My North Indian Friend

I got a call from one of my friend( actually speaking one of the avoided brigade of friends) after almost 6-7 months.I was surprised on getting her call cos we werent the best of friends and we have spoken to each other only a few times.She started talking on a very apologetic note.Oh ya, she wanted my help. She is from U.P and was placed in an IT company in Chennai and she needed my help in finding her an accomodation in the city.Adyar, Thiruvanmiyur was her first choice.I gave her some assurance on finding her a suitable accomodation and called a couple of my friends & relatives to put them on the job of finding her a good place.

After about 2 weeks, we found her a place in Indra nagar. She was happy.I was happy too cos I was of some help to her.PEACE!!!

She used to call me every week ( guess it was some form of gratitude) which later was reduced to mails, and further dwindled to mere SMS'es.When during the calls stage, she was happy being here, during mails, she wasnt so, and during SMS'es, it went downhill .Every SMS from her was only about her sufferings of a North Indian in CHINNAI ( dont you know most of the North Indians say CHINNAI instead of CHENNAI). Once or twice, I tried cajoling her that things wud be allright. But it got worse later that everytime I got an SMs from her, I flinched.Everytime she talks, she said more or less of these:

*Chinnai is alaways hot yaar
*Why do the men here have to gape on seeing a girl in some teeny weeny t shirt?
*People dont speak Hindi
*Auto fellows charge a bomb
*Only idli, dosa and sambar
* No Atta made rotis here, all rotis made of maida
*No asli Punjabi khaana
*No night life

I have always had a feeling that North Indians dread coming to south. To them,. South is MADRAS and all South Indians are Madrasis.Why is it that invariably, most of the North Indians crib on coming to South? I have lived in Pune, and gelled well with the place. My family was in Delhi for a few years and we thoroughly enjoyed those 3-4 years there.My friend asked me why people dont speak Hindi. May be they dont want to, I said.We speak Tamil and English.I dont think I can communicate to an autowala in Delhi in english as I can do it here in Chennai.And what did you tell me? Only idli dosas? You guys thrive in Aloo.I had to have only aloo parathas, aloo sabji when I was in the North.I had to struggle in finding one good place where I could have some typical South Indian food.These kind of conversation only makes me all protective of the place I live in.No offence meant here, but guess we should learn to respect the place we live in.When in Rome, be a Roman. Try learning something from the place you live in so that you could live anywhere in the world.Stop making an upheaval about such trivial things.Every place has its uniquness. And this post wudnt be complete without me saying that I love Madras and everything that makes it up.