Of insomniacs, Ilaiyaraaja and a night out in Chennai

This reporter and his colleague stepped out of office in the early hours of Saturday, giddy with excitement at the prospect of exploring Chennai’s night life, in the backdrop of the state government allowing commercial establishments like restaurants and eateries to be operational 24x7. We flagged off our discovery of Chennai’s nocturnal appetite by making a dash to our favourite post-work haunt, Masaledaar Desi Rasoi, where we stocked up for the long night ahead. Interestingly, this joint in Egmore, along with Mathsya, happened to be one of the few restaurants in the neighbourhood that offered a pocket friendly, walk-in dining experience after midnight, which made it a rarity of sorts. Now that the floodgates were opened, we were eager to find out if other eateries in the city had followed suit.

The first stop on our food trail was the upscale Khader Nawaz Khan Road, a locality that is known to be a hotspot for the young at heart. We were a little surprised to find it desolate at 1 am, barring the lone security guards on their graveyard shifts. Even the ice cream parlours had downed their shutters. Of course, the night squads of the city police were stationed at prominent junctions, and they spared no efforts in ensuring that the roads were kept safe from inebriated drivers. We were pulled over thrice, once for a breathalyser test - surprisingly just moments after one of us had called a newly opened restobar only to inquire if the bar was open (it wasn’t). Don’t even think about drinking, if you are driving, our Precognitive Police (from Minority Report) seemed to say.

Our second police pullover came right after we crossed Gemini Flyover. This time, we handed over our addresses and phone numbers to the police, who made a note of it and claimed it to be a routine night time check. With no time to waste, we hit the road and soon found ourselves right opposite Mount Road Dargah. The busy intersection is often referred to as a food court in disguise, thanks to the presence of multiple restaurants like Buhari, Sangam, Hanson and Thalappakatti one after the other on the same stretch. For a change, it was heartening to see at this hour, the bright lights of the eateries and the adjoining tea shops, populated by a sizeable crowd of men and women of all ages, who stood around, sipping their special teas and fruit juices and milk shakes, in an unhurried fashion.

Siraj, who runs one such outlet here tells us that the big chunk of his business is generated only after midnight. For more than two decades, he has operated his joint 24x7, but in a clandestine fashion, with a full shutter and back-door delivery to boot. Now that the rules have relaxed, he is putting in place a shift system and increasing his workforce to cater to the night time denizens, whose numbers he expects to swell in the coming days. We also happen to run into a rickshaw wallah who happily informs us that scores of idli and dosai kadais in Saligramam and Valasaravakkam were pulling an all-nighter after the new rule came in force. For Arun, who works in the night shift in the RMS section at the Post office down the road, the notion of 24x7 eateries has come as a relief. The staff from the PO can now look forward to a proper meal, any time they want.

Next, we headed out to the Marina Beach Road, which was pretty much an uneventful drive, save for the sighting of a lovelorn couple, who we had first spotted at Mount Road and who was now partaking in the joys of a shared cigarette and lit by a neon blueish Mani Ratnam-esque tint under the arches of Napier Bridge. Our penultimate pit stop was Elliot’s Beach in Besant Nagar, which might have been a damp squib had we succumbed to the notion of being thoroughly agreeable citizens. Having been stopped by the police near the Aavin Booth Roundtana in Adyar, the third time in the course of three hours, we were told that the beach was closed. But, having disclosed the purpose of our assignment, we were let through.

Sure enough, our entry into the promenade was stalled by barricades, so we decided to park the car, a few metres away and walk the distance. From the verandah of a nearby house, we hear the strains of an Ilayaraja classic, cracking through the speakers of a mobile phone that helps the security guard keep awake at night.

And a sight for sore eyes greets us, as the signboard of Pupil restaurant shone brightly in the distance. We got ourselves a comfortable outdoor seat, overlooking the Bay, and ordered two tall glasses of a watermelon, lemon and tender coconut coolers. Our man Friday for the night, Alex, a gentleman from Manipur, is doubling down with managerial and kitchen duties. On the adjoining table, we run into Venilla and Lakshman, two finance professionals, who have just landed for dinner, after a really late night at their office in Ramanujan IT City. They had planned their late evening outing as soon as they heard about the new rule.

Venilla, who introduces herself as Vanilla, just to make things easier, goes on to tell me that her name actually means the moon. She says she has had it with takeaways and online food orders post the midnight hour. She reminds us of times when she has stood outside shuttered restaurants only to place an order via Swiggy and Zomato in the same outlet, which would in turn deliver the food via the back door owing to time restrictions. Lakshman bemoans the quality of food served in takeaways at night which he refers to as the sum total of leftovers from the day. Today, they are in an upbeat mood, thanks to the new rule.

We are also joined at the nearby table, by a group of happy go lucky college goers, who have come all the way from Ambattur to celebrate the purchase of a new car, a Ford EcoSport by one of their friends. They oblige us with a group photo amid banter under the open sky, with a sublime sea breeze blowing over them. As we downed our coolers at about 2.45 am, we gazed at the shoreline, thankful to be a part of this city’s assimilated social fabric and hopeful about the future. Chennai, slowly but surely was opening up to the idea of late night outs for the masses and these were baby steps towards it. Did we miss, a drink in our hands? A little, but as my colleague reassured me, “All in good time.”