Chennai at The Crossroads

I haven’t even collected my bags yet, but the contrast to my visit in 1999 is already striking. And the differences are not just in the terminal, but in its customers (see picture). Chennai’s airport is still small, not commensurate with the rapidly growing size and importance of the city as a commercial destination.  The volume of flights coming in has increased a lot over the past decade. The usual flights by Air India, British Airways and Gulf Air have been supplemented by non-stops from the US to Delhi on the American carriers. Passengers then connect to a local flight to Chennai. As a result, in the wee hours of the morning, the previously sleepy terminal where my British Airways flight used to be the only one in, is a buzzing with the arrival of several simultaneous flights.  The other big change is in the composition of the passenger lists. In the past, much of the overseas traffic consisted of NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) coming home on holiday. This time around looks and feels different. It is easy to pick out the local business men and women who are now as numerous as the expats. The local men are easy to pick out, as many of them, although well-dressed,  don’t tuck in their shirts, and the local women are often dressed smartly in Indian churidars rather than western outfits.

It is only 4 AM, but the airport parking lot outside the airport is already a beehive of activity, bustling with relative come to receive their loved ones, with drivers and airport employees, and many denizens of the airport economy, including porters, parking attendants, janitors, and a number of seemingly superfluous others whose main activity appears to be to hang around and chat earnestly with one another. As I stroll into the familiar humidity of the air outside through and into the equally  nostalgic confines of my hired Ambassador, I’m already warm both inside and out.

It is still dark outside, as my young chauffeur zips through empty streets towards the city center, some stretches of the airport road newly widened, some still under construction, and others still narrow and cramped. I can see exactly where the traffic bottlenecks are likely to be when the working day gets under way and the traffic builds. As I sink back into the chintzy cushions, I reflect on the signs of newfound prosperity all around me in the early morning light: The new signboards announcing new businesses and the billboards advertising them, the sprouting of traffic lights where there were none before, and above all, the astonishing proliferation of new construction sites.  In the past decade, Chennai has joined the outsourcing race, and software, along with the already thriving auto and electronics industries, have given Chennai an edge over most other cities in India as a prime destination for both companies and job-seekers.

 The best example I know of this rags-to-riches story is that of our “family servant” Gopalan. Gopalan was a young boy from Kerala who came to work for my aunt’s family about forty-some years ago. She sent him to school, and her husband eventually got him a junior job in the government. Over the years, even as he became a career civil servant, Gopalan continued to work part-time for our family, doing odd chores, helping with any task physical or logistical where his help was needed. At the same time, he continued his career. Eventually he got married, making the transition in a generation from poor-rural  to middle-class-urban.

I’ve kept in touch with Gopalan over the years and often see him on my trips back home. Less and less of a servant, and more and more of a friend, he nonetheless remained close to the family. Amazingly, he still helps us out in one way or another, not out of necessity but out of a sense of closeness and loyalty. He came to see me the day before I returned from India. As Gopalan stood in our living room reciting the list of his family’s achievements with some pride (he still refuses to sit down in our house out of deference to old tradition despite  my repeated requests!), I  was struck by the potential for social mobility offered by India’s economy that were unimaginable even 20 years ago. It was inspiring.

Gopalan, who is 57 now, has risen to a middle-level post and now draws a salary of a couple of hundred thousand Rupees ($5000) annually. He will be eligible to retire from his government job in a year or two. His daughter is enrolled at Stella Maris, one of the best women’s colleges in Chennai. His son, who graduated with a degree, has a job with an engineering consulting firm earning much more than his father. The son was recently sent to Italy on a two week assignment and also spent some time sightseeing while there. Gopalan is building a house in Velachery (pictured above) on the Southwestern edge of Chennai, once a flood-prone slum but now a fast-developing area due to IT parks coming up nearby. As a result of widely available credit in India for consumer and mortgage financing,  Gopalan was able to get a construction loan from a major bank to build his house. In a sense, the rise of Velachery, which was a quiet and poor neighborhood located near my undergraduate college IIT Madras, offers an appropriate parallel to the rise of Gopalan’s family fortunes. While the cloistered campus of IIT Madras and the sheltered background of my family represent the old middle and upper classes, Velachery and Gopalan’s family are symbols of the newer, more boisterous democratization of wealth, a welcome sign of a newly confident and prosperous India breaking out of its caste and class barriers.

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