Why Chennai is not fond of non-Tamilian single women

I may be wrong. My admittedly unreliable memory whispers that it thinks stocklotgarment is a Chennai native, so I guess his experience is rather more than "one."

I may also, and certainly do, disagree with him, notwithstanding my also-admitted bias in favour of Tamil ladies.

Whatever else do you expect on such a thread? Of course it is going to be nothing but bias.

Oh, and I think stocklotgarment was joking.

LOL ..Nick .. Sometimes you get fed up seeing the same kind of women that you start liking ..

Guys,

While I was browsing the internet, I happened to see this thread and without any second thought, I joined IM, just to respond to this post.

It did not come as a surprise or a shock to me when you guys did not like Chennai... because this happens everywhere else in the world and not just in India.....While I was in Manc, I have seen my English team members picking on the Irish guy in our team, every time they got a chance.

Please do understand that, we tamils, are a bit reserved by nature and this does not make us un-welcoming by any way!!!!!

Also, I strongly disagree when people say that there is no life after 9 PM. It might not be as vibrant as a Goa or a Mumbai but still it is gud in its own way. It is just that you guys are not with right people who know the city properly.

Anyways, I jus hope that you all have a gud time in here at Chennai.

_______________

Saranyan Dharmalingam

The "guys" of Madras could afford to be a whole lot more reserved. Though in all fairness, the sexual harassment in Madras is nowhere near as bad as Delhi (or Naples).

LOL at all the complaints that Tamil people in Tamil Nadu speak Tamil. If anything Madras is notoriously a place where people don't speak much Tamil or don't speak it well, even before the recent influx of Manipuri service workers and North Indian IT dweebs. I have had several shop clerks ask me to speak in English, which I thought was a bit staggering, and almost always they approach me in English. (Sometimes I think Tamil-speaking clerks are more likely to approach me in Tamil in Toronto than in Madras!)

Those people might be Srilankan Tamils. They are fond of the language much more than we are.

The majority of people in Madras do not come from Tamil-speaking homes (Telugu is 50%, plus Peter English, Marwaris etc), and probably the majority of people who go to tony shops aren't Tamil-fluent. I don't blame someone for misjudging me -- but I most certainly dislike being asked to not speak Tamil.

I have never seen my wife being asked not to speak Tamil. I suppose if she is addressed in English, she'll reply in English. Tamil is her first language (although not her "mother tongue") and she, too, would be shocked not to be able to use it (except with me ). If I am driving somewhere new, alone, and it is some place I know I'm not going to be able to pronounce, I ask her to write it down for me: in Tamil. Mour friend Mu Ka has decreed that all shops should prominently display their name --- in Tamil.

Today, we went with a young woman, who is learning tailoring, to buy a sewing machine. The conversation was entirely Tamil, despite my presence, except for a few words when Mrs N requested the shop man to try a few words of Telugu explanation for the young woman. There are plenty of people in my area that speak no English. All the people that I know, including Telegus and Mallus, speak Tamil, although some may not read/write it.

Being asked to speak English happened to me just a few times -- once at Drapes Avenue in Azhvarpet, another time in a drug store in Azhvarpet, once in some other furnishings store in RA Puram, once at a crafts emporium in Nungambakkam.

Being addressed in English happened everywhere, being addressed in Hindi happened a couple of times too and that weirded me out much more.

Well, even I have trouble recognizing your "pronunciation" of Alwarpet

Were any of those people patently and obviously from far-off parts of India? ) Otherwise I'd find it hard to believe that any one in those situations would not be a Tamil speaker. A fancy furnishings shop is one thing, but a medicals shop? Even in the poshest parts of the city (and Alwarpet has grown a lot posher in a mere five years, due to escalating property prices) they would have to deal with anyone from bankers to auto drivers.

Anyway, I wasn't there. And you were

But Azhvar is the correct pronunciation! It means people of depth (of learning), Alwar would be ...halwa-makers maybe, LOL. "Zha" is sometimes pronounced "la" by people who will get marks off from me, but "w" is just wrong.

The drug store man asked me to speak in English after I asked for kondai oosi, even more head-shakingly, and then he didn't understand why a chignon pin is different from a regular hairpin.

Anyway, Madras has always been like that. In movies, Madras is stereotypically a place with lousy Tamil for numerous reasons (Peters, Anglo Indians, Marwaris, "maatlarungal" Telugus, Madras bashai etc).

These derivations are always interesting. I'll put this one to Mrs N tomorrow and see what she says. Wish I could engage in this stuff first hand, especially in the Tamil characters which would clarify much that transliteration might leave unclear or even confused.

Oh well, I suppose my Tamil vocabulary must be all of six, going on seven, words .

Well, why can't you? There is plenty of teaching material for adult learners, there is plenty of audiovisual material, you have ample opportunity for immersive learning, you could get tuition from a vastly overqualified tutor for cheap.

Here, I tutor in Tamil, even though I don't have even a high school education in Tamil, because if I didn't do it, my student would have no one to learn from -- you on the other hand could find some MA in Tamil Lit to come to your house and teach you from ka nga cha nya to Kapilar (or up to the Azhvars, if you want).

I can find my wife without going far at all ... and she is not a bad teacher. I even had an offer, last week, from my favourite senior carnatic vocalist that she would teach me.

I won't pretend that laziness has not played a part, but it is a long story with me and languages that goes back to page one of the school French textbook and failed to reach page 2.

It's made worse by failing hearing whch confuses the sounds of my own language (hearing aid soon) even, let alone the far subtler sounds of Tamil. I had a fascination with Malayalam, but, even ten years ago I could not hear any difference in four kinds of k .

Oh well, this is a different story. Don't know how it all ened up on the single-women in Chennai thread

Thanks for the encouragement

Vedavalli wants to teach you Tamil?

Lucky!!

Interesting. First time I am seeing someone spelling AND pronouncing it that way. Is it something like "Kozhikode" as pronounced by a Malayali.

BTW, Just intesrested in this one bit about "Azhvar". I am not a Tamilian, not from Chennai/TN and not even a Telugu though I am from Hyd.