While Madras went to bed early, Chennai stays up

Decades ago, Madras was a city that believed about 9 p.m. was bedtime. After sunset, shutters came down, streets emptied, and roads fell into almost complete silence, with barely a vehicle in sight.

Chennai’s two prominent railway stations, Central and Egmore, were among the few places that remained active at night largely because of the steady flow of passengers.

The city began changing in the 1980s, when pubs slowly emerged, followed by the Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) boom and a growing night-shift workforce in the late 90s. Slowly, the night became an economy of its own, acquiring the character of sleepless cities across the world. Tea shops stayed open, eateries followed tech corridors, and businesses discovered a new customer as work hours changed — the night owl. The Madras that once went to bed early, forgot how to sleep after it became Chennai.