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As panic forced thousands of people from Northeastern states to flee Bangalore, their friends here have been sending a spate of text messages for the last 24 hours. “Dnt go hme..Dnt be afraid..Chennai is peace place with gud wrk..Cum here and (we will) help u,” reads one that Johnson Joseph, a marketing executive in a bank, sent to his Mizo friends in the garden city.

With a traditionally high number of students and a growing workforce in restaurants, hotels, shops, malls and theatres, almost all of Chennai’s Northeast populace that we met, are at peace. “It is sad...the kind of violence we are seeing across the country,” said Johnson. “We are thankful that nothing of that sort has happened in Chennai, ever.”

Though the plight of their fellow men from Meghalaya has upset brothers Jerry and Andrew Lyndem, they are happy that their cousins have taken up their offer. “We asked our cousin Kim, studying in a college in Bangalore, to come here for a month. Our family is confident that she will be safe here,” said Andrew.