beep beep

i awoke to a bumpy landing just after 8pm, as the plane touched down in chennai airport. i gathered my things and joined the line of passengers disembarking from the plane. i walked into the baggage claim area and waited anxiously for my bag. my mom had told me way too many stories about people rummaging through luggage. luckily, my luggage did not meet such a fate on this journey. i got my bags and then prepared to walk through the masses of drivers who would be holding signs for expectant passengers. i walked just outside of the doors and found a young boy holding a sign with my name on it. relief washed over me and i walked over and waited for him to go and collect his ambassador. (old school indian car.)

I hopped in the car and sat looking out the window at Chennai. My driver was a young boy who could not have been more than 19 or 20. It always makes me feel bad when someone who is a kid is working at 9pm at night doing something as laborious as driving around the city at odd hours. (though that can be said for many parts of the world.) in any case we sped down one very long road, that was packed with traffic. i was actually surprised at the traffic since it was 9pm and the last time i had come to chennai it had been relatively less trafficky. however, there were cars, motorbikes, lorries and of course autos - everywhere i looked. i also had forgotten how insane the traffic could be. people cutting one another off, driving so close to the next car that you could literally reach into someone's window and grab their purse if you were so inclined. however, no one india seems to view edgy behavior/ cutting people off as rude, it is just sort of part of the rhythm of the road. if you are a first time visitor, just trust that your driver does know what he's doing, even if it seems like he does not.

at times i thought i was going to be driven off to some far corner of tamil nadu, but as promised, my driver, after 40 minutes of intense driving, got me to the ifmr campus in nungumbakam. when i arrived, a security guard and another gentleman who ran the cantene were there to greet me. "Veena?" I was surprised, and happy to know that they had in fact heard of my arrival. The security guard helped me lug my bag up to the third floor. (He had a harder time picking it up than I did.) Also, he only bothered to help me after the cantene manager prompted him. After three long flights of stairs, we finally got upstairs, only to find that my roommates were not available. I ended up depositing my things in a neighbor's room and going to the computer lab. My roommates eventually made it home and I finally walked into a simple air conditioned room with three beds and a television that was blaring hindi. begin: life in india.

This is a picture of my hostel. I took this on Friday morning.