Memories of 1988

Like any malayali parent, my parents also dreamt of their son becoming a doctor by qualifying through the entrance exams . I wrote many exams but my rank was nowhere near the qualifying mark . So my parents decided to send me to Madras so that I can join entrance coaching classes in Brilliant Tutorials .

On a hot summer afternoon in 1988 , I boarded the No 2 Mangalore Madras mail from Cannanore for a 755 km journey with my Uncle. After 16 hours, we reached Madras Central . The station was different from any other railway station I had seen till then .The railway station having 8 platforms with scores of people moving around and the noises from public address system and the crowd was something new for a person who was born and brought up in a small town . My uncle took me to the restaurant in the first floor of the railway station, from there I had the first real view of Madras with buses , cars and autos moving around in different direction .

Madras fascinated me , but I never knew the reason for it . Madras didn’t have much skysrappers or posh buildings , but there was an eternal beauty for the buildings there. The Southern Railway building , Central Station , Egmore Station, Madras University , Presidency College building LIC building etc added to its charm. LIC building was built on lines of UN head quarters building at New York and it was the tallest bulding in Chennai till early 90s. Many times while waiting for bus in front of LIC building, I tried counting the no of floors of LIC Building and I always counted it as 16 or 17 (Today Wikipedia shows it as 15 ).Travelling through the arterial Mount road one can see the heritage past of Madras , with lots of commercial enterprises and head quarters of banks , Spencers , Higginbothams etc. Moving past the thousand lights masjid and church park school there was a huge cutout of the malayalam superstar Mammooty in front of Safire theatre complex , I had never seen a cut out of Mammotty in Kerala during those times . I remember the Safire theatre was decorated for the record 365 th day show of Mammottys CBI Dairykurippu. A proud moment for any malayali to see their hero being facilitated in a distant land . I doubt that movie had run for 365 days in Mallu land.

The Gemini flyover was an important landmark of those times with scores of vehicles gleaming past on top a bridge built on top of many roads connecting all directions ,with white US consulate building on one side and Gemini building on the other side. Travelling in green PTC buses over this high bridge was an elated feeling . Even though many flyovers have come in the recent times, Gemini flyover remain in the mind of any 1980s and 1990s traveler to Chennai.

I had travelled a lot in suburban electic trains from Tambaram to Egmore and is familiar with all the stops . In between Trisulam and Meenambakkan stations I always peeped out to see the aircrafts in the runway, sometimes I was lucky to have a glimpse of the big birds on the tarmac . The mambalam station is always crowded with commuters and the Ranganathan street connecting to the railway station is nothing different. The Egmore railway station had an old charm and beauty with gothic arch windows and structure. Most fascinating thing about Egmore station is that vehicles can be taken inside the platform through the rear end of the station so that loading and unloading of goods are easy.

As I sip the hot Kerala tea, my taste buds are still yearning for the Madras coffee which I used to have in the early mornings at the Iyers hotel at T Nagar. Twenty eight years down the lane , Madras seems close to my heart than a clinical Chennai