At 387, city turns up the spirit at The Hindu’s Made of Chennai festival

Chennai does not so much celebrate its birthdays as it hums them into being, and that hum — equal parts spirit and stillness — defined The Hindu’s Made of Chennai festival this year. Held at the YMCA Grounds in Nandanam on Saturday, August 29, the food and music festival marked 387 years since Madras came into being, and did so the way the city knows best: through sound, spice, and sheer multi-plurality.

What began at 4 p.m. as a seemingly relaxed evening of DJ sets and food stalls lining the periphery of the ground soon transformed into something far more resonant, both for the enthusiastic crowd, whose energy reverberated with every beat, and for the musical artistes who performed, among them Paal Dabba, Anthony Daasan, joined by his wife Rita, and the pop-rock band Makka. The show-stopper of the evening, however, was Chinmayi, her eclectic and cross-lingual performance carrying an added charge of homecoming for the crowd.

While the Carnatic and retro-rock strains of band Vihara, along with the echoes of Ilaiyaraaja and Rahman’s timeless compositions, charmed many in attendance, it was ultimately the tapestry of the evening as a whole, its people and its unhurried mannerpresentness, that emerged as the true highlight.

The festival’s game zone brought back long-forgotten games such as pallanguzhi and nondi (hopscotch) alongside snakes and ladders, bowling, ludo, tic-tac-toe, and jenga. The intent behind this was unmistakable: to draw the crowd out of their virtual worlds and back into the reality around them.

For a group of people in their 20s and 30s-somethings from the crowd, a part of the city’s ultimate frisbee club, dancing at Made of Chennai has become something of a yearly tradition — a day that draws the group away from their busy schedules to come together in reverberation and reminiscence.

The food stalls, meanwhile, offered a mix of the familiar and the new — Chennai classics such as Murugan Idli and Tibb’s Frankie alongside newer favourites such as Ciclo, Oye Hoye, Bien Butter, Ricky’s Cookies, and Kulfiwallah. The festival also featured a varied showcase of Iftar fare, with Habibi’s Iftar snacks, Mannady’s Nombu Kanji, and offerings from Al Noor Café rounding out the spread.

By the time the last set faded, Chennai had once again proven that its truest festival is simply the sound of itself, undiminished, at 387 and counting.