Culture and Customs
Entertainment
Gap Year in Chennai, India Chennai: Entertainment Although still a conservative culture Chennai is moving with the times. There are now several night clubs and bars in the city alongside excellent restaurants of every type of cuisine, so there is no chance of your having a dull gap year in this city.
Multiplex cinemas are showing English language Hollywood movies alongside the wonderful colour, glitz and glamour of Bollywood films. Going to an Indian cinema is an experience in itself as you will often find people dancing in the aisles to their favorite Bollywood hit!
xOther things to do include Yoga, Ten Pin Bowling, Go-Karting, Horse Riding and even a Flying School, if there is something you particularly want to do or learn while on your gap break here the GapGuru Local Coordinator will be able to help you organize the same.
Festivals & Culture
India has over 1,000 regional festivals a year and the South has its fair share. September and October find the streets lit up with huge portraits of the Hindu Gods and Temples are generally full of people 24 hours a day, fire walks on hot embers by devotees of the Gods are a common sight at this time of the year. September also has the festival of the elephant headed God "Ganesha"- hundreds of pink elephant papier mache Gods, some over 20 feet tall are taken to the sea to be immersed. It causes quite a traffic jam!
Late October or early November is Diwali, the Festival of Lights. It seems every household in Chennai, however poor, buys a box of fireworks on this day and sets them off from dawn until midnight. Go to the tallest building and watch at night for the most spectacular fireworks show you will ever see!
Mid December into January there is the Festival of Indian Music and Dance held in Chennai and Mahabilapuram. This internationally recognized event sees back to back performances every day for over 6 days and is a fantastic showcase of the breadth and depth of the Indian creative arts.
Pongal and the Tamil New Year festivals are usually around Easter time and is a great time for shopping, like the equivalent of the January sales in the UK!
Food
There are many ways of distinguishing the north of India from the south and food is a big one as it is completely different in the two regions. The current UK favorite of Chicken Tikka Masala actually started life in Pakistan not India! Most Indian restaurants in the UK are actually run by people from Pakistan or Bangladesh origin and not from India at all! In South India and in particular in the state of Tamil Nadu most restaurants or café are vegetarian unless they specifically says 'Non-Veg' on the outside. Meat dishes are still readily available but the southern cuisine which is mainly vegetarian, is delicious and it's quite easy to give up meat for the time you are in the City.
The names are fabulous for the local dishes; Idli, Dosa, Uttapam, Appam, Sambar the list goes on - all of them fabulous and hardly available anywhere in the UK! It's worth coming here for the food alone! You can eat in any price range from street food at around 20 rupees (25p) for a meal or 800 rupees (10.00) for a champagne brunch at a 5 star hotel!