Author Prajwal Parajuly discovers the organised charm of Sri City

The Hindu

21-05-2025

Novelist Prayaag Akbar had promised that the students were smart. That was reason enough for me to move to Sri City, in the middle of nowhere, sight unseen. Friends and family had reason to be skeptical. For a few years I had been flitting between New York and Paris, convincing everyone that I was leading a rockstar's life. Why then would I abandon that for a city in Andhra Pradesh that no one had heard of? Alas, the rockstar existence I aspired to actually felt like I spent half my life at airports and the other half on planes. Do that in your twenties — it's sexy. You're still doing that once you step into your forties — it's a bit sad. Besides, what was not to like about building from scratch a Creative Writing programme at a new university that was making news for all the right reasons? Yes, I could design my own curriculum. Yes, the faculty-student ratio was excellent. Yes, New York could continue being part of my life. No, Sri City wasn't really a city in the British sense of the word.
I had been to Chennai once before and looked forward to rating the best idli and chutney. I'd judge every fault at Avartana and Southern Spice and Pumpkin Tales and Kappa Chakka Kandhari. I'd visit the temples of Mahabalipuram and the beaches of Kovalam. I'd weekend in Pondicherry like the perfectly pretentious snob that I was. On the way back, I'd stop at The Farm.
But Sri City? What of Sri City? The information online was scant. Yes, it was what they called a special economic zone, poetically abbreviated to SEZ. And yes, there was a supermarket. Yes, Krea University, where I'd teach, was the city's pride and joy. And yes, Krea's main building was ugly while the newer buildings were pretty. Was that a smirk on my driver's face when I asked him to tell me something about the city?
'So, lots of factories?' I asked the driver. He smirked.
'Have you been to Krea before?' I asked. 'Many times.' He continued to smirk.
'And?' Smirk.
Someone would get tipped zero rupees.
'We are almost there,' he said.
Outside, the landscape changed. We were fast leaving the chaos and colour of average Indian streets. The roads became wider and smoother. The dividers were more ornamental. They sported flowers. On either side of the tree-lined avenues were tall walls housing well-known brands: Mondelez, Pepsico, Sodexo. This felt strangely familiar. And why was that? I could have been in … Texas. Sure, few things in life were more mind-numbing than American suburbia — I'd sooner live in war-torn Mogadishu than on the outskirts of Philly — but here I was, suddenly excited by the similarity. Finding this level of organisation and cleanliness — what I'd have otherwise dismissed as abject soullessness — anywhere in India felt incongruous. Travel just outside the economic zone, and there they all were: the potholes, the frenzy, the roads snapped in two. But Sri City? Oh, Sri City was Oklahoma in Andhra.
So that was how it would be. I'd be living in a bizarre little American sliver of India.
I made my way to the university accommodation. It had 'Exotica' in its name. I'd be on the top floor. Of course I'd tell everyone I lived in the penthouse. Outside, a canoodling couple plucked lice off each other — they would be an integral part of my Sri City vista — oblivious to the game of cricket factory workers played on a makeshift pitch. The glaze-tile-floored flat had toilets that didn't have showers in the middle of the room. That was a win. But the two bathrooms were divided by a wall that stopped three-quarters of the way up. You could throw toilet paper across the wall from one bathroom to another.
'You like?' the driver asked when he saw me consider the partition.
I ignored him. My colleague Anannya would take me out for lunch.
'Japanese?' she asked.
Here? A jittery bus disgorged a gaggle of daily-wage earners next door.
I was whisked off to Asagao, which served Japanese and Italian cuisine, and not to Tokyo Ryokan, which served Japanese and Indian. Like I wasn't confronted by an embarrassment of riches already, a third Japanese restaurant named Senri even bragged views. The Sri City expats — many of them Japanese and Korean — working at the various international companies needed their karaage fix. My ramen bowl could have been from any Japanese restaurant in New York or Singapore.
'That was a great meal,' I started to text Anannya on the drive back to Chennai. I'd have to do a social-media post about this strange cosmopolitan experience. 'Best ramen I ate in India,' I'd brag. The driver swerved. A pair of snakes slithered to safety.
Prajwal Parajuly is the author of The Gurkha's Daughter and Land Where I Flee.He loves idli, loathes naan, and is indifferent to coffee. He teaches creative writing at Krea University and oscillates between New York City and Sri City.