The Worst Place to Live

Imagine you are traveling to Madurai. You fall asleep in the train or the bus. How do you know that you are in the outskirts of Madurai and that it is time for you to get up and get ready to get off the bus or train?

You set an alarm in your cellphone? Wrong!

You ask a co-passenger to wake you up? Who will wake her up!?

You ask the driver to wake you up? You are again wrong!!

Here is the right answer: Madurai has its own signature smell. I thought it was the worst thing in the world. In every nook and corner of Madurai, you cannot miss it. I never knew what the source of the smell was but it was awful. I thought this was unique to Madurai until I landed in Chengalpattu!!!

I lived in Chengalpattu ten years back. We had a milkman right next to our house. So the smell of fresh gobar always hung around in the air. When I landed in the town last month, my Dad suggested that I settle down in the same house. My first pre-condition was that there were no more cows!! To my horror, I found that the whole town smelled now. There are three smells that you can trace.

First comes from the sewage that flows everywhere and anywhere around the town. All drains are closed only when access across it is required. There was this drain that was blocked and all the sewage was flowing onto the road. I asked the locals about it. They said that a new drain was being built and so all sewage was being diverted!! Diverted to the road!!? The second smell comes from the garbage that is piled up as though it is a tourist feature. We also have pigs that treat the garbage heaps as their personal empires!!

Third, we have n number of cows roaming around the town, producing n kgs of gobar, at any given time. When I arrived here last month, I thought that the cows and buffaloes roaming around were stray. That was until I saw a woman get hold of a “stray” and milk it!! Why worry about a cow shed when you have a town!!??

There is one more unique feature. Chengalpattu RS is a major junction and most trains stop here in the morning on the way to Chennai. That happens when most people would want to answer nature’s call!! Get up, do the do at Chengalpattu and get ready to get down at Egmore!! The RS becomes one huge restroom every morning!!

This town is the worst place I have ever lived in.

I am analyzing the pros and cons of staying in Chengalpattu now. The pros are access to Vellore, where my family is, access to hospitals and of course few family friends!! I thought of moving to another locality in Chengalpattu itself. But it is the same case from JCK Nagar [the northern limit] to Annanagar [the southern limit]. Ahem…I have to come up with a solution. Fast and quick!

PS: Madurai is my native place. I am very nostalgic about Madurai. But the truth is always bitter!