Over a year ago, a small group of us floated two ventures. Both had to do with Mylapore.

The first had to do with cycle rickshaws. The second, with home-based accommodation for travellers or visitors.

While we were hosting Heritage Walks around Mylapore, a related idea began to roll in our minds.

To use cycle rickshaws on local tours.

There are still a dozen or more that linger in the area and a few were keen to join us in the experiment.

That is how the Cycle Rickshaw Tour got started and it survives today because of two rickshawwallahs who are ever so keen to undertake a trip at short notice.

The Tour is kept simple. Guests are given a simple brochure listing a dozen sights that they get to enjoy visually as the rickshaw trundles along the streets and lanes. They can get off and walk a bit only at one point where a few old houses survive.

The sights vary – a procession headed to the Mundakanni Amman Temple, heated arguments between street hawkers, a goli soda vendor shuffling the bottles, and a greying aasari at work in a hole in the wall.

The second idea did not work. It was hard to convince even a few households to offer simple accommodation to people who were passing through the city and were looking for an ‘experience’.

So we now suggest an alternative to those who seek the Mylapore experience – book yourself into Hotel Karpagam. That quiet, clean nook off South Mada Street.

Several guests have enjoyed the experience. They have chosen to walk down the mada veedhis at dawn and after dusk, they had rambling chats with the priests on Tank Street, they have sat for kutcheris at the Navarathri Mantapam inside Sri Kapali Temple, and made friends with families in the Chitrakulam zone, some even learning to draw the kolam during the margazhi season.

Many ‘seasons’ ago our team at KucheriBuzz floated the idea of asking people who could offer accommodation to visiting rasikas to advertise their spices.

We did this because there were people who travelled to this city for the famed December Season of Carnatic music and classical dance who sought places to stay in houses or apartments inside or on the fringe of the sabha zone.

A dozen plus house owners come forward to offer their spaces on the KutcheriBuzz website (www. Kutcheribuzz.com) but I feel many more can get entrepreneurial at this time of the year.

A colourful neighbourhood with its unique character can offer an experience that visitors would enjoy and remember. (Courtesy: Mylapore Times.)