could easily qualify as one of the most crowded places in Chennai. It gets worse
during festival season when all Chennai-ites descend on T.Nagar to shop as if there
are no shops anywhere else in Chennai. For precisely the same reason, I avoid
shopping at T.Nagar - I hate crowds. Actually I avoid the T.Nagar area itself.
On most days, you could stand at either the Usman Road end or the Mambalam
station end of Ranganathan street and see just a sea of human heads when you look
down Ranganathan street. I am amazed people want to still jostle among themselves
in this crowd all for getting stuff a little cheaper. But then, that's just me.
I knew that Japan was a densely populated country and that Tokyo was like real
crowded. But was still not expecting something on the scale of India. I landed in Japan
early morning, feeling sleepy and the normal thing to do would have been to hog the
awesome spread of continental breakfast they serve at the Hilton and go to sleep.
But that would not help me get over the jet lag. The best way to beat jet lag is to try to
sync into the local time zone as best as you can. Even when all you want to do is sleep
during the day, try staying awake and hit the bed at the time you would normally do
back home.
So, braving the tiredness and temptation to sleep, I opted for a round of shopping with
a local colleague (Indian, but almost like a local, having worked here on and off for some
3 years now), while the rest of the guys who came with me, hit the sack. My friend,
lets call him 'R', took me to Harajuku, where he wanted to buy some traditional Japanese
handicraft stuff for people back home.
I tagged along with him as I also had a long list of stuff to buy, including mainly small
kimonos for my nieces, that I had promised them. So, we take the ultra-efficient Tokyo
Metro system and pop up at Harajuku. One look at the street and the only thing that
came to mind was Ranganathan street.
Have a look for yourselves.
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