Within the previous areas of Chennai, you’ll usually see a brightly painted deity on the corners of the streets. It’s not primarily an expression of piety, nevertheless – its essential objective is to cease folks pissing there. Regardless of how determined or secular you is perhaps, you’re unlikely to urinate on a god. 

There are mini shrines at a number of the T-junctions as effectively. The pondering right here is that the sight of a deity prevents a driver from speeding into the junction with out stopping, and maybe wanting each methods. 

And right here’s a tailoring one: every block has a bit urgent sales space – that’s one under. Each morning these pressers collect bundles of garments and bedding from the neighbouring homes, and press them in the course of the day, delivering them again within the night. 

A tailor would discover the irons themselves fascinating. Not solely are they cast-iron and heated over scorching coals, however some even have coals positioned inside them. It seems like an everyday iron however stretched and squared off, to create area for the little fire inside.

I’ve all the time adored India. I like its colors and its sprawling tradition. I’ve been right here as a backpacker, with my household and on enterprise. However there’s nothing to beat travelling with a neighborhood, and we made a while after we visited Chennai lately to stroll the previous neighbourhoods with Mahesh Ramakrishnan, the proprietor of bespoke tailor Whitcomb & Shaftesbury. 

There’s a relevance to tailoring right here as effectively, as a result of a part of the rationale I needed to go to Whitcomb was to inform the story of the workshop, its folks and the locality – to chip away at the concept that work is just offshored as a result of it is cheaper. 

Just like the 100 Arms workshop we visited a number of years in the past in northern India, I discovered the folks right here extremely proficient, producing work nearly as good as Savile Row and with as a lot ardour and dedication as Paris or Naples.

Culturally, the factor I discover fascinating a couple of neighbourhood is the way in which it displays wider modifications – the undercurrents of politics or economic system.

Chennai is rising quick for instance, however as usually occurs, on the expense of some conventional methods of doing issues. “You may spot the previous homes round right here as a result of they’re all on two flooring, with a lot of area round them,” he says. “These areas are often planted with hibiscus or jasmine, as a result of the residents decide them within the morning to take to temple.”

The brand new developments, against this, are 4 or 5 tales tall, and constructed proper as much as the sting of the plots. “These are the flats which can be in style with the wealthy proper now,” says Mahesh. “Though I wager in a number of years time they’ll all need to knock them down and construct these huge previous homes once more.”

The native economic system is rising quick, and there’s some huge cash washing round. “Our father was a civil servant, and at one level he tried to introduce rules to manage the buildings that might go up. However there was an excessive amount of cash concerned – he ended up getting loss of life threats,” says Mahesh.

Visually it’s all the time the color that hits me first in India. It’s a cliché in fact, however like many clichés there’s a motive for it. Folks put on brighter colored garments – shirts, saris, lungis – than I’ve seen in different elements of Asia. Native buildings additionally usually have placing color schemes, my favorite being a financial institution that was totally painted in acidic lemon and lime. 

To be truthful, the vehicles I’ve seen in Pakistan rival India’s for adornment, in truth in all probability exceed them. However then maybe its finest to see the Indian subcontinent as one tradition – and even higher, a continent with its personal id after which scores of native ones intertwined, given the variability in languages, practices and even scripts. 

I don’t fake to be an skilled on any of this. However I do discover it fascinating, and it was a frequent subject of dialog between us and the folks we met – at Whitcomb, at Unique Madras and elsewhere.

A European would possibly counsel the cultural variation throughout India is akin to that of Europe, for instance. However you don’t get totally different scripts in Europe till you go a great distance east. And Mahesh, although he grew up in Chennai, can’t learn Tamil as a result of he was largely educated elsewhere. The concept of dwelling in a metropolis the place you may’t learn all of the slogans written on the partitions is an odd one. 

Anyway, there’s no tailoring hyperlink to this cultural meandering – merely an extension of that earlier concept of understanding and so appreciating a spot and its folks. I really feel extra linked now to the tailors in Chennai than I do to nearly anyplace else. And I’m proud to put on the fruits of their work.  

Mahesh and everybody at Whitcomb, thanks on your hospitality. Extra on their tailoring right here.

www.whitcombshaftesbury.co.uk