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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

75. Mahila Samiti Inc.

There has to be some supernatural force acting behind the spam ads I get on my mobile. I am positively certain of it.
Else, why on earth have I been getting ads like the one below for three days now.

"Mega Offer on weight reducing sauna slim belt 999/- only. Direct from company. Reduce upto 10 kgs weight in 45 days. Cal 9360******".

Alright, I get your message. 


In other news, the past week(actually, the week I started writing this post) saw yours truly busily visiting places where a motley crowd of chitthis, perimas, maamis, paattis* and other board members of Mahila Samiti Inc. had assembled in order to look at colorful toys placed on an 'odd' number of shelves, and generally discuss vaira mookuthi and moonu poun necklace**.


Yours truly obviously looked like a complete idiot asking what poun meant, and whether it was poun or pavun or pound, as these were the different phonetic sounds that were produced on usage of the word and understandably, invited wrath and scorn upon herself, what with maamis exclaiming "Kalyana vayasu aachu… poun/pavun/pound na teriyaadha di?"***. Sigh. This insultisation was an expected outcome of yours truly's naivete on such important issues. What happened next was not. "Kozhandhai… oru paattu paaden"****. Cringe. Looked around for help but got only sympathy and eagerly-waiting-to-pounce eyes. Did a quick brute-force-cum-permutation-combination-jumble. What were my options, if any at all? Sore throat? My dog died? Pass the baton to someone else? Much to my disgrace, I realised MS Inc. had been solemnly staring and pining to listen to my crow-like voice all this while. Too late to try any of the above options, I offered a little prayer to the Gods to somehow miraculously make me some classic Indian Idol type singer, just for those 8-10 odd uncomfortable moments. Please, please, God. Blurred images of my mother disowning me after this stint paraded the projector screen of my mind. Decision time. I switched on the electronic tanpura…. Gonnnggggggggg. Started singing standard krithi in Kamala Manohari with standard thappu thaalam*****. Sounds of 'tch tch' reverberated across the room. I would like to believe it was MS Inc.'s involvement into my melodious crooning. Please don't wake me up from my reverie.

Ok, that apart, Chennai has this strange form of untouchability rampant in buses. This morning, I surprisingly got into this bus that wasn't crowded, going by my track record of standing in the bus throughout my way to office. Anyway, that's that. So what happened is that this bus was pretty free, so to speak. Ladies 'partition' of the bus was house full, though there were a couple of vacant seats on the gents side of the bus. But guess what? 3-4 ladies chose to stand instead of going and occupying the empty seats on the gents side, more so if a man was already sitting in one of the two seats. Ok, suit yourself, I thought. I coolly went and hopped into one of those seats. Holy Mayawati! If only looks could kill, I would have been turned into ashes. The entire assemblage of ladies on the now-other side of the bus had started giving me looks like I was travelling the whole of Tamilnadu in a bus wearing a bikini. Ok, yeah, go get up, pick drums and go about the city announcing my persecution.

*  small aunty, big aunty, aunty of aunty, grandmas
** diamond nose ring and 3 poun/pavun/pound(still just as confused) necklace
*** You have attained a marriageable age... Do you not understand even this much?
**** Child, sing a song for us
***** A mismatch between the tune and the beat

17 comments:

  1. Ha ha ha ha .....
    And I fully agree with you regarding this unnecessary UNTOUCHABILITY notion that people carry in their heads .... For God's sake, can't a person occupy an empty seat also ????

    by the way, I just happen to select the email button in hurry ... I have no problems at all in commenting ... :-):-)

    You're just being modest by not accepting the fact that your written English is fantastic ....

    Kalyana vaisu aana, yellan terinju vechukanumaa? What kind of an expectation is this? hahahahahahahahaha .... Poor us, is duniya-daari se hi fursat nahi milti, apna IQ kahan se badhaenge bhala?

