Author: shivam

‘Ammalu, a confidential news just received. I’m passing on to you for the only reason that you’re my wife’

‘Is it about the conspiracy of my club mates to dethrone me by a secret vote?’

‘Yes, yes. But, how did you come to know about it?’

‘From my own confidential source. I have another confidential news which I’m sharing only for the reason that you’re my husband. You’re already selected by a secret vote to occupy the chair vacated by me’

‘That is nonsense’

‘Why, you seems to know more about a women’s group for which I’m the head . I have only one secret source and you have perhaps many. Aren’t you therefore, the ideal person to preside that group?’

‘Ammalu, I refuse to be the head of a women’s group’

‘Ok. Then don’t peep through the widows and door -gaps into our affairs’

A friend commented, affectionately :

“Ahhh
Thedi thedi kidaicha friend Sir neenga.
Please bless us”

Meaning. “I searched and searched and got you as my friend. Sir, pl. bless us)

I replied:

Thedinaen, thedinaen, theruvellam
Mamiyar kidaiikavillai.
Azuthen. Pulampinaen.

Mattini show mudinchu
Marumakalae entrazhachu
VandAlae maharaasi
Vayatherichal kottikka!

தேடினேன் தேடினேன் தெருவெல்லாம்
மாமியார் கிடைக்கவில்லை
அழுதேன் புலம்பினேன்

மாற்றினி ஷோ முடிஞ்சு
மருமகளே என்றழைத்து
வந்தாலே மகராசி
வயித்தெரிச்சல் கொட்டிக்க

It is impossible to bring in, the essence, in translation. However, a rough meaning:

Searched and searched
For my mother in law, everywhere.
No success.
I wept and wept.

There she comes, the great lady
After watching the matinee show,
Addressing me affectionately
‘My DIL,’

My heart ❤️ burns!

Too many messages I receive which I respond with a ‘thank you’ sticker to save time in writing a detailed note. However, only in one case, I responded, ‘enakkum onnai romba pidikkum, romba, romba’- ( means, ‘I too like you very much, very, very much’), in response to a 9 years-old girl, who messaged, ‘thatha, enakku onkalai, romba pidikkum’ (means, ‘grandpa, I like you very much’)

Kashtakakam, Kalyani! by oversight or lesser sight, I clicked wrongly another friend’s name and she happened to be an young lady in the sliding side of seventy. Thachu Panikkar had written about an year ago, ‘Swamy, Ippo Kandaka Sani aanu. Sookshichillenkil …..’ means, ‘it is, astrologically, a bad time for you and if you don’t  take care——‘ 

This happened at the wee hours, when I had woke up to ease my bladder and the ‘almarattam’ (meaning change of persons) occurred, before I did empty my bladder. And there, on the opposite side too, the situation was similar, but the message was received when my FB friend was free from the BP ( means bladder pressure) and had returned to her bed. Her hubby, who was sharing her bed, as it happens sometime in the case of couple in their 70s or 80s, had not cleared his bladder then but happened to read my message when he peeped into the privacy of his honey’s FB page. 

He flared up, fumed and wrote a reply message:’you like my honey much, very, very much?’

By that time my BP ( means bladder pressure)  had again gone up and therefore I  missed observing that the message was not from an innocent child but a from hubby, age immaterial, as hubbies are hubbies and they don’t like their puppies being liked by others.

Damage was done, irrespective of the cause, KS means Kandaka Sani or BP means bladder pressure. 

Going to bed again.

“Wait for a while please, before you go to bed again.

Who is Kalyani?”

“Where is she?”

“In your ‘kashtakakam’’

“Oh, she is my nalla kalam means good time”

‘Ammalu, when a dog or a cat accidentally rub its body on our gate, I get scared, fearing that it is your mom’

‘My Mother is now inside our kitchen. She came in when you went out. She will stay here for another week. So, stay scare-free’

‘Ammalu, have the basic knowledge that dog is none other than the divine Bhairavar. 

