Category: A10 — AMMULU STORIES AND OTHER FUN FOUNTAINS

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” Your hearing capacity is dwindling day by day and I’m tired of shouting.  Seek an appointment with our audiologist today and buy a pair of hearing aid.”
” Ammalu, Your mother has a long tongue and a short  farsight”
” That is how I landed here. Are you not going for the pensioners meet today?”
”You attend the wedding and pass on a small gift and plenty of my blessings to the couple. Pick up a five Rupee note from the god’s hundi, put in an colorful envelope and hand over without writing our name. I don’t want you to cheat the god by stealing his money. Drop a coin, not in circulation, before collecting the cash belonging to him.”
” I know from where to pick up the cash without any replacement. You have a dozen new clothes in the wardrobe. Discard this shirt which is almost of your age and dress up decently, at least when you go out”
”The King Dasarath had four sons and not three. You don’t have this basic information and want to talk on Ramayanam in your club meet !
”That Rakshasi, your ex-steno Asundari called twice last evening”
”Did she? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday itself. You are too possessive of me”
”I am more possessive of my money. No need to spend a fortune on hearing aids. Your ears are sharper than mine.”

Extra credits:
” The extra credit in my services to you today, will be carried forward tomorrow and I will  be as a free as bird tomorrow, Ammalu”
”Can you elaborate, please?”
” I collected the milk sachets from the bag hanging in the front door and kept in the fridge- that was my regular service”
“Agreed; extra service?”
“Removed two packets and emptied the contents in a vessel-that was my extra service”
”There are two more services to your credit- one, you  shut the fridge -door”
“True, how I forgot it to include in the list? OK, the next one?”
“Shuttling between the kitchen and bedroom to pacify the wailing kid, shuttling between the kitchen and washing area to instruct the servant maid, I found time to make hot coffee for you . You lifted the tumbler with great difficulty above your mouth, drank the coffee and handed over the empty tumbler to me for washing-that is the third serve you did for me this morning which also should be carried forwa

‘ All are ready and in place for the wedding. But where are the bride and bride groom?”
”They are yet to come from the beauty parlor”
” But, the auspicious time can’t wait? Any other couple ready?”
”Yes, Sir. we are.”
“Excellent. Where are your parents?”
”They are not here but that hardly matters.”
” The boy and girl have met before?”
”Yes Sir. Many times”
”That makes our task easy. Call vaadhyar”
”He is not here sir.”
”Where is he?”
”In the beauty parlor. Sir”

” Let us discus this issue here, now. Every one talks only about you in our colony. “Ammalu said this; Ammalu said that”.  Am I a nonentity here? Or is it that you say everything and I hear like a fool. Am I your husband or you mine?”
”What do you want me to do ? Go and tell every one that your are my husband ?”
” You come for a walk in the evening and walk behind me. Let the world now that I lead you and you follow me.”
”We seldom go out together and I never walk holding your hand. If you desire, I shall issue an ad. in the local paper declaring that you are my husband and heads this family”
” Don’t do that. A man’s market value goes down, once people know that he is married.Talk to your friend Ammini; she has some brain”
“Every one in this colony, except me, is brainy for you. That is OK. Now hear carefully. How does a neighbor help a stranger to locate our house? ‘The house where you will find a jasmine plant clinging to the front wall’. Right?    If he says that ‘ a house with a front wall’, he is  either your friend or friend of your friend Goplan Nair.
I am just a jasmine creeper clinging on you and you are the front wall. What else do you need?”
“Oh, now I have realized my importance. I am the front wall.”

” Your hearing capacity is dwindling day by day and I’m tired of shouting. Seek an appointment with our audiologist today and buy a pair of hearing aid.”
” Ammalu, Your mother has a long tongue and a short foresight”
” That is how I landed here. Are you not going for the pensioners meet today?”
”You attend the wedding and pass on a small gift and plenty of my blessings to the couple. Pick up a five Rupee note from the god’s hundi, put in an colorful envelope and hand over without writing our name. I don’t want you to cheat the god by stealing his money. Drop a coin, not in circulation, before collecting the cash belonging to him.”
” I know from where to pick up the cash without any replacement. You have a dozen new clothes in the wardrobe. Discard this shirt which is almost of your age and dress up decently, at least when you go out”
”The King Dasarath had four sons and not three. You don’t have this basic information and want to talk on Ramayanam in your club meet !
”That Rakshasi, your ex-steno Asundari called twice last evening”
”Did she? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday itself. You are too possessive of me”
”I am more possessive of my money. No need to spend a fortune on hearing aids. Your ears are sharper than mine.”

