Tambaram once considered a hitherto suburb has come of age now. With raising infrastructure facilities, developed transportation, close to the tech parks in OMR, surrounded by engineering colleges and many more has made Tambaram a hot destination for real estate brokers and bachelors working. The proud residents of Tambaram are not tired of speaking the laurels of the place and the people residing in the city limits still fail to recognize the momentum of growth faced by this place and consider it another village belonging to the Chengelpet clan.

REAL ESTATE BOOM: "Buying an independent house is close to a dream these days. I bought my house in tambaram 20 years before as only this fit my budget. I never regret my decision has the land value has soared so high in this place that I cannot imagine selling my independent house. This raise in the value is because of the growth of the suburb" says Vijyakumar, a government employee.

WELL CONNECTED TO CITY: Keeping aside the typical benchmarking criteria of measuring the growth of Tambaram, youngsters seem to have a different reason all together for loving this place. "I study at S.R.M and I reside at Anna Nagar. Tambaram is the closet destination where we could land up for fun from the remote place where my college is located. This place is also well connected to most part of the city. There are trains and buses running round the clock connecting various places from this south corner of the city" says Sagarika.

LACK OF HANGOUTS: Of late though there are many eat out joints opening up in Tambaram, people still feel the lack of cheap hangouts. "There is Pizza Corner, Arun Ice Cream Unlimited, Lakme Beauty Saloon, and lot more fast food joints in the eastern side of Tambaram. But what we need is a place where we can sit and spend some peaceful moments in a public place apart from the government developed parks" says Venkat, a post graduate student.

COSMOPOLITAN CROWD: Having an air force base and proving home for lot air force men and ex service people, this place cannot be categorized as a place of community majority. "Mylapore is known as a place for Brahims, Sowcarpet for North Indians and many places have identity because the people residing in that area, but Tambaram cannot be clearly classified as a place with a particular type of crowd. There is a good cosmopolitan crowd in every locality and that's one unique identity of Tambaram" says Chitra, resident of Tambaram for more than two decades.

NOTION OF A VILLAGE: In spite of having splendid development, this place has not received good position in the minds of the public. Most of the respondents felt that Tambaram was very far from the other parts of the city and the travel time is long and strenuous. Though there is good connectivity, it's the heart of the city which gets better mark than the developed suburb.

Raising an eyebrow immediately after Tambaram heard for reasons such as it being known as a village, far from city is pass�. The reaction of people have not changed, eyebrows are still raised but for all good reasons. Yes, Tambaram a super Suburb, a city in the suburb that has got an individual identity.

SOWJANYA.S