Padam paakka polama??

Movie watching in Chennai has to be done in two theatres…either Sathyam or Inox. Cos these are the only two theatres where I get a 'hunk' (?) filled crowd to jollufy at. Somehow the rowdy-rangan or kudumba-paangu or pazham types only seem to be at the other theatres. Oh and we don’t get chai at the other theatres either…only a barely tolerable thanni kaapi.

So, there was this Hindi padam I zimbly had to see cos I really liked a song in it. So one sunny Saturday my friend Gauri and I decided to go for it. Actually I was surprised she agreed to come with me. She was (is) a normal girl, you see. Head screwed on right and tight. Quite unlike me. We managed to get tickets only in Melody. Warstu theatre!

Mid-afternoon and (not-so) surprisingly the theatre was quite empty. We were very early and me being ultimate user of time decided to go and make an ISD call to my boyfriend. I dragged a very reluctant Gauri with me to this absolutely stuffy, stinky and dirty telephone booth right next to some puncture ottifying kadai’s. While I coochi-cooed, the poor soul waited – varuthufying in the sun and sending me the occasional glare. Finally I was done! She wanted something cold to drink at a nearby “café” (read tea-kadai). I was game – as always :)

While paying the bill for the drinks I got a call from another friend. I was switching jobs and this guy was working with the company I was getting into. So deeeep in conversation I made my way into the theatre and suddenly I stopped and yelled

Me:“Where is my phone??!! Oh God!! I can’t find my phone!!”

She blinked.

G:  “Errr…aren’t you ON the phone??”

Me: “Ayyo aama-la?! Hehehe”

She frowned. One sidelong glance…that said “Is this girl wokay in head?”

Now why did I say that?? I wondered…heh! Stupid of me…

Movie started and HELLOOO…whatay fuzzy screen! Was it a 3D padam for which we forgot to pick up the kannadi’s?? I squinted. Tried to adjust my glasses and straighta poked my eye.

Me: “Where are my glasses?”

G: “Huh?”

Me: “My glasses!! I cant see the movie without it!”

G: “Oh god! Where are your glasses?? U left them at home??”

Me: “I dunno.”

G: “How can you NOT know??”

Me: “No wait…I drove the car no? I had them on then..else I can’t drive. I had them before sure-a.”

G: “Wait! I think you removed it in the PCO kadai cos it was really hot there..you probably left it there”

Me: “Ayyooo raama!!”

We ran all the way there and found my specs happily perched right next to the phone! Thank god nobody had suttufied them! Appa would’ve killed me had something like that happened. Whew! Rushed back, tripped over several feet in the dark, got roundly cursed by various film-buffs and stuffed ourselves back into the seats just as the song I liked got over…shucks!!!

Worse - it turned out to be a horror movie! The two of us got scared witless at the smallest things. Clutched each other, screwed eyes closed and yelled loudly in terror when a cat ran past our legs. Che! Waat ye mokkai place to watch a movie.

During the intermission we went to buy snacks and came back laden with popcorn, Bar-One’s, chips, corn puffs and Fefsi and after settling in my seat it struck me that I’d forgotten to collect change. Poor girl went back to the counter to pick it up. 

We happily chomped and watched and after much screaming, shuddering and shivering we survived the ordeal, declared the movie kevalam and made our way back to the car park.

Me: “Vohh gaaad! My keys are missing now!!”

She looked at me. Just simply looked at me.

Me: “Enge vechchen theriyaliye!! Did you see them any time?” 

G: “THIS…I can’t help you with”

Me: “I had them with me when we came out of the PCO shop no?”

G: “No I don’t know!!”

Me: “Where they there in the coffee shop?”

G: “You're asking me?? I DON’T know!”

Me: “Ok ok..lets hunt in the theatre first…”

She rolled her eyes and followed me. Paavam.

Big sandai with theatre watchman who refused to let us in. Gave him lanjam of 50 bucks and retraced our steps all the way back to our seats…eyes glued to the floor. No luck. Ran across to the tea kadai and while crossing road got cursed by an auto kaaran “Yeiii…Ootla sollikinu vandhiyaa??”. I was in too much of a hurry to yell back. Burst into the café…

Me: “Anna! We had coffee here sometime ago! Did you find any keys after we left?”

Him: “Ille thangachi (sister). Nothing”

Me: “Haiyyoo..anna! Please check. We’ve lost our car keys”

He made baavla of searching. Asked some co-workers about keys.Took order from corner table. Went off somewhere and then came back.

Him: “We found only someone’s house keys..and this is it!”

They were my car keys!!! Maruti Suzuki stamped right across it and so obviously he’d have thought they were house keys! Duh!! Opened my mouth to ask him how he could be so dumb...

