In No Great Hurry: The Gentle Art of Movement in Madras
Some cities move as though they are being chased. Chennai – still affectionately called Madras in many corners of memory – moves as though it has already arrived.
I have often tried to understand this, usually while waiting at a traffic signal on Anna Salai. The light turns green with all the authority it can muster, and yet, nothing dramatic happens. There is a pause – brief, but noticeable enough to suggest thought. It is as though the city collectively inhales before proceeding. And then, gently, almost politely, everything begins to move.
It would be inaccurate to call this delay. It is, more precisely, a form of agreement.
Movement in Chennai is rarely linear, despite what our school textbooks might insist. A simple walk through Kilpauk is enough to revise one’s understanding of straight lines. Here, one walks with purpose, certainly, but also with awareness – of people, of space, and very importantly, of the kolam that has been drawn with care outside someone’s home. Avoiding it requires a small but respectful detour, often executed with the grace of someone who has done this all one’s life.
It is in these adjustments that the city reveals its character. There is no visible frustration, no dramatic display of inconvenience. A cyclist slows, a pedestrian shifts, an auto-rickshaw finds a gap that did not exist a moment ago. Everyone moves, not perfectly, but harmoniously enough.
Public transport, particularly the buses, deserves both admiration and a steady sense of balance. They operate with a confidence that suggests long familiarity with both roads and human nature. Boarding one is less an act of entry and more a moment of timing. Regular commuters seem to know exactly when to step forward, as though guided by instinct rather than instruction. It is a system that appears chaotic only to the uninitiated.
At Marina Beach, however, movement softens. The urgency of the day dissolves into something far more reflective. People walk, but not always to reach somewhere. Some walk briskly, determined to justify the indulgences of the day. Others stroll with no measurable goal, pausing occasionally to look at the sea, which continues its steady rhythm – arriving, retreating, and returning, without ever appearing hurried.
If the movement of people is visible, the movement of culture is far more subtle, though no less constant. It exists in the everyday rituals that shape life here. The kolam that appears each morning and fades by evening is not merely decorative; it is a quiet acceptance of impermanence. It is created with attention and erased without regret – a lesson that does not announce itself, but lingers.
Language, too, moves in its own distinctive way. Conversations flow between Tamil and English with an ease that resists rigid classification. A sentence may begin in one language and conclude in another, not out of confusion, but out of comfort. There is humour in this fluidity, but never at anyone’s expense – only in the shared understanding that communication, like movement, is meant to adapt.
Food, perhaps unsurprisingly, participates enthusiastically in this rhythm. The preparation of filter coffee is a small study in both patience and precision. The act of pouring it back and forth between tumbler and davara is not mere theatrics; it cools, blends, and prepares. More importantly, it insists that one slow down. In Chennai, even coffee encourages reflection.
There is also, it must be said, a particular approach to exercise. Walking is popular, certainly, especially in the early hours. But it is rarely pursued with grim determination. There are conversations to be had, sights to be noticed, and occasionally, reasons to pause. Efficiency is not the goal; continuity is.
What becomes evident, over time, is that Chennai does not separate movement from stillness. The two exist together, each giving meaning to the other. The quiet of an afternoon, when the sun persuades even the most energetic to slow down, is not an absence of activity. It is part of the rhythm. It allows the city to gather itself before continuing.
Even in its busiest moments, there is an underlying calm. It is not that things are always orderly – they are not – but there is a shared understanding that everything will find its way. Movement here is less about speed and more about coexistence.
Perhaps that is the lesson the city offers, without ever stating it directly. Progress need not be hurried. Direction can change without disruption. And stillness, far from being unproductive, can be deeply necessary.
In Chennai, one does not rush unless absolutely required. One moves, adjusts, pauses, and proceeds. And somehow, without apparent urgency, one arrives.
Not always on time, perhaps – but invariably with a story worth telling.
– by Priyanka Soman
Somewhere Between Sholinganallur and the City
I moved to Chennai in 2021, and for the first three years, my life here was contained within a very small, very predictable radius. Home, school, and the supermarket formed a kind of quiet triangle, and within it, days passed with a certain sameness that I did not question too much at the time. I was working from home, so there was little reason to step outside that loop, and even less urgency to explore beyond it.
If I am being honest, I did not feel I was living in Chennai so much as I was staying in a place that happened to be called Chennai.
