Author Prajwal Parajuly romanticises Chennai winter and rightfully so

New York may have its autumn, and Paris its spring, but no city can do December as well as Chennai. 

Sentimentalists — and my editor — will rhapsodise about a Calcutta Christmas, which, I’ll concede, is adequately charming. Haters will froth in their masked mouths about Delhi and peanuts in the sun until a catty quip about the smog shushes them. The pretentious will mumble hogwash about some place where The White Lotus is being filmed, but you will smack them with their well-stamped passport. That modest corridor between November-end and January-end, say what you will, entirely belongs to Chennai. 

No sooner will I switch off the AC than the NRIs descend on the city with their tedious nostalgia. When it is finally no-fan weather— yes, those days do come by — Christmas rolls around. By its lonesome self, I will admit, a Chennai Christmas isn’t extraordinary. It’s the Marghazi season coinciding with the festival and New Year’s and that sliver of balmy weather that makes a winter here so damn irresistible. What’s not to like about hurrying to a canteen lunch late in the morning so you can beat the lines, eating a wholesome vegetarian meal on a banana-leaf plate and sneaking in a quick concert — all before it’s even noon?  

My first winter here, I missed out on the uniquely Chennai phenomenon of sabha canteens. I did attend a couple of concerts, but the long lines for food, no matter how compelling the kalkandu bath, were a deterrent. Friends berated me for the sacrilege. Standing in line is part of the canteen charm, they said. When I finally made my way to the Music Academy canteen with a writer friend this season, I grumbled that there had to be a better method to access these meals. She declared she knew a loophole. The idea was to collect our tokens and hop over to the Savera next door for a drink.

The waiting time shrank; the city’s social calendar, of course, did not.

Like December wasn’t groaning with events already, the Madras Art Weekend decided it would happen in the first week. As the initial invites for events around it trickled in, I was sceptical. I was still recovering from the sheer scale of Art Mumbai — the talent, the monies exchanging hands, the over-the-top parties — like the small-town boy that I am. For a moment, I questioned if Bombay’s hunger for art acquisition translated to its having even more money than New York. There was no way Chennai would compare. But when I was given a walk-through of Udal: Reading the Body, from the Avtar Collection, in a spectacularly transformed Alliance Francaise venue, I concluded I was being cynical. The Madras Art Weekend, and other art events that the winter season incubates, is no Art Mumbai for the simple reason that it doesn’t aspire to be. It is no Kochi Biennale. It need not be. It is cosy, sincere and uniquely Chennai. 

Cosy is also how I’d describe the nascent trend of pop-up Carnatic gigs. The decision of gatekeepers of culture to unleash these concerts into seemingly unexpected venues from straitlaced, often-staid sabhas was inspired. As I took in the ragas of Rithvik Raja at Beachville Coffee Roasters in Alwarpet, I was struck by just how wonderfully incongruous, how intimate, the entire musical experience became. The performers weren’t sat on a stage. Some of us sat cross-legged on the floor. The effect was bizarrely democratising. Detractors will point out that Carnatic music and the whir of coffee makers make for an unhappy marriage, but café owners respect musicians enough to abort kitchen service for the duration of the performance. I am all for consumption of all art in all forms, art in all venues. Sometimes art needs to escape its constraints. Sometimes it just needs a new vessel. I want my Carnatic concerts at sabhas and at coffee shops. I want my music after a canteen lunch and as an accompaniment to my hot chocolate. 

Perhaps it’s fitting that this city of quietly endowed libraries and robust independent bookstores should end the season with a literature festival. The Hindu Lit for Life and I unfortunately continue to be star-crossed. The dates are clashing with the Jaipur Literature Festival, where I am as I write this. I am distraught about not being in Chennai because so many of my students are interns at Lit for Life. I am equally sad about missing my author friends, some of whom are valiantly juggling both the festivals. I seek solace in the fact that they, too, will, in their brief stay, discover the delights of a Chennai winter. 

Prajwal Parajuly is a novelist. Karma and Lola, his new book, is forthcoming in 2026. He teaches Creative Writing at Krea University and oscillates between New York City and Sri City.