Me: “Owwww!!”

Gauri stamped my foot.

“Rombo thanks anna!” she said

She grabbed keys and dragged me out, shoved me in the car…and that was that. 

Now, whenever I ask her out now she says "Unnodaya?? Naan vara maaten!"

Phone Potty-la Vizhuntha Kathai

 love phones! Consider myself very tech-savvy when it comes mobile phones (ONLY). I’m comfortable with most phones and usually keep nondifying till l I master all the features of a particular model. So I keep changing, exchanging, upgrading my phone every year or so.

Now, I’d joined this new velai in a pan naattu nirvanam (that’s MNC for non Tamil speaking public) and was basically vetti. Honeymoon period you know…first few weeks. It being an IT company, I was asked to just sit and read some boring material during my first two weeks. This on-line reading just doesn’t work and especially since we have access to almost ALL sites (except the very essential FB, Orkut, Filmi news sites and thiruttu MP3 download sites) the idea of learning something about some boring system and company rules plainly doesn’t hold any appeal. So like I said … nothing to do as such – and I had this amazing game called Sea Sweeper in my Nokia Supernova. Kalakkal game folks – absolutely addictive!!

Had a crick in my neck from staring at the PC - that day I was majorly scene pottufying like I was learning some dumb module (boss was sitting right behind). I decided it was high time I took a break and so phone in hand I went to the bathroom to play Sea Sweeper. Don’t ask me WHY I did it. Seemed like a sooper idea then! :(

Hmm…bathroom smelling nice for a change! Selvi-akka (our benevolent cleaning lady) smiled at me and went, heaving her buckets and mops and detergents and phenoyl. Quite happy that I didn’t need to spend ten minutes in a stinking restroom…I went into a stall and locked the door behind – and promptly sarikkified! Did an ungainly dance, grabbed the towel rack (and it came away in my hand haiyyoo) for balance and let go of the cell phone which was in my left hand….

Thungggg!! Absolutely horrific s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w motion – you know…like when the hero’s brother is falling off a cliff/rooftop in tamizh padam and hero is desperately trying to save him but fails??…Same thing! Aiiyyooooooo poochche!! My Supernova fell into the water closet with a splash and made galug galug galug sound. I just stared … now think of hero staring at empty space after brother has fallen with that horrified + sad + disbelieving expression.

Nextu problemu – how do I get it out?? Looked wildy around for some thodappam or mop – oh anything! But Selvi-akka’s done a good job!! Clean bathroom…nothing there…oh except the puddles of water that she hasn’t mopped! Wogayy…praying that I don’t pick up any disease I did the unthinkable…YES!! Plunged my hand in and retrieved the phone…! Yuck yuck yuck! Quickly grabbed toilet paper (and in contradiction to my earlier post – thank god for toilet paper!!) and wrapped phone and hurriedly scrubbed my hands clean with soap that smelled like…yeesh..what do they use here?? Dried hands ... and cautiously unwrapped the phone. The normally black screen glowed pachchai, vellai and then neelam…then it caught fever!! Absolutely boiling hot to touch.

Ran to boss – got permission to go to the Nokia store (he gave me a disgusted look) and caught an auto right outside my office. Paid him a 60 bucks to cover a distance of .5 km and rushed into the store. That guy at the service counter looked at me – looked at the phone – shook head sadly (like a doctor in same tamizh padam saying – ini ellam kadavul kayyil). I knew it! Phone oda kathe over! “Ellam short circuited madam. Onnum panna mudiyathu!”


Wept to appa over the phone (called from PCO booth) – and got a newly launched and very expensive phone the same evening (which I’m still paying for). Danku appa! Went home and buried my old phone and happily started getting familiar with the new one. Subham.

Puratchiyin Niram Pachchai...!!!

Leaders of the world are screaming themselves hoarse trying to get people to be more environment friendly and there are a few kutti things that we can actually do to help the world be just that little bit cleaner and greener. 

Was getting back home in my car today...and happened to be listening to FM radio. Not my first choice of entertainment you know - but well I need to listen to something on these long journeys crawling through traffic in Singaara Chennai. So anyway, there was a break in the program (they stopped Un Mele Aasai Thaan all of a sudden) and there came this advert for SAS Paper Vazha Elai (thats SAS Paper Plaintain Leaf). Duh! Whats the big idea of buying paper vazha elai?? Get paper plates and glue them together and you have the same thing! Eating out of plantain leaves is a wonderfully eco-friendly way of living that has been handed down to us Indians for generations....so lets NOT buy this paper contraption and DO lets try and eat from plantain leaves whenever we get the chance!

