Please ignore the comments section as my review has been completely modified and has no resemblance to the review on which the comments were posted. Last time around, my review was too one-sided and got a lot of flak from Chennaiites. Now I have written another one-sided review: I’m concentrating on the good things about the city: 1) Chennai is one of the few cities where the real-estate bubble is still nascent. True, property rates are climbing, but the price rise hasn’t yet reached dizzying proportions. Even today, a flat in central Chennai can be had at Rs.2500-3000 per square feet which is very much affordable. Low real estate prices help to keep the general cost of living relatively low. 2) Jayalalitha has gradually metamorphosed into an administrator who understands the importance of wooing industries to set up shop in Chennai. And that’s all Chennai needed all along anyway: a concerted marketing pitch. 3) Chennai has a suburban railway system extending in four directions (if you count the MRTS, that is.). That makes it perhaps the only Indian city other than Mumbai to have a reliable local train service. 4) Continuing with public transport, Chennai is the only city where if you take a short walk from the airport complex and cross the highway, you’ll find a suburban railway station right away and you can simply hop into a train. What’s more: it’ll take you to your destination much faster than if you were to negotiate the traffic on GST road. Marvellous! 5) It has the longest contiguous beach in India - Marina Beach. Oh, and don’t ever tell Chennaiites that Pebble beach in Los Angeles and not Marina Beach is the longest beach in the world. They may like to crib about the crowding at Marina Beach in the evenings, but Chennaiites dearly love Marina Beach. 6)It has cloth and jewellery stores as big as entire malls. The clothes are dirt cheap; I get a regular supply of T-shirts from Pothys, RMKV and the rest of the lot. But do keep in mind that the quality will be in keeping with the price, the T-shirts start looking ’old’ in a matter of a few months. Of course, if you’re a shopaholic, you wouldn’t mind. It would give one more reason to go shopping. As for me, I do believe there are things more interesting than shopping in life and I enjoy those the most. 7)Chennai lacks the cosmopolitanism of Mumbai and hence, people are a little shy, aloof and don’t easily open up to outsiders. But if you do get behind the skin of Chennai’s people, they’ll be warm, friendly and helpful. 8)Coming to more political matters, it’s true that for Chennaiites, India’s by and large synonymous with Tamil Nadu. But that’s actually helped in one sense. Chennaiites never bought into the Hindutva crap sold by the BJP in the cow belt. So when politicians managed to incite riots even in the most peaceful localities of Mumbai, Chennai was completely insulated. Again, though Tamil Nadu had a sizeable population of Muslims, they’re not such a significant votebank as to switch voteshares in favour of or against any party. Hence, minority politics and the associated communal strife have never affected Chennai. 9) Lastly, Chennai is conservative, traditional and rigid. But because it is all these, it is also homely, safe and reliable. Chennaiites, my heartfelt apologies to you all for hurting your sentiments. Can you and I be friends again? :)