Traveling in Chennai

Buses:

Definitely the cheapest way to travel. Most buses are ill-maintained and crowded through the day. It is not very uncommon to see hapless passengers pushing buses to get them started. The good thing is that the frequency of buses to any destination inside Chennai is pretty high and you can pretty much catch buses from anywhere to anywhere.

Most boards display the routes in English but there are quite a few that don’t, especially those that travel to the outskirts. If you look good, and speak some nice English, most people will help you with getting you on to your correct bus. The fascination for the goras and English language is well-assimilated into the Chennai psyche.

Compared to the people on the west coast (Kerala, Karnataka, Goa), the people on the east coast have minimal sense of hygiene and you wonder, whether they have at least one bath a day. Chennai just does not seem to have enough of bad smells. Traveling in a crowded bus can be a nose-wracking experience. The only help around, if you are lucky, will be the ladies with gajras (jasmine) bridled in their hairs. It is like trying to redeem a bad toilet using incense.

One side (or a portion) of the seats in the buses is reserved for the ladies. The rest of the seats, surprisingly, are general and women can stake a claim to them too. Do not even attempt to sit next to a lady in the general side even if the portion next to her is empty. One of you will ultimately get up deciding on how the duel goes. Chennai can be nauseatingly conservative.

On my trip to Mumbai, and with a Chennai hangover, it did not even strike me to occupy the lone seat next to a female passenger. The lady was pretty miffed and asked me if I found something wrong sitting next to her. What was that again about a common Indian culture?

Local Trains

The very same experience as traveling by bus. In addition, you will have to first get to the nearest local station to catch your train, which could be pretty far away. I caught the madras-eye after one such soujourn, and gave up traveling in them altogether. Mumbai’s locals may be crowded but at least sometimes, there is some eye-candy to ease your discomfort. Chennai’s metro is populated mostly by the poor and the lower-middle class and as such, offers no such reprieve.

Auto ricshaw

No one who has traveled Chennai can talk about it without mentioning its notorious auto-ricshaw drivers. However, love them or hate them, you cannot dispense with them altogether. They are omnipresent, and the only reason you would travel in them is because you cannot afford a taxi, and do not want to travel by bus.

Before boarding one, it is advisable to get some reliable source to tell you the correct fare to your destination. Although the government imposed the ‘meters’ some time back, none of the autowallahs believe in them. And yes, if you bargain too hard on the meter, they will end up taking you through half of Chennai to get to your place. Most of them cannot understand any other language than Tamil except when it comes to numbers. Money, you see, knows no such barriers. Also, do not agree to pay the return fare or pay extra after you reach your destination. You will be setting a precedent. The other trick the auto guys use is to take you close to your place and then confuse you. If you don’t know Tamil, it is a double-whammy. Just ask someone on the road and then give the directions to your driver. I have exhausted all my expletives in my enounters with these lowest forms of human beings.

Six seaters

Their cheaper avatars of auto-ricshaws are the six seaters (although they pack in twice as much). They are rickety contraptions that travel to fixed destinations, and you could drop out anywhere on the way. Because the driver tries to pack every square-inch, traveling in one during peak hours can be worse than the bus experience.

Taxis

If you can afford it, keep a list of the service providers ready. Depending on how much you are ready to shell out, you can get everything from a rickety Maruti 800 to an air-conditioned Toyota. The rates are fixed or they run by the meter. You could also fix up a taxi for a required number of hours. This works out much cheaper especially you are planning to visit multiple places within that time. Definitely the best way to commute.