Chennai was everything that Delhi was not. A city whose music, sights, beaches, smells, haunted me even though I stayed so far from it most of my life. It wasn’t a great city, nowhere near as great as London in Naipaul’s The Mimic Men. No grand museums where one could stare at a painting for hours and comprehend the meaning of life, no pall malls or nightlife to lose oneself in merrily, and no palace pageantry to enthral its tourists. It could never be. Its greatness wasn’t real. Its greatness was imaginary, one that conjured up visions of a wonderful and simple life, a life that promised a perfect meal, a perfect cup of coffee, a perfect dance form, a perfect musical tradition, a perfect Kanjivaram.