Change has left imprints on the sands of time in Chennai. Witness it on the sands of the Marina beach, where a good number of Chennaiites don expensive Nikes and Adidas gear for their fitness runs - a far cry from traditional Chennai simplicity.

Or drive down the long-winding Mount Road that gleams in the glare of glass-paneled high rises. Wander through the malls and multiplexes that are mushrooming in the city, now liberally dotted with dating couples.

Catch the sound of Hindi, Bengali, Telugu and other languages more often that you would expect. Take a look at the discotheques and bars that glitter at night…

At a casual glance, Chennai seems to have turned as cosmopolitan as Bangalore or Mumbai. Expensive cars, people clad in (oh!) Bermuda shorts… You begin to wonder, where have the dhotis gone?

And the pattu podavais? But hold on; there is a difference. Despite the legacy of the software boom and the onslaught of the yuppy culture, traditional Chennai lives on…

You see it Carnatic kutcheris that get staged all through the year, leave alone the famous December season, and the loads of techies who throng to catch the notes. You see it in the pigtails of the women here, who still love to plait their hair - though they now go to spas and swimming pools too.

Chennai is one city where nine-yard saris are still worn at weddings! Though of course, these women also whip out cell phones from handbags slung on their shoulders, which makes for an incongruous sight. That is Chennai for you. A curious tango of the old with the new.

With a history of over 1000 years, this port city has always been believed to be conservative as compared to the other big cities in the country. But today, it has taken a cosmopolitan turn, even while holding on to ties of tradition.

It is a unique city in a way. Which other city in the world can boast of miles and miles of beaches, historic temples and churches, a natural forest, backwaters, a couple of rivers, a gasping marshland and even an estuary, all within the city itself?

Chennai is a unique city, and now expanding fast, thanks to the real estate boon, which again has been fuelled in good measure by the software boom. The 2001 census put the population of the city at 42.26 lakh.

The booming real estate industry in the city is a talking point, and you often find people commenting on it as much as they do about the sunny weather here. With land value doubling every six months, locals can often be heard sharing real estate notes.

“When I bought this flat last year, it cost me only Rs1400 per sq foot. Thank god, I bought it then. The cost has now escalated to Rs 3500 per sq foot, which I wouldn’t have been able to afford now,” voices a happy K Sathyamoorthy, proud owner of a flat in Velachery, one of the many fast-growing suburbs in the city.

In fact, the city is now being eyed by many as an attractive place to stay in. “Chennai is one of the best Indian cities to live in. The nice thing about Chennai is that we still have space.

We still don’t get caught in many traffic jams,” says Deborah Thiagarajan, founder of Chennai’s Dakshina Chitra, a centre that is into conservation of traditional art and culture.

“There is lot of culture in the city, the culture of music and dance. I think the visual culture in Chennai is still growing. Chennai has the ability to become the cultural hub of the country,” says Deborah Thiagarajan.

A fact which is underlined by the numerous art festivals which have hit the city like Anita Ratnam’s ‘Other Festival’, which has brought into the city the music and dances of the far east and European countries.

The cosmopolitan swing that Chennai has taken no doubt has helped make these parallel festivals so successful.

Adds Anjali Sircar, art critic and historian, who has been watching the Chennai art scene down the decades, “Chennai has always been progressive as far as art is concerned; the only new development is that, now, there are more takers for what is termed modern and post modern art.”

A curious thing to have happened in the city is that almost all young people seem to be employed now, thanks to the BPO boom in the city, and it’s a never satiating demand for call centre executives.

The spill off has been that these youngsters now have spending money and have acquired the independence that comes along with earning money at younger and younger ages than ever before.

The good news is that the youngsters spend the money not only on malls and multiplexes, but also for social causes.

“Earlier our donors tended to be elderly. Now we find that young people too are willing to spend for social causes, especially for education,” voices Christopher Bhaskeran, program manager, Chennai, World Vision, an NGO that has been working in the city in the avenues of education, HIV issues and tsunami rehabilitation.

Chennai may be a conservative city on the surface. But thanks to the strong presence of, and the awareness raised by numerous networks that are working to help the HIV affected, more than in other cities, HIV positive persons in the city are opening up about their status. “This is a very good sign and reflects the changing attitudes in the city,” says Bhaskeran.

Though of course, the locals do not find all the changes so rosy. Such as the import of wacky bachelor lifestyles through young techies from all over the country who keep moving into the city. “I hope my daughter doesn’t get swayed by their attitudes,” voices S Sudha, worrying about her high school daughter.

But then, there are the mandatory music lessons and academic coaching classes that almost all school children here seem to be attending, which perhaps keep the youngsters in rein, giving them not much time to freak out.

Added to that is the joint family system that still survives in this city; the close knit family bonds have perhaps contributed to Chennaiites still holding on to tradition.

And luckily for its conservative locals, pub and disco culture exists only in three and five star hotels and has not really moved into the streets.

Voices K Ramakrishnan, a die-hard Chennaiite, “Today, people are moving into the city from different areas, bringing along with them different moral premises, which challenges complacent ideas and our basic ways of looking at things”.