If you and your clandestine louw partner are the twin towers of romance, The city of Chennai is the metaphorical plane or plain that is likely to crash into the both of you. In Chennai, the presence of unmarried girl and unmarried boy within a distance of 10 metres from each other is considered to be a public display of affection. Of course I am exaggerating a bit. Quite a bit actually. In reality, the place has changed quite a lot over the years. Today, you probably will be, but the policeman patrolling Marina beach is likely to make polite enquiries about your Big4 status Vekkam, Maanam, Soodu, Soranai and generally haul you back home.
Big difference. The real irony is that the puritanical maamas and maamis of yore are slowly getting used to the fact that there exists this sane middle ground between the extremes of Satyabhama University boy-girl rules on the one hand and teenage pregnancies on the other.
But with almost every engineering college doing practically everything short of neutering male students before admission, Chennai is entering this new weird era where young boys have no clue how to talk to a girl, let alone ask her out.
Update: After several comments on this post, I realized that there are broadly 3 levels of clandestinity cough cough that people look for. Level 1 β where boy and girl only indulge in conversation and require a small degree of privacy. Level 2 β where a small amount of safe physical intimacy is desired and Level 3 β where, um, hotel rooms are required. This post mostly deals with Level 2 requirements. Chenthil has a nice post on Level 1 here. For some reason, this is the de-facto lovers zone, and you will find couples seated at strategically discreet distances from each other.
The presence of several pairs generally discourages roving bands of shady guys who tend to consider the passing of lewd comments to be on par with. The only invasion of privacy one has to deal with is the Sundal-boy, who operates on the logic that if you want to put kadalai, you might as well buy some ammunition from him.