Cat? Mahaganapathi’s Mount, another divine manifestation’

‘Mahaganapathi’s mount is a mouse and not cat’

‘That was before your mom was born. She swallowed the mouse and took over its place’

‘Could be. I’m no one to contradict your knowledge in Puranas. Anyway, look ahead.  The cat is coming out of kitchen with a hot cup of coffee for you’

‘Calling your mom a cat? She is a lioness! Durga Devi ‘s divine mount ‘

‘I see in her hand a bowl with onion pakora for you’

‘Ammalu, your mom is Durga Devi and not her mount. Fall at her feet’

‘Ammalu, my house has been turned into a monda ( vegetable) market by our friends who come and go, as they like. Tell our friends not to come, now on’

‘You tell your friends; I will tell mine’

‘Your friends are ok. Don’t stop them’

‘Why? Are they cattle to feed on your discarded vegetables?’

Unmarried, married, or even as widower, man remain a simple ‘Mr’. 

But, woman? 

In an annual address at our college, as a student leader, I thanked a girl profusely for her support in the management of the Students Association. (Let me call her Paru, as I don’t want to disclose her name. Who knows her daughter in law is not here as my friend! ) 

I did not know then the difference between ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ and instead of mentioning her name with no prefix, I added Smt. equivalent to ‘Mrs’ with the honest intention of pleasing a good looking girl wearing mostly my favorite blue color pavada. Soon after I mentioned her name as Smt.Paru, there was a commotion among girls and teachers and I could even here whistling from a corner, which I took as endorsement for praising a honest girl. I did not expect a kiss or even a hug from her, as those civilized ways of acknowledging appreciation were unknown to girls those days, but at least a smile from her soft lips was expected. 

The moment I got down from the stage, friends told me that she had rushed home,  weeping all the way to complain to her father that I had declared her as a married woman, addressing thousands students and many teachers for that crime, I could expect a gunshot  from her father, who was a Police Officer. 

‘Avan ninnae kAtchum illenkil kampi ennikkum’, threatened my friend, Hamsa. That was equal to saying, ‘he will either shoot you or put behind the bars’.  His usage ‘KAtchum‘ supplemented by his body language was like pouring pulikAtchal into both eyes. PulikAtchal is a liquid side dish,  made out of tamarind, salt and green chillies.

I was about to wet my dothi out of fear when something unexpected happened. 

Another classmate, let me call her Kalyani, walked towards me, with a six inches long smile spread from corner to corner of her lips and said,

‘Sivan, nannayi. Rembha enna Paruvintae vicharam’. Roughly translated, ‘Paru has a feeling that she is Rambha, the beauty queen of Heaven. You did a good job (in insulting her ). Kind Kalyani added, ‘50 % of girls are with you. Onnum pedikkanta. You don’t worry at all’

‘What about the remaining 50%?’, I enquired.

‘They are waiting at the Mannath Krishnan Nair Gate to receive you with ‘poorna kumbham’. 

That gate is the main entrance to get in and get out of our college and Poornakumbham is the auspicious way of receiving VIPs!

What valuable lessons a poor teenager would not have learned from the threat of a police officer with a gun in his hand on one side and 50% of the girls of a College waiting at the gate with poornakumbham to smash him, on the other side?

Another experience:

The famous mathematician Shakunthaladevi, known as human computer, after addressing the students in our college, instructed the waiting  reporter from a vernacular that the prefix to her name should appear in the paper, not as ‘Miss’ or ‘Mrs’ but as ‘Ms’ . Frankly, I didn’t know then what it meant. Out of utter innocence and anxiety to improve my knowledge, I asked the guest, ‘madam, is this a new mathematical formula?’

She didn’t threaten to shoot me or put behind the bars. She just stared at me contemptuously. But that stare left so deep an impression in my mind that later, when my father started looking girls for me for marriage, I asked him to verify first whether the girl was Miss, Mrs or just Ms.

My father, a practical businessman didn’t have to time for research.

‘Ponnu, ponna irukkanum. Girl should be a girl. That will be my only interest.