort George was the first British fortress of India, founded in 1639 and opened on the day of St George (hence this super original name). From this place originated the city of Madras, created by the East Indian (British) Company.
I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, so click on this image for more explanation from the museum, if you are interested!
Fort George hosts a small museum now, but most of the buildings are used by the Indian government, which means that you are more or less roaming freely on government compounds… At least, we thought, until we got scolded several times by policemen and women who were not too fond of us getting lost. Here was also founded one of the first churches in India, by a governor who “forgot” to inform the Queen about his project and got sacked for that – talk about an “Oopsie!”. One has to admire the cleverness of the museum team, who hosts an exhibit on the first Indian official independence flag (hailed on Fort George on August 15th 1947), on the last floor of a very British place.
I barely knew anything about Indian famous artists, and I discovered Raja Ravivarma (apparently highly famous, I apologize in advance to my Indian friends). Mr Ravivarma was one of the first Indian paintors to use oil in his work like his Western colleagues, but applied his learnings into painting Hindu scenes and local characters. I took a liking to him, because I found that most of his female characters had a mischievous look. See what I mean, with this beautiful Maharastrian Lady opposite?
Enough talk about the past: Chennai is a city looking to the future. The city recently got a subway line, and it is actively working on its extension. The area where we were staying, in front of the beach, looked like a former popular neighborhood which was slowing integrating itself to the city. But take a 20min tuktuk ride, and you end up in green, peaceful (on Indian standards) streets.
Modernity or not, Chennai stays the capital city of the land of temples (Tamil Nadu). For our French selves, seeing people considering religion as a part of their everyday life is still highly intriguing, even after two weeks. So we keep our ears and eyes wide open, to try to learn as much as we can!
Our host Nahili wanted us to feel at home, so she invited us to cook a South-Indian breakfast with her. She went for something simple: upma, a one-pot crushed rice dish (full recipy here). We panicked when she asked us what we were usually cooking at home, until she followed, enquiring in dispair: “Bread?”. I swear, we do cook sometimes!… Restaurant delivery services are not our only means of survival…
A friendly priest offered us food too (after making us pose in his temple for 10mins)
I feel like this article has been going on for ages already, so as a conclusion: more food! We loved Chennai and its complexity, see you in (New) Delhi, starting tomorrow!
Breathe In The World 
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