I landed at the Chennai Central station today morning after 9 long days at Kerala, which included 2 weekends, a holiday (Jan-26) and 4 days of working from home. I am glad I
work for a company that is flexible in its approach to how employees put in work. This
helped me be with my son when he joined play-school and drop him & pick up from school
all of last week.
Anyway, 9 days is a long duration - close to 1/3rd of a month. Long enough to notice even
subtle changes in the immediate environment. The moment I got off the train, the first thing that hit me was the noise - of a thousand people talking, the P.A. system blaring etc.
Come out of the station and get into an auto-rickshaw only to be subjected to more noise - illegally tuned exhausts of auto-rickshaws, bikers revving their engines for no valid reason, almost everyone riding/driving with their finger on the horn, etc etc.
I know that by evening or latest by tomorrow, I would be immune to this racket. But since
I am returning after spending 9 days in a small town in Kerala, where the all-pervasive
silence is only occasionally broken by a bus zipping through, the city's noise levels seem unbearable.
My thoughts immediately go to what my friend from the U.S. mentioned 3 weeks ago
when he was in Chennai for a 15-day visit to meet his friends/family. His comment
was, "Hey, Chennai has become so noisy compared to how it was last time. And almost
everyone seems to own a small car, but they drive it like they ride bikes, squeezing into
spaces that don't even seem to exist".
Ofcourse, he was returning after 4 long years during which time, the city's automobile
population would have increased significantly.
I might be getting old or maybe my noise-tolerance is lessening, but somehow I am not
liking what I am hearing. I have been to and spent enough time at all the major Indian
cities, and the only city I would stay in would be Chennai. But over the years, the pollution,
the noise, the traffic, the unruly driving on roads etc is getting to me. I guess I should talk
to my manager about working permanently from home, dropping in only occasionally at
Chennai for any meeting that requires my physical presence.
P.S. : Been a long time since my last post. After a few hectic months at work, it was
relatively lean in January, but somehow I could not put out a post. Laziness....
