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The Hindu
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Author Prajwal Parajuly returns to campus life in Sri City
After being gone six long months, I am back in Sri City. I have come equipped with cheese that stank up every plane I was on, chocolate that smudged half my white shirts and a nine-kilogram poker kit that I joke is my first-born. It's been a good time away, but I have missed the students, the weather, and the mangoes. I have missed the marauding monkeys and the shuttle that conveys me to campus. I have not missed the department meetings because we continued having them online. I have missed the karaage that's not exactly a karaage at Asagao, my favourite Japanese restaurant here, and I have missed the karaage that's more like a karaage at the Zen Restaurant at Tokyo Ryokan, not my favourite Japanese place (but to admit which I feel guilty because the manager is a Nepali-speaking man from my neck of the woods). Out of a sense of loyalty to the Japanese establishments in Sri City, I ate ramen only once in New York. I am a good fanatic. One of the many charms of an association with a university that's just stepping into its sixth year is being part of creating something new. This, of course, involves hard work. My colleagues and I have been tasked with developing a Creative Writing minor. We just recruited poet Arundhathi Subramaniam and academic Kai Easton into the department. We are also in the process of getting someone to set up a Translation Studies programme. Literature at Krea has had quite a year. But not everything needs to be big or life-changing. There's also joy to be found in the smaller stuff. I, for example, am moving into a new office in a new building. For the most part, the Krea campus looks good. The trees that line the avenue that runs between the residential buildings provide a canopy that reduces the temperature by a few degrees. The stretch, besides being aesthetically pleasing, is so well shaded that my follically challenged self can abandon his hat around here even if the sun is beating down. The newer buildings — like the one that houses the library — are properly charming in their part-Bauhaus, part-international, part-WTH aesthetics. But the main building looks like it was transplanted from 1950s Vladivostok. On the third floor of this almost dichromatic structure, in a busy thoroughfare, was my office. The space was all right — it was a good size, and my classes were all close by — but it received no natural light. I was ready for a change. And nothing screamed change louder than the new light-and-air-filled academic building, christened — what else but — the New Academic Block. It is here, to Office Number 335, that I have just moved with the five books in my possession. The swivel chair is still sheathed in plastic. My new space has views of what I thought was the parking lot but will actually become a cricket field. It also looks out to a Mondelez factory, to spite which I shall give up sugar. 335 has a window that opens, unlike 333, which is massive but cursed with a window that doesn't open. There's a white board on which I have started making a list of column ideas. Below the desk is a cute steel trashcan with a green trash bag. I want to steal the trashcan for my kitchen. It is such a cheerful building, thrumming with life and colour and hope, as though students will metamorphose into Shakespeares and Picassos the minute they set foot here. The lounges belong in Riverdale. The chairs are the colour of M&Ms. There's even a rooftop terrace where I hope to jump-rope in between tutorials. Today marks a year of my having moved here, and seeing tangible positive changes on campus makes for a strangely satisfying experience. The culinary scene, too, has evolved while I was away. The Zen Restaurant at Tokyo Ryokan, which you will remember isn't even my favourite Japanese eatery, has added Korean cuisine to its repertoire. With that, it has hit the trifecta: Japanese, Indian and Korean. It is more vegetarian-friendly than my favourite Asagao, which means nothing to me but would matter to my family. The one time I convinced my parents to make a trip to South India, they stuck to Chennai. When asked if they would like to visit Sri City, they smiled. We understand silences and vapid smiles in the family, so I let the matter slide. I hope to host them soon on the outskirts of Sri City even if we need to negotiate the delicate situation with the two bathrooms whose shared wall only goes three-quarters of the way up. At least they can stuff their judgy faces with the Agedashi tofu, vegetarian fried rice and edamame at The Zen Restaurant at Tokyo Ryokan. 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.
The Hindu
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Author Prajwal Parajuly discovers the organised charm of Sri City
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 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.
