One wonders why there is such limited Indian writing in English on Chennai. Mumbai has Maximum City and Shantaram, the Bengalis have Calcutta Chromosome etc. Apart from Timeri Murari?s excellent Four Steps from Paradise, Tishani Doshi?s Pleasure Seekers, or Unhurried City edited by CS Lakshmi, there are not too many books about Tamil Nadu?s capital.

Chennai is a city that has preserved its core conservative values while adopting what it thinks is modern wholeheartedly. Thanks to the Dravidian movement , it is a far more egalitarian than the rest of India. It might have its occasional caste wars, but never communal conflicts. It has all kinds of peculiar contradictions. It is the centre for Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. But it also has a film industry that has produced AR Rahman and world-class technicians, and is even running neck-to-neck with Bollywood. Once known as the Detroit of India, it has hung on as a major auto hub. Sadly, it has not focused on soft skills, and is becoming a left-brained city full of engineers and IT people.

In TS Tirumurti?s Chennaivaasi, the characters are mostly Tamil Brahmins who once upon a time wielded great power in the state. They still have a considerable presence in the private sector, but no longer in government, politics or education. They have learned to adapt to changed circumstances. Denied educational opportunities in the state because of its 69% reservation policy, they have quietly sent their children away to the West. Every Tambram family has a relative in the US. It is only natural that some of them find brides there.

Ravi is a bright young man from a traditional Tambram family, with an archetypical strict father. After going to the US to study, horror of horrors, he falls in love with a beautiful Jewish woman, Deborah, with whom he interns in a company in Washington DC. They decide to get married. Her family accepts this reluctantly but it?s going to be far more difficult for his parents. They both find jobs in Chennai, hoping to win Ravi?s parents over. Ravi?s father reacts violently and does not want to set eyes on them. To make matters worse, Ravi and Deborah start living together, which is still unacceptable among traditional Tambrams. Just when his mother, who has always built bridges between her sons and their unyielding father, is coming around to accepting Deborah, she dies in her sleep. The story opens with the mother?s death.

The novel weaves through Chennai?s streets, its dark underbelly, conflicting class interests, astrologers, temples, recipes, and Deborah?s determination to be part of it all. It also incorporates many time-frames. In one, there is an older, more gracious city where people lived in large houses, with huge gardens where the extended family filled the spaces. Ravi?s father has always lived in ?Sundari?, sprawled over 14 grounds where his children have been brought up. Ravi, his two elder brothers, and sister know no other home. That?s why it?s traumatic for Ravi to be cut off from the family. After his mother dies, his father suddenly shows up at his door one day and literally seeks asylum. Ravi finds it difficult to forgive, but Deborah persuades him to let his father stay with them.

Why has Ravi?s father fallen out with his older sons? What happens to the huge property? The second half has several twists and turns till all conflicts get resolved. There is a nice, old-world charm here that will appeal to non-Tamil readers as well. There is a lot of humour and unabashed use of Tambram phrases, which Tirumurti explains with a nice and casual touch. One does wish some of the other characters, like Ravi?s siblings and their spouses, had been fleshed out a little more. What psychological impact did the father?s strict aloofness have on them? One also feels that Tirumurti hasn?t quite come to grips with today?s Chennai which he left years ago.

Globetrotter returns to his roots

Tirumurti grew up in Chennai. Since then, as a diplomat, he has served in Cairo, Geneva, Washington DC, Jakarta and Gaza. He has now been in Delhi for the past five years and had finished 60-70% of the new novel before moving back to India. It took him four years to start work on it again. ?I created time to write my first novel. The second I wrote when I had the time.? His first novel Clive Avenue, published almost ten years ago and also set in Chennai, was autobiographical. He started thinking about his second novel the day he finished his first.

?I know Chennai has changed. We have changed the way in which we look at our daily life. But in some areas it hasn?t changed much. There is a certain framework (like our love of music, books) which we have not lost. Most important, we don?t fight change.?

He started his first novel during a very busy period in his career when he was a director in the Foreign Secretary?s office. ?I used to get back home at around 10 pm each night and started to write just to unwind.?

?Chennaivaasi has a symbiotic relationship with the city. But at the end of the day, this is only a story. Don?t take it too seriously and over-analyse it.? Is he going to continue writing about Chennai? ?I cannot write about things which I have picked up in the line of duty.? He hasn?t started working on his next book yet. ?I want to experiment. I may work on a play.? Has he been inspired by his famous uncles, RK Narayanan and Baranidaran, the Tamil writer? He smiles in reply.

Chennaivaasi

TS Tirumurti

Harper Collins

Paperback, pg 270

Rs. 299