Sholinganallur was where everything happened. It was convenient, familiar, and self-sufficient in a way that allowed me to settle in without really engaging with the city beyond it. I knew the turns, the signals, the small stretches of road that mattered to my day. The rest of the city existed somewhere at a distance, abstract and slightly irrelevant.
It was only later, in conversation, that I heard someone say, quite matter-of-factly, that this was “not really Chennai”. I remember reacting with amusement, and then with a faint, unexpected defensiveness. If this wasn’t quite the city, then what exactly had I been part of all this while?
The shift began when my days started extending beyond that small radius, quite literally.
Work moved, and with it, my everyday geography. Suddenly, I was travelling close to twenty kilometres to Guindy, and the city that had once felt distant began to insert itself into my routine in ways I could not ignore. The drives were longer, the traffic denser, and the roads less familiar. Autos edged in confidently, buses towered and pressed forward with an authority I was still learning to respond to, and my small i10 and I found ourselves participating in a rhythm that felt both chaotic and strangely ordered.
Somewhere along this route sat the Kathipara flyover.
I must have crossed it a few times in the earlier years without paying much attention, the way one passes through large structures without really registering them. But once this became part of my daily commute, I found myself noticing it properly. Kathipara, I later learned, is often spoken of as one of the largest cloverleaf flyovers in India, possibly even in South Asia, though I’m not entirely sure how firmly that is established.
And yet, the first few times I drove over it after knowing that, I remember feeling a quiet, disproportionate sense of excitement.
There was something about being on that sweeping curve of road, suspended briefly above the city, aware of its scale and movement, that made me feel, for the first time, like I was inside Chennai rather than on its edges.
It was a small thing. Almost a trivial thing. But it stayed with me.
The city began to open up in other ways too, not dramatically, but through small extensions of routine. An evening that did not end at home. A plan that took me a little further than was strictly convenient. A space that I returned to not out of necessity, but because I wanted to.
At Cinema Rendezvous, a private group dedicated to cinema appreciation, I found myself sitting in rooms where films were watched with a kind of attentiveness that felt unfamiliar at first. These were not always easy films, or even enjoyable in a straightforward way, but they stayed with you, opening up a whole new world of cinema – Italian, Bengali, Japanese, Tamil, English – and leading to conversations that stretched long beyond the screen. I did not know most of the people in the room when I first walked in, and yet, over time, it became a place where I could arrive without needing to explain myself, receiving so much from the discussions, perspectives, and friendships that I now find myself hoping to give something back too.
At Untangle in Thoraipakkam, a community space built around board gaming and shared play, something else clicked into place. I remember looking around the table and realising, with a kind of quiet delight, that here were people in their thirties and beyond, fully invested in rolling dice, collecting resources, and building make-believe cities as though it genuinely mattered. There was no irony, no self-consciousness, no need to outgrow it. It was play, taken seriously in the best possible way, and in that, I found not just a hobby, but a group of people who had quietly chosen to hold on to the same joy.
I had not realised how much I had been holding on to that same longing until I saw it reflected so clearly around me. To sit there, completely absorbed in something so joyfully unnecessary, and to find others doing the same, felt unexpectedly grounding. It was not just about the games. It was about finding people who had quietly given themselves permission to continue being this way.
At some point, without any clear moment marking the change, I realised that I was no longer thinking of these movements as effort. They had become part of how I inhabited the city.
I still do not know what makes someone a “proper” Chennai person, or which parts of the city are considered more authentic than others. Perhaps it lies in older neighbourhoods, or perhaps it shifts constantly as the city expands and redraws itself. Perhaps it depends on where you began or how long you have stayed.
But I am beginning to think that belonging here has very little to do with any of that.
It has more to do with the quiet accumulation of familiarity. With roads that no longer feel uncertain. With places that expect your return without demanding it. With people who become part of your everyday life without needing formal acknowledgement.
It has been almost five years now.
There is still a great deal of Chennai that I have not seen, and parts of it that remain, for now, outside my understanding. But somewhere between the small, contained beginnings and the wider, more fluid present, between the supermarket runs and the long drives to Guindy, between the unfamiliar flyover and the now-familiar routes, this city has, without any insistence, made space for me.
And in that space, slowly and without any clear intention on my part, I seem to have grown roots.
And perhaps, along with them, a few shoots too.
– Cauvery Kesavasamy