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Maybe I should really think about what Chitra, my editor and good friend, once said to me: That I surely was a Tamilian in my previous life. but even Tamilians don’t eat chutney, uruga or green chillies plain, do they?

Living with Chitra’s three-generations family opened my eyes to the importance and beauty of traditions. Sharing their everyday life allowed me a deeper insight into the pure Indian culture than I could have ever gained out of books. I learned about how the pooja is performed every day, about the way of cooking and the way of dressing - although I’m still always deeply impressed when hearing sentence like: “Wait a second, I will just QUICKLY put on my sari...”

And I learned another, probably much more important thing: ‘India is a country of contrasts’ is a very widespread opinion in Europe. It may be true concerning the ditch between nagging poverty and overflowing wealth. But why should it be a contrast when Indian women go to work at software companies wearing traditional clothes? Why is it considered as a contrast that people use the latest mobiles when going to a temple?

In India, tradition and modernity are both much more developed than in Europe. Family life and religious rituals are as natural here as high technology. They don’t contradict but complement each other and calling this a contrast proves a very limited western attitude.

It was also in the family that I learned my first words in Tamil (especially those which are used at the dining table...), but soon I realised that I couldn’t learn this language only by listening to Chennai’s unique English-Tamil. Thus, I found a teacher with whom I spent most of the classes trying to find out the difference between the three different Tamils.

After some time, I started to find out about the reason for my difficulty in understanding the people in the streets while I could perfectly understand my teacher’s Tamil: Tamilians seem to get a kick out of dropping at least half of the letters in every word which makes it quite impossible to follow what they mean... After all, I was no longer at the mercy of auto drivers trying to charge me three times the normal price. I loved bargaining with them (always ending up with paying Rs 10 more than the “Indian price” and Rs 20 less than the “white price”).

However, I usually preferred to walk through the streets watching women in their colourful sarees, men wearing skirts (although Indian people insist that a dhoti has nothing to do with the skirt), or all those fruit vendors who used to wake me up at six every morning. And if you stay away from those huge ‘Stick No Bills’ walls, you can entirely enjoy Chennai’s specific smell, this unique mixture of turmeric, cardamom, chilis, jasmine flowers and incense sticks...

After a couple of weeks, I got used to more and more things: the atmosphere in the streets, jumping on to crowded trains and jumping off crowded buses without losing my bags or breaking my bones. And still there appeared new questions every day: Why are there at least eight switches in every room? And why are there so many gay men here? It took me some time to realise that hugging each other and holding hands is just an ordinary part of friendship for men.

I liked to discover all these aspects of Indian life, learning from and about the rich and educated, and the very poor and ordinary people of society. However, I started to enjoy my life in Chennai even more when I met Cornelia, another German girl who was doing a project at Anna University. We ended up spending most of our time together and sharing loads of exciting, funny, strange and difficult experiences:

By coincidence the two of us became fashion models for two days. We shocked the neighbourhood by running barefoot through the streets of Adyar to reach a shop before it closed (only because we felt like having some bread for dinner). We watched amazing and beautiful Indian dances at the Kalakshetra Dance Academy which, for the first time since we met, managed to stop us from chatting away. At Kancheepuram, we got carried away by the enchanting atmosphere of the temples and bought our first silk sarees. We were fighting cockroaches, we watched naughty monkeys emptying our glass of chocolate cream at the hostel of the university and we supported India (live!) during the cricket match against Australia.

Naturally, when two as chaotic people like the two of us come together, it will also always come to some less positive (but definitely not less exciting) incidents: On a hot Sunday afternoon in September, we decided to go shopping at Pondy Bazaar which I consider to be the pulsating heart of Chennai because it feels like traditional village life and Las Vegas had found common ground here. We were still exhausted from the heat on the bus when we reached the railway station in Saidapet and saw our train coming. Looking at each other we both knew that none of us wanted to go and buy the tickets now, as this would mean a wait for the next train for at least 20 minutes. We took the risk - and everybody can imagine what happened... Instead of spending Rs 5 for the ticket, we paid a fine of Rs 260. Each.

The only positive aspect of the whole incident was that the conductor had not treated us differently from all the other people on the train. A behaviour which, unfortunately, is not at all natural in Chennai: When I was once standing in a very long queue to buy a train ticket at Egmore, seeing me the employees immediately opened a new counter so that I didn’t have to wait.

In fact, the skin colour seems to play an immensely important role in India: While Europeans are always desperately trying to tan their pale faces, Indians, equally desperate, try to lighten their beautiful dark skin. Isn’t that absurd?

Naturally, this is not the only question that India still brings up for me. I won’t go on about my lack of understanding towards arranged marriages because it is nothing but normal for a European to find them unjust and harmful.

Equally annoying, but also funny somehow, was my clash with the feared Indian bureaucracy when I applied or an extension of my visa. As I had been advised to talk to the Chief Immigration Officer, I went to the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Office nearly every day for three weeks. There was a sign in the office saying that I could ‘Meet the Chief Immigration Officer’ from 11.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.’

But, unfortunately, every time I arrived there I was given a different reason why I could not meet him. When the expiry date of my visa came perilously close, I decided to try my luck only once again - and this time I wouldn’t allow them to get rid of me so easily and would insist on seeing the officer during the particular time that was written on the sign.

As I had expected, the friendly watchman, as usual, kindly informed me that the Chief Officer was out of office today. Self-confidently I pointed at the sign on the wall and was just about to tell him that I officially had the right to meet the officer right now - when I suddenly realised that there were five simple words added to the note: ‘Meet the Chief Immigration Officer from 11.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. – On Monday, Wednesday and Friday’. Bad luck! I had come on a Tuesday... I didn’t even answer when I was told to come back “tomorroa” because I knew too well that this word has no meaning in India...

There’s so much more for me to say about this country. I could fill whole books telling about my both positive and negative observations and experiences. I will definitely have to write about my life in Chennai for some German newspapers, even if it will be only to avoid questions like the one a friend once asked me: “Do they have TVs in India?”

I could finish this article by praising the friendliness, the helpfulness of the people in Chennai. I could mention people like this auto driver who was suddenly standing in front of my door telling me that I had forgotten my passport in his vehicle that morning.

But maybe it is just enough say that although Chennai, with all its problems (its poverty, its dirt and its pollution), is anything but perfect, it has become home for me.

I will miss its people, its places, its atmosphere on my journey through India and I will have to console myself with the thought that I will come back soon.

However, I’m leaving Chennai with mixed feelings. After all, there’s this incredible, tempting, mysterious country called India lying in front of me. A country which often talks in riddles, which will probably always remain a mystery to me and which has so many hidden treasures - I can't wait to discover them.

Concluded

Ania Zymelka

(Ania, born in Poland, now lives in north Germany with her family. She has just completed her schooling and is waiting to go to university. In the meantime, she decided she would also visit a country and learn about it. She will be exploring the economic, political, cultural, social and other links that Chennai has with Germany during her three-month stint in Chennaionline. Ed)