A walk down Besant Nagar

Yesterday was Tamil New Year’s Day and more significantly a holiday.

A holiday that began and ended with trips to and from Besant Nagar.
A hot morning Frisbee game at the Besant Nagar beach.Rode back home. I go spend some time with the grandparents, cut my hair, and then I spent the rest of the day, catching up on sleep.


Arun texts me at around 5.30pm says he is getting out of work early, we plan to meet up at the beach for a drink.


Bessie is a great locality. A place that I have grown up in and I must say a place I am most comfortable with. It's 7.30 and I am early. I walk the stretch from the Spencer’s daily up to the Vinayaga temple. I walk across the road. Walk left to the bus depot and past Besant’s [a fast food joint.. one of my haunts since turtle walk days back in school]. The Liquor outlet here is horrible; hardly get any thing you want. The booze I was carrying [left over from Saturday night] wasn’t going to be enough. I pick up another quarter [Chef]. I turn around and walk it back down the stretch to Spencer's Daily a bit more conscious this time that I wouldn't be seeing it again for a long time to come.

I stop at Maharaja's Store,walk in and out. Give a smile to the owner, who's probably seen me walk in as a kid many times, and probably recognized me from then. I walk past Vishranti and the little Book cart that used to thrive during the harry potter craze. The pirated books sold faster and than the hot stuff from Vishranti. I look heaven words to Eden's the most overrated place I have ever eaten at. I have a lot of friends who swear by this place but there is nothing like Besant's. I make an quick note to head back to Besant's after the drinking session. I see Varun backing his car into a parking spot at Spencer's to pick up some Groceries. Lekha his wife is around the corner and he is supposed to be efficiently using his time to jump in and out of Spencer’s. I stop him for quick chat. I get distracted. As he talks I see another familiar face, a girl from one of Abhay’s parties. I get back to the conversation just in time to findout that he was winding up. Arun mean while is walking it down from Adyar Bus Depot. I wander around outside till he reaches Spencer’s. We get ourselves two half litre Pepsi pets and spike one bottle on the way to the beach. After some walking we find a half empty spot. Yes we totaly forgot it was Tamil New Year’s Day, large crowds at the beach are expected.

One bottle downed talking about fun stuff. Arun’s girl problems and my lack of as many, my hair and his lack of as many. After struggling to open the second for some time we open it with Arun’s keys [later find out that Arun dropped his keys and lost them that night]. We walk up to the fish stall, and select one and ask the owner to fry it for us. Also order a plate of Kalamari. We wash down the fish with the rest of the drinks. And take a long walk towards Cozy corner. Then we head down towards the Fruit Shop and walk back to Besant’s for dinner. Besant’s has come a long way from being a road side stall. Its got an A/C joint now. We walk in order a chicken noodle and a beef fry and down it.

Having dinner at Besant’s I realized that I had had an amazing round up of Bessie that night. I walk out and send Arun packing in a rick. I walk down to Adyar depot on the way, try calling Shilpa [hard to get at best of times] and send out a bunch of drunken texts to Divya about Besant’s food and not getting a bus. I get a share rick and whiz back home.