Namma Chennai! YouTube Videos Celebrating Chennai

Namma Chennai means “Our Chennai” and we’ve discovered several YouTube videos that reflect the widespread feelings of pride and togetherness that are so strong in India and especially in the south and in Chennai. As we approach our time to move there, we decided to share a few of these smile-inducing videos that showcase our new city and the beautiful people who live there.

The first brief video is “Celebrating Chennai,” and you’ll get to see a bit of a story showing Marina Beach, one of the longest public beaches in India, with its red and white striped lighthouse; Ranganathan Street in T Nagar, the world’s busiest street; kids playing Holi with its brilliant colors; traffic along the ECR (East Coast Road) and the OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road); you’ll hear about the cricket team, the Super Kings who unfortunately have been suspended from the India Premier League until 2018; and you’ll catch the trendy scene at Besant Nagar Beach (Eliot’s Beach) where we’ll be living. Oh, and remember Chennai used to be Madras until 1996.

The next video showcases the same song, Chancey Illa Chennai—The Pride of Chennai–but this one features its popular singer, Anirudh Ravichander and some frisky Kollywood style dancing. Yes, Chennai is Kollywood (Mumbai is Bollywood) and it’s a major film production center with many movie stars living there, including in our neighborhood of Besant Nagar. Vishy Anand, World Chess Champion up to 2013, is also from Besant Nagar and he shows up in one of these videos. Can you find him? BTW, that white bridge they seem to love in so many of the videos is the Napier Bridge across the Cooum River at the north end of Marina Beach.

Next is a video that’s part of a worldwide trend, dancing in various cities to Pharrell Williams’s song Happy, so feel free to get up and dance and sing along with Happy Chennai! In this one you’ll get to dance at the tank at Kapaleeshwarar Temple and on Broken Bridge–which is exactly that–with the 5 Star Leela Palace Hotel across the Adyar River, seemingly unattainable. I haven’t learned the story of Broken Bridge yet but it’s on my list and it’s just north of Besant Nagar.

If you’re ready for a break from dancing, here’s a wonderful video, Madras is Calling, that I have to admit really touches me, both in the music and in the incredible and direct images. Here you’ll see people hard at work, weaving, dyeing, washing, sweeping, and fishing; a Hindu funeral procession and kids playing cricket at Marina Beach; the lanes and backstreets with merchants and bicycle rickshaws and towers of bananas in monsoon; and the sweetest little old man whose smile is utterly priceless.

And finally, here’s a video with an Indian journalist, Ruchi Kumar, who lives and works in Afghanistan, but ends up stuck in Chennai for an extra couple of days. Hmmm, what to do? Here you’ll get to see her sample our favorite food, (so far) masala dosa, as Ruchi is charmed by the smiles and colors and scents and tastes of the city and its people. Okay, so there is a bit more dancing, but there’s also a quick scene at our favorite Cafe in the Chamiers neighborhood with even a game of chess . . . .

I hope you enjoy these celebrations of our new home city. Soon, we plan to truly make it “Namma Chennai.”

Author: David Hassler

David M. Hassler was fortunate enough to have become a relatively rare male Trailing Spouse when his talented wife Sarah accepted a job teaching music in the elementary division of the American International School in Chennai, India, in 2017. His role included, for more than three years there, serving as her everything wallah, but also allowed him time for exploring, discovering, and sharing new places, new faces, and new tastes around Chennai, throughout south India, and beyond. When the pandemic arrived, Sarah retired and they moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where they continue to live and love life. David M. Hassler is a long-time member of the Indiana Writers Center Faculty and holds an MFA from Spalding University. His work has been published in Maize and the Santa Fe Writers' Project. He served as a Student Editor for The Louisville Review and as Technical Editor for Writing Fiction for Dummies. He is currently the Fiction Editor for Flying Island, an online literary journal. He is co-author of Muse: An Ekphrastic Trio, and Warp, a Speculative Trio, and future projects include A Distant Polyphony, a collection of linked stories about music and love, memories and loss; and To Strike a Single Hour, a Civil War novel that seeks the truth in one of P T Barnum's creations. He is a founding partner in Boulevard Press. View all posts by David Hassler