    :-):-):-):-)

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  2. Seriously, mujhe laga mujhe kha jaegi :P

    Thanks for the generous compliments... made my day for sure :)

    Abe tu tamil mat bol be.... its super duper funny :P On that note, if you get to know whether its poun/pavun/whatever, please inform me first :D

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  3. Its actually PAWN, which is equivalent to 8 grams .....
    Now try n pronounce this word in Tamil, it'll sound the same as poun/pavun/whatever you heard the other at the Mahila Samiti .....

    Ha ha ha ha ah

    :-):-):-):-)

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  4. Aisaaa!

    To add credibility :

    http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_is_1_pawn_of_gold_in_grams

    :P :P :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. nice reading ... because you are tamil and your use hindi regularly ,.. i cant help but compare it with myself .. :) ..
    and yeah you cant do anything about the untouchablity thing u mentioned :P .. .
    after living almost 6 years here in chennai ..i am now used to it ..

    a couple of years back i was travelling by the same govt bus :) there were no seats except one in the ladies section where only one lady had occupied the seat ..and there were no other ladies so i just went and sat there .. everyone was shocked. .after sometime conductor came and politely told me that this is ladies sead . i argued saying that there were no ladies standing right now and would be get up as soon as one comes but all in vain ..
    i had to get up.. now i am used to it. .although dont use bus these days :) ...

    and yeah. sorry for such a loong comment :P .. thanks for dropping by my blog too .. keep visiting ..

    ReplyDelete
  6. sorry for typos.. I just read that comment .. too many mistakes. . :P .. please ignore :)

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  7. Arvind,

    I could almost visualise the whole scenario :) But ofc, in some sense of gender, I think it is still justified, for want of a better word, for a guy being asked to wake up from the ladies seating side. On the contrary, I myself went and sat there, being a lady and was "looked down upon" :P Thanks for visiting.

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. Hee Hee Hee. But a lass from Mayawati-land, though a Tamilian, can be excused for not knowing the Lowest Common Denominator of the Maami-crowd in Chennai. You are now marked for observation and one more goof-up and you'll be idolized like a Mayawati statue. You better track the bullion market and the current pulse of T-Nagar before meeting the MS again. :-) :-)

    Hey, paatellaam paaduviyaa? ;-)

    That bus untouchability is there from a long time I think. Good that you are still using public transit. I don't even recollect when I was last on a bus, maybe an year back, I think. :-( Having tasted flexibility, I remain insulated from public transit. Hopefully the Bangalore Metro turns me back to get some carbon credits.

    ReplyDelete
  10. :)) :)) :))


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    ReplyDelete
  11. @Ram,

    Doomed. Totally :D

    Paatu'aa? Yedho paaduven. Ipdi ellam thappu thappaa public'la kelvi kekka koodhadhu :D

    I have no choice but to use public transit. Periya aalunga neenga.. Bus la yenga poga poreenga. Neengale bus use pannitteenga na naanga maatu vandi la poga vendidhaan :P

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  12. [Paatu'aa? Yedho paaduven.] Next question. Ungalukku dancing theriyuma? :-D :-D

    [Neengale bus use pannitteenga na naanga maatu vandi la poga vendidhaan] Cha Cha. enna ippdi sollitta! :-( Naan irukkura area-la bus vasadhi konjum kammi. :-) kaali busngaradhu varushaththula oru 4 or 5 naal thaan. :-(

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  13. Umm, we'll take this offline :P Yes, for the records. That way, most TBs do, so nothing to my credit :D

    Oh, so the locality and crowd are the reasons, ahem, I digress. :)

    Happy Diwali to you and Senora, Ram :)

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  14. Thanks. Hope you had a wonderful Deepavali as well. :-) Deepavali being a 3 day affair, 2 days have gone by. :)

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  15. oho!! i dont think thats the case everywr... in my route, ladies occupy whichever available seat.. they will sit in Driver's seat too, if they knew how to drive :D

    Mount road morning rush is something to enjoy..

    P.S - yes, i did enjoy an empty bus today morn.. one pleasure of working on a weekend :P

    ReplyDelete

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