The thing nobody tells you

I'm going to be moving to Chennai. I have visited once, and have friends of friends there, and am looking into jobs and flats and visas and all that. Most things I can find out by asking google. But you can't discover everything you need to know that way .... so .....

For those who have come from elsewhere (within India or abroad) to live in Chennai, what is the one thing you wish somebody had told you?

Many thanks

That is a very good question that bears further thought. I don't know. Maybe, wash all the rose tint off those spectacles, but hey, nobody ever listens to advice like that, and, ten years ago, I certainly wouldn't have done!

Knowing what you know now, would you have still moved to Chennai?

Nick, can you remember the thread where you discussed the joys of having work done on your house, that's a must read for someone wanting to move from abroad to India. (and great fun for the rest of us to read)

Yes, I think I would. Overall, for all its faults, it is still very much my home town. Specifically, my niche interest, the classical music , makes me so happy and at home.

Really, even with a native Chennai wife, we did such a lot wrong. We should never have bought this house (you'd understand if you saw some of the places we didn't buy) and did suffer a great deal at the hands of a civil engineer who we expected to be able to trust.

The funny thing (joke on us) was how we criticised our ex-landlady for the fact that when she had work done on her house, she sat and watched every minute, checked everything, audited every purchase. We thought she was just being penny-pinching and crazy. Now we know she was right.

macgruba: there is really a to to learn about life here! Especially how to get the better of it rather than letting it get the better of you.

My version of what nobody tells you;

You will, 100%, at some point during your first trip become exasperated and want to leave. Don't. Ride it out and you will be richly rewarded.

You will see some sad things you've not seen before and at first, you'll wonder if you'll ever get over it. Then immorally it becomes normal and you just walk on by like everyone else.

That India is incredibly diverse! North, South, East and west are so diverse, ethnically, linguistically, culturally and gastronomically. They all deserve their own exploration and refresh in mind set that you would give if entering a new country.

You will shit your pants half as much as people tell you, but twice as much as is healthy.

NB

Haha, Boo got it all right!

One thing people may or may not tell you...Rajinkant lives there. It kant be bad.

Before my first visit to India, a backpacking trip many years ago, somebody wise said to me, "When you leave you'll swear you'll never go back. And six months later you'll be planning the next trip". That's exactly what happened (although the next trip didn't happen for a long time).

I do think I might need some more rose tint remover though.

I can remember saying that I thought India was wonderful but I'd never want to live there! Err... here.

Time and experience will deal with your rose tint. Some of it wears away slowly and painlessly, some of it by shock treatment.

Is it a steady erosion in all respects? Or is it that you lose some of the layers only to accumulate thicker, rosier frames on other fronts?

A few weeks ago, I remember hearing something and saying, "Good Grief! I thought India could no longer shock me with things like this!" Now I can't even remember what it was.

I can't really answer your question, though, because, with rose tint, one is only aware of its loss, and not of its accumulation.

after my first trip in 2005 I DID return 6 months later, I did not just plan it. and now I am on my 9th trip next month.

my rose colored glasses fell off around my third trip.

Sure. What I really meant to ask was: There must be things you didn't know of or consider at all when you only visited and which you began to notice and/or grew to like over time after having lived here. No? So not so much an accumulation of rose tint as an accumulation of "positive perception/experience" that you were hitherto totally unaware of the existence of?

If I moved some place and all I experienced was a steady depletion of rose tint, leaving in sight things only harsh and unsavoury, I'd leave in a heartbeat.

That's the wrong bit.

Because one views a lot of stuff with rose-tinted glasses does not mean it is all good only because of the glasses, so when the rose wears off, what was really good is still actually good phew I need to breathe now...

I thought that't the NORMAL thing to do! Why would anyone NOT do that?

I do that here and watch like a hawk.

I/we have also built a house from nothing and one has to watch everything like a hawk especially in that circumstance