Likewise...WHAT is the deal with toilet paper?? We have a LEFT hand people..which we have been taught to use! To...umm....wash our backsides after we're done with...umm...using the toilet. And I personally think doing it the old way is much more hygienic than well using paper to wipe off the goo...

And why ONLY use tissues to wipe face, sneeze, blow nose, dry tears, wipe hands...? Fashion eh? There's a thing call the handkerchief. A little piece of square, rectangular or even circular cloth that occupies pretty much the same amount of space as a tissue does. Some of them have pretty prints too and hey you can embroider your name on it - and avoid the "hey is this your tissue or mine?" problem. Sneeze into you hanky people and make sure you go home n wash it...

Again in the kitchens we have reams and reams of special cleaning paper to wipe off the counter. Request to all womenfolk - an old sheet of newspaper or that valai thuni (net cloth) that we used in the old days do as good a job as the special paper...

Idea Cellular have actually come up with a decent ad - fairly good ideas for saving paper and thereby saving some trees. However, I'd have liked to see Abhishek's face better...he is konjam cute these days! I like their e-paper idea....we're all tech savvy people here aren't we? So why not use technology to save the planet?? Bravo Idea Cellular!

So starting today lets make a couple of changes...and maybe we'll all be around to appreciate the beauty of this world a bit longer...we'll have a truly Singaara Chennai and a Khoobsurat Bharath to boot...!!

Escapades of the wierd kind...

And I swear the below is the absolute truth and nothing but the truth.

So I live in Chennai….good old Madras..whose name was changed to Chennai cos it was someone’s dumb idea to do so! I did so love the name Madras and it’s still known as Madras in ayal-naadu..YAY!! :) As you may know (or not know) it’s the fifth most populous city in all of Mera Bharath Mahaan and therefore you can imagine the state of traffic – to put it bluntly – it’s TERRIBLE!! And this terrible traffic is managed by – who else? – the traffic police (CCTP). And its thanks to these guys – one nice uncle in particular – that I have my driver’s license intact today!

Picture this – 4 a.m. in the morning..and I’ve snuck out of my house on the pretext of being on (very) early shift at work that day (thank the lord for BPO’s). In truth I was on the way to pick up my boy-friend who’s arriving from another city (I won’t say which – that might give a clue to my true identity). A soooper day was planned starting with breakfast in Residency Towers (absolutely yummy cheese omelets), wake the rest of my friends, 10:30 show at Sathyam, late lunch at Basera on ECR…but then I drift from my subject. So off at 4:00 a.m. after one soodu cup of Bru Instant coffee. Empty roads all the way thru with the exception of a few lorries and the BPO taxi-vandi's. Ha!! Peaceful drive down Mount Road (first time ever!!). I know I have to take a left at the end of that oh-so-long-road that runs thru-out the city....the thing is, I’m never sure of which left leads to the station – I mean I’m not sure of it when its dark – can’t see properly you know – because its dark and NOT bcos I’m blind!!! So I switched on the indicator on my car and almost took the left and then figured out it wasn’t the correct one and just kept going straight…which was WHEN I felt this bump on the rear! Checked the mirror and there was this auto that was kavundhufied on the road….

Needless to stay stupid me pulled over beneath the bridge (Chennaiites will know which bridge I refer to) and ran along to check. This guy comes crawling out and is gasping “haiyoo...moochu vida mudiyale, naan sethukittu irukken (basically I’m dying types!)”. I freaked!!! Tried calling my friends (can’t call dad cos he’ll know then that Ivittufied abt early shift n all) and the morons were hungover and barely coherent! By the time I hung up (which was less than 2 minutes) I was surrounded by a bunch ofautokaaran’s – and sathyama theriyathu where they came from! Not another soul on the road too! And no prizes for guessing what they wanted -dhuddu. I said “In my car wait…” and ran off, got in, started ignition and took off towards the station. They chased me…for a second I thought I was in the middle of aTelengu padam and even pinched myself. But no...it was happening alright. The thugs caught up with me at the signal opposite the railway station and made me stop.

Nalla velai a very kind and benevolent policeman came up and said…”Enna prachane paa inge” and I said “Sir! Uncle!Intha auto came and banged me from behind and is demanding money”…everyone started shouting about how it was my fault – AND IT WASN’T – and our man told the autokaaran's who weren’t involved to bugger off. Yippeee!! Then he told me “These guys wont leave without taking money so give something and I’ll send them away” – shelled out Rs 200 (which was ALL I had) and thankfully went into Chennai Central – late by abt 10 mins - but eternally grateful to CCTP.

My boyfriend had already left.