Go to Chennai Table of Contents

A familiar feeling washes over me as the plane comes in to land at Meenambakkam airport, and taxis over to the Anna International Terminal. It is 2007, and my dear father has passed on since my last documented trip in 1999[1]. Since then, I have visited Chennai at least half a dozen times. But my pen has lain dormant during those intervening visits, even as the astonishing transformation that the city continued to undergo cried out for expression. So now I must record my updated impressions without delay, or  risk losing the vivid imprint of recent memory to the hoary bin of sepia-hued sentimentality…

Aha, what’s this? A brand new interior awaits me at the airport terminal. New granite floors and a well-lighted ambience along the streamlined route to immigration welcome the astonished visitor. A spanking new escalator, alas, not yet turned on, basks in immobile self-importance. Even the immigration inspectors seem less bored and bureaucratic, as they smartly stamp passports, and the one I am assigned to allows himself a satisfied  smirk when I mention the improved surroundings. Downstairs, the creaking millipede-like flat  plastic baggage carousels from which  bags used to regularly fall off  have been replaced by modern stainless-steel ones.

Welcome to the new millennium.  And welcome to Chennai, a hot destination in a cool country. If you haven’t been asleep under your desk for the last decade, you are already aware that India is one of the hottest of the world’s emerging economies today. Chennai epitomizes everything that is attractive about India today. Incorporated in 1688, India’s four largest metropolis is booming, with its thriving auto industry, computer technology, and services-based economy. With its highly educated middle class, Chennai has the deserved reputation of being India’s most attractive off-shoring destination (even outstripping Bangalore, its better known rival). Biotechnology, electronics manufacturing, software engineering, and the resulting consumer boom are creating a heady mix. The excitement is palpable,  writ large on the faces of its exuberant citizens.

And yet the old Chennai lingers, in forms both physical and otherwise. In many ways, the legacy of Chennai has been a boon, permitting it to take the lead among Indian cities in India’s new economy. The most important advantage is the intellectual strength of  its middle class; Chennai boasts a literacy rate of over 80%, compared to 65% for India as a whole. Its white-collar tradition has also worked in its favor.  The city was able to transition from  supplying the British colonists with clerks and the Indian government with bureaucrats to producing twenty-first century knowledge workers.  Compared to the already stretched and crowded cities  of  Kolkata (Calcutta) and Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai has also, at least initially, benefited from a less stretched infrastructure. 

But a decade into the latest boom, the new sparkling wine threatens to burst the confines of the old bottle. Signs of the strain are everywhere, from the creaking  physical infrastructure – overcrowded roads, overflowing sewage and garbage, and inadequate electricity and water) – to an inadequate and corrupt government bureaucracy and judicial system. And a galloping credit and real estate boom looms, raising the stakes, and the cost of failure. 

Chennai, after all, is a  microcosm of the new India. So Chennai’s dilemma is India’s dilemma. India’s plural, multireligious, multicultural identity is a source of strength and yet many of its problems are rooted in the same past that produced those strengths. Can this venerable city realize its potential as a symbol of the new global power wielded by emerging markets? Or will it be ultimately dragged down by a failure to address the many deep-rooted obstacles to further growth, a victim of its own success? Will the boom be followed by an equally spectacular bust, as has happened many times in the history of emerging markets?

A word about my perspective and bias. Let me confess that I am a loyal native and a huge fan of Chennai. I rejoice at the optimism and abundant signs of prosperity and growth. And yet I do not intend to be an uncritical cheerleader either. My journey home is for me an opportunity to observe this fascinating phenomenon that Chennai has become, from close quarters and with a merciless attention to fact. I’m in the position of being both a native, and as an NRI who has lived abroad for the past 26 years, a virtual stranger. As I pick my way through these crowded streets, at once familiar and unfamiliar, and look around me with a mixture of wonder, pride and horror, I can’t help but compare Chennai to my experiences in many of the worlds other emerging cities where I have visited both professionally and as a tourist in the past two decades – Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Istanbul, Hong Kong, and Buenos Aires. Thus I bring the dual perspective of the prodigal son – the native and the traveler - to my home city, and I invite you to see the city’s accomplishments as well as its challenges through my eyes.

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