Madras Patnam

A lighting at Chennai International Airport for the first time, a North Indian may find himself lost among a host of enlightened aliens. 

- Arunabha Dasgupta

Gentlemen mostly donning sparkling white shirts and white lungi like dhoti and ladies flaunting world-famous silken sarees and golden and silvery jewellery of high intrinsic artistic value roam about freely in the city streets. You cannot miss the flavour of fresh flowers adorning the ladies' tresses. Of course, the language is a barrier. Although the people are largely educated knowing English and Hindi, mostly prefer to communicate only in their native tongue. Sign boards, street names, bus numbers and other important information are inscribed in Tamil only causing inconvenience for the visitors.

Chennai formarly known as Madras is the capital of Tamilnadu. Standing on the Bay of Bengal, Chennai is the gateway to South India. Historically the city was located in the province of Tondaimandalam. Tondaiman, a powerful descendant of the Chola family, ruled Tondaimandalam in the second-century AD. Chola's domination ended with the Andhra invasion in the third-century AD. After the fall of Golkonda in 1687, the region came under the rule of the Mughal emperors. The present-day city of Chennai started in 1644 as an English settlement known as Fort St George. The British applied the name Madras to a new large city which had grown up around the Fort.