Madras ....Chennais nostalgia

..I was born brought up and had my studies there and moved to Kerala my native place for the working phase of my life ..

strangely both my children who were born and raised in Cochin. Kerala had a stint in Chennai my daughter studying in the 175 year old venerable Madras medical college where I also did my post graduation in its legendary Bernard institute of radiology and cancer..

To walk in its hallowed portals for both me and my daughter were our destinies ..

incidentally it was the famed medical exhibition in this college which I visited as a ninth class student of Santhome high school just opposite the Santhome beach and its peach white cathedral which gave me the ache to be part of the medical profession .
I just couldnt resist the uphill task of a general category applicant to get into a Government medical college by merit.
Those days too there were a couple of capitation fee medical colleges mostly in Karnataka but not like the tons of medical colleges which appeared like a measles rash in the present day kerala where one could become a cardiologist in ten years with the right amount of greenbucks !

My getting an admission in the kilpauk medical college in the ancient 1977 was almost a near impossible task for a fatherless rudderless boy who had a brave mother resisting pressures to bring her children to the native village in Kerala and making them study there instead of staying alone with two children in the big bad city..she was adamant we would study only in madras and if iam something today iam indebted to her fortitude and realization that Madras was a city of education from those days.
My sister too graduated in economics from SIET college in the city
Compared to this my daughter Sruthi sailed through the All India list of medical entrance and sat and choose at her will her preferred Madras medical college and studied her MBBS and did internship before flying to the rarer environs of a Cleavland university to become a pediatric resident

 and my son Shyam too did his plus two again in Chennai in order to attempt the coveted IIT entrance exams which he too cleared to become a part of the venerable IIT circle by joining IIT BHU in Varanasi.
Again it was Madras which bridged him into it.
Madras also got me the partner in my life for which Kilpauk medical college and its romantic aura was responsible
As a star struck final year student thats me proposed to a pretty third year student my wife and we became man and wife after a couple of years of running around its trees
..it was again Madras for

Premila my wife even though she too was from Kerala be it her convent schooling in Doveton coree or stint in Ethiraj college and finally her MBBS in Kilpauk medical college where destiny had placed me two years before to wait for my beu

Madras was always a center of education for the past two hundred years. Legends have walked taught and spoken from its hallowed university its sprawling colleges its heritage learning places.
I also had an opportunity to study in Vivekananda college in Madras near Luz known for its studious students with a craze for cricket The likes of srikanth being its alumini but even a vivekananda college didnt turn me to sports. 
The one year there went away quickly with my almost fanatic zeal to get a medical admission by merit.
The three month stint in the red gabled baroque British buildinged Presidency college where i joined for BSC Zoology as a safety insurance in event of my not getting medical admission was mostly spent in the beachy Buhari hotel opposite it gulping huge cups of tea crunching crisp mutton samosas with other medical hopefuls cutting classes so much that once the professor told us with clenched teeth just remember fellows i will devour you if you dont get medical admission and get stuck with me for three years so the relief and happiness I got when i came to know i got admission for MBBS was to a small part happiness in not facing his revenge .
So to my family madras had always been synonymous with education.