A sultry monsoon evening draped Chennai in its usual honeyed haze. Neon signs flickered like impatient fireflies along the Marina Road; jasmine and auto-exhaust braided in the warm air. From the station platform a train emerged like a promise — chrome ribs catching the orange of sodium lamps, windows glowing with small, private worlds. This was the Chennai Express: a ribbon of motion that stitched the city to its hinterlands, to temples that hummed with evening bells and to fishing villages where boats returned slick with silver.