Chennai is one of the metropolitan cities in India and capital of the state of Tamilnadu.. Majority of youngsters in Tamilnadu dream of living in Chennai as it not only a metro city but also city of opportunities. With moderate cost of living it's a heaven for job seekers. Chennai hosts Tamil film industry(Kollywood), has many tourist attraction and businees opportunities, which brings in lots and lots of floating population towards Chennai. There is a famous saying " Chennai gives livelihood for all those who come to Chennai( வந்தாரை வாழவைக்கும் சென்னை)"

Like every other graduate I also had big dream of going to Chennai and become a software engineer. It's not only about becoming a software engineer, it's about becoming a software engineer and live in Chennai. In the year 2000 me and my friend's D.Karthikeyan, A.karthikeyan, Uma maheswaran and Abdul malik moved to chennai. We stayed in bachelor mansion right in middle of Ranaganathan street( shopping epi center in chennai) in T.Nagar. Mission is to learn Java and also to search for a job. Even though most of the bachelors mansion were job seeker in IT, Cinema, Marketing etc...etc.. there was always fun, laughter and nil boredom.

Food in Chennai is amazing with wide range of restaurant  and the best occasion to explore new restaurant is when any of the friends gets his first month salary. Mostly vegetarian food is preferred in Chennai than Non-vegetation foods. Food trucks( கையேந்தி பவன்) which move into T.Nagar after 9PM offer both cheap and tasty food. Saravana Bhavan, Vasantha Bhavan, A2B has emerged as world class chain of restaurants and has branches all over the world.

Our circle widened.. job hunting became serious... we got to know chennai... more college mates moved to chennai and we became chennaite's but for chennaite's we were still outsiders... Job hunting became a nightmare, when recession hit US and most of software companies in chennai went bankrupt. Eventually Chennai opened its door of opportunities for us. Myself and my friends got job( only few managed to become software engineer and I am not in the list). My office was around 20km from T.nagar. I used to take metro train, then share auto and finally Pallavan bus to reach my office. It's a full hour trip to reach the office but later moved to Mogappair and stayed with colleagues.

During festival season Thiyagaraya Nagar(T.Nagar) will be overflowing with shoppers and its too difficult to move among the crowd, but still we had no regrets. We would go to Marina beach or Elliot's beach during weekends. I  strongly believe that these beaches are one of the best beaches in the world. Can't forget the spencer's plaza in mount road, we used to go there to enjoy the air conditioner's( can't afford to spend there). Recently many malls have opened up in Chennai, but the energy and the style possessed by spencer's plaza remains unmatched. Connemara library Higginbotham's, LIC building, Anna Flyover, kannagi statue, Ripon building(now houses Chennai corporation) and high court building are well known landmarks in Chennai.

I was working as testing engineer and in most occasions our job sites were in north India. When we come back to Chennai after completing the assignments it feels awesome.  In 2005 myself and both karthikeyan moved to Saudi Arabia to pursue our career and Abdul Malik moved to Dubai and Uma Maheswaran continued in Chennai. I keep coming to Chennai for visiting friends, relatives and I prefer Chennai airport than any other airports as it is well connected.  I hope the day will come, when I will return back and settle in Chennai with family. The city of Chennai has expanded enormously but has maintained its unique identity.

My attraction and crush for the city of Chennai continues....

Share your experience and links with chennai in the comment.

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                                                                                                   Blog Article by: Allwyn Chellakumar