Dec 18, 2007

People 9 : Rain and the Junction

Relentless downpour. A major junction. Clogging slurry of (auto) motives.
Rain lashes from the sides of the Auto rickshaw.
Everyone wants to reach there as soon as possible. Wherever their ‘there’ might be.

Chilly winds bite the bone. Radios tune in to the myriad frequencies. Some invisible DJ conjures a concoction of FM waves.
Rap interludes from the auto-drivers, fluent in their curses.


“Poi Tholailangalenda, evlo neram than manushan ingaye ninnu saavarthu” (Why cant you fellows get going, how long can a man die waiting here…)

An assorted spread of choice Chennai swear words follows.*

“Intha car kaara naainga nalla ulla okanthutu nagara matenranunga. Oru aathra avasaram na ingaye Samadhi aaga vendiyathuthan…” ( These dogs , sitting inside the car , high and dry, don’t move … Even if a man is in an emergency, he might as well dig his grave here..)**

“Yov, Poi tholayenya..” , (Hey, get going), directed at the fish-cart (tricycle) in front.

Dripping wet, he was religiously wrenching his torn lungi dry. A snugly fitting polythene carry bag formed his head gear. The boy ‘manning’ the fish-cart replied, “Iru pa, konja nerathula clear agidum” (Wait, It will get cleared in a while).


And the RJ babbled, “Mazhai na excite agathavangale iruka mudiyathunga…..” ( There can’t be anyone who is not excited by the rain… )






*: With all due respects to the passenger ‘madam’, of course.
**: Was born again, each time a ‘car-kaara’ dog tried to overtake the auto.

5 comments:

EnGeetham aka "My Song!" said...

Chennai Mazhai'ya ? I'm here in Chennai and I can see why this could happen. Was stuck in a heavy downpour in Chennai few years ago. In a taxi, who got "cut-across" by an auto-guy, who slightly grazed the taxi... The taxi guy shouted at him - "Enyaa, arivu irrukka ?". The auto guy calmly responded - "Arivirundha, naan yaen auto Ottaraen"... Everyone around started laughing, including the taxi driver. Conversely, I thought the auto guy was the most arivali there... ! :)

Aravindh Krishnamoorthy said...

The world around us is just as we see it.

Brood Mode said...

brings back fond memories of Madras! A common friend says we have somewhat similar writing styles, will have to come back for more to ascertain (or not) the claim :-)

Brood Mode said...

We definitely have somewhat similar profile pictures :D

Anonymous said...

hey...Someone I know (an acquaintance of sorts but still a friend, if you catch my drift) has been posting your posts on his face-book profile... and taking all the credit... thought I'd drop in a line at him and tell him politely that the stuff he wrote was written by my "friend" (you) and that he ought to take it down... do i have your permission to do so? or would u like to contact him yourself??

I don't want him to hold any grudges against me so thought I'd do it this way. And that's sort of why I am posting a comment here as an anonymous user.

Plus I think he reads your blog regularly for obvious reasons. Lol.