After packing, I had breakfast and was again joined by my new Swiss friend. There was a Belgian who was moving to India to teach. We had a good chat, mainly about nutrition. We were remarkably similar in our eating habits. All of us liked to eat real food and cook our own meals.
I left my book, Klara and the Sun, in the hostel’s small book collection. I enjoyed this book. Kazuo Ishiguro, no matter the story, writes beautifully. This book was about an artificial (AI) person. One issue raised by the book is about transferring your memories to a synthetic person. Would that person then be you? If he/she/it knew everything you knew, should it be recognised as a sentient being? Should it have the same rights as you?
After saying goodbye to my Swiss and Belgian friends, I took the train to Chennai. This was the furthest east I’d gone in India, having started on the west coast in Kochi.
The passenger next to me, Deepak, was returning home after a business trip. He was very knowledgeable about India. He’d said he’d not travelled outside India. From the stories he told me, he’d travelled all over India. He gave me many suggestions for places to visit around India, from Kashmir to Sikkam! He also suggested many places in Chennai.
The next day, my first destination was the Government Museum and National Art Gallery.
Much of the museum collection came from the excavation at Adhichanallur by Alexander Rea. The site was first excavated before him in 1876 by a Dr Jagor from Berlin. As a result, many of the artifacts ended up in Berlin Museum.
The iron and earthenware artifacts are thought to be at least 3000 years old. About half of the pottery is like pottery found elsewhere in the world. The rest is rare and unique to the region.
After leaving the museum, I went to the famous Higginbothams book store. I’d been to the Bangalore branch.
My first try at a coffee shop was a branch of the Writer’s Cafe chain. It didn’t offer non-dairy milk for drinks. The second, also suggested by Deepak, was excellent. He gave the impression it was quite expensive. But it turned out to be less than the Bangalore Starbucks. The cafe, Amethyst, had superb leafy surroundings. These conveniently blocked out much of the noise from the nearby metro construction works. Deepak said that the Chennai metro was less crowded than Bangalore’s. It was built with the help of Japan. Three new lines were being added.
I read my new book, Butter, and had my soy latte before going to the Dravidian temple. There, someone asked me to take his photo. He looked sideways as I took the photo. He said he didn’t like his photo taken because he thought he didn’t look good. I told him he looked good and said I could take another photo. He asked how he should look. I suggested looking into the phone’s camera and made some silly remark to make him smile.
The photo session over, he suggested I go to Marine Beach, which was next on my list. He said sunset was a good time to catch it.
When I got to Marine Beach, the sun had already gone down. However, I’m not sure what I would have seen given Chennai is on the east coast! Sunrise, I thought, would be the time to come here.
By this time, the lack of food from yesterday was catching up. I found a vegan restaurant and took an auto there. I had peri-peri fries and broccoli/tofu in teriyaki sauce with rice and salad. It was pretty good.
