Charm of Chennai

I had arrived in Chennai, the city formerly known as Madras, at quite the wrong time. The problem was not the hour, 1am, but that there was not a drop to drink in the city.

Chennai not only holds on to Mahatma Gandhi’s idea that drink is “haram” — evil — but goes further even than the Mormons of Utah to make drinking difficult. In Chennai, the only public places you can drink are hotels with at least 20 rooms.