If your horse is tired of running, allow it to roll in the mud for a while. The horse is fit to run miles again.
If your elephant is tired of working, allow it get into a pond and have a complete self-shower, collecting water through its long nose and splashing all over its body. The jumbo is fit for hard work again.
If you are tired of your rat-racing in daily life, there are numerous ways to relax. Some are:
1. Spend a few minutes looking at the rising or setting son, blooming flower, splashing sea-waves, squirrels chasing one another and playing around a tree, the cow innocently gazing at you with her wide eyes, children playing in the hot sun, an old woman sitting on the veranda of her house and smiling alone thinking of her duals with her husband when he was alive and so on.
2. Close the doors, sit alone and sing a song you are familiar with or recite a mantra loudly, laugh loudly or simply sit musing on your childhood plays, pranks and friends.
3.watch the mood of your wife and if she is for a game, play Rummy, if she is familiar with that game or simply sit close to her, enjoying her fingers and palm. The best medicine is to carry her on your shoulder and walk inside the house, making sure that the doors are closed. Don’t worry about your children’s presence; they will enjoy the fun. I am sure that your madam will surely enjoy that act, but risk is for you if her weight is unbearable.
4.Kids are the best stress-relievers. carry one on your shoulder and circumambulate your house or garden. Laugh loudly and the child too will laugh. Run now and the child will enjoy it more and laugh louder. You too laugh and keep running till you are tired . the child will never get tired. Drop the kid on the floor buy a chocolate or ice cream and you too can enjoy it along with the kid ,forgetting for a moment your blood- sugar value.
There are several other ways open to us and tell me about them. I have tried all the above, except of course, one trick and you know what it is!

”Sit on my lap, if you don’t mind, Ammalu.”
“WHAT? Say again”
“I said that your face is glowing like the Brasso-polished brass lamp in our home-shrine”
“Was that exactly what you said ? Sharpen your memory and try to recollect, please.”
” Not that exactly. I suggested that it would be nice if you could sit on my lap. It was just a suggestion.”
“How many women have you seen, during your recent tour, sitting on their husbands’ lap?”
”Not on their husbands’ lap, exactly—”
”On others lap, right? And you were one among those men, Right?”
”EXACTLY. How did you guess it so accurately, Ammalu?”
“WHAT ? You allowed another woman to sit on your lap?”
”I didn’t allow. She forced her way towards me in a crowded train and occupied my lap.”
” I trust you now, as I do always. Tell me what happened exactly.”
” A three day strike paralyzed the Palakkad private bus services and I had to travel in an unreserved train compartment , from Kuttipuzha almost standing either on my feet or on others’, up to Ottappalam, where I managed to squeeze in a small gap, in between two well-built men, who, as I correctly guessed were going to Chennai for a cinema shooting. A jet-black complexioned middle aged woman, in no way lesser in weight than the cinema stars on my sides, extravagantly draped with colorful clothes, her mouth blood-reddish due to pan-chewing, boarded our compartment, followed by a puny man, with unshaven face and in untidy clothes and again, as I correctly guessed, her husband. The woman, spread her vision all around and it was not difficult for her sharp eyes to spot me struggling in between two jumbos.
‘Konjam  othikko Koundarae-move a bit please, Kounder”, She ordered.
” WHAT? Koundarae?” I yelled, wondering why she addressed me so and offered a clarification to remove her misunderstanding. ” I am not a kounder and there was not a single kounder in my paternal or maternal lineage.”
”She laughed so loud that even the boxers on my sides were shaken. Without waiting for another moment, the big woman majestically boarded my lap, sat comfortably, allowing her entire weight to rest on my legs and started singing, clapping her hands, for the merriment of her husband and the boxers on my sides, while I was crumpling under her weight.
“Pollatchi chanthayilae puliynakaai vikkapponana_My husband went to sell tamarind seeds in the Pollatchy market,
Enpurushan Muthatchykkoundanavan sethatcu- my husband Muthatchi kounden passed away.
Aavaiya vandhavan nee Aiyarentru sollathae- you are his ghost and don’t say that you are an Iyer.
Poyyaimattum sollathae, pozhailae thooki pottuduvaen-if you lie, I will thrown you into the river.”
The Bharatha puzha was silently running along us and I didn’t want to be thrown into it, by her mighty hands. I sat silently tolerating her weight on my legs without saying a word.
The heavenly Palakkad station, where I was to alight, came and I politely asked her to alight from my lap and allow me to disembark. She got up, held me by a hand, when the puny husband came closer to me and whispered into my ears, “Sami, paithiyamunka- she has a mental disorder and I am taking her to Coimbatore for treatment – Sorry for the inconvenience caused by my wife”
I told him, ‘parava illai koundarae- it is OK”, as if every day I encounter such problems.
‘Sami, en purushan kancham kirukkuinka- my husband is insane- I am taking him to Coimbatore for treatment.’  Saying so, she dropped me on  the platform and I walked down towards the exit gate without turning back.
‘Ammalu, this is what happened and you should sympathize for my ordeals”
”I do. But tell me, why did you, soon after returning from your trip, the moment you entered home, ask me to board your lap?”
“Oh, that was just to compare the thrust -impact.”
“I trust you and I am relaxed. I was worried whether I should take you to Coimbatore for treatment.”

“Madam, I am sure we have met somewhere. Ootty, Olavakkode, Orlando, Ottappalam?”
” No, I had never been to any of those places. My pet dog Drousy did visit all the four places on a pleasure trip.”
”You mean to say that I am an animal which can’t distinguish a woman from a dog?”
” Oh, now I remember. ‘My hubby too had been to those places once.”
” You mean to say that I am insane who can’t distinguish a man from a woman?”
“You are both. You promised to marry me but eloped with another girl”.
“I am extremely sorry. I crave your pardon for mistaking you for another woman. You are certainly not the one I had met in those places”.