Our Third Empire!

Off late Google [read Third Empire] is playing a very vital role in decision making session of my family members. For example, last week all of us, including my Gundu mama and Yo Uncle (If you are wondering who are they, then please read this. And ya, please don’t forget to comment! :D) were watching TV. Nothing great was on TV so I simply switched to a random music channel. A song started playing (unfortunately I don’t remember which one!)  And suddenly my dad made a statement!

Dad : Hmmm.. It’s been really long since I listened to Hariharan song. Such a nice rendition by him.

My mom gave him such a horrified look as if he told her that an alien from Pluto came to earth and gobbled up Hariharan as a revenge for removing its name from Planets list.

Mom : Oh please! Don’t insult Hariharan by telling that he sang this song and all (She is a major Hariharan fan)

Dad : Oh is it?! Then tell me who sang it?! It is Hariharan.

Mom : No, its not!

Dad : Ok then tell me who is it!

Mom : Wait I will tell you! I don’t remember this guy name now. He is that tall lanky looking guy!

Gundu mama : Its that guy! Shankar Mahadevan!

“Yo” Uncle : Eh Gundu! Its not Shankar Mahadevan!

Gundu Mama : Then who else!

Mom : Ayio.. I can’t remember his name.

She turned to me and asked me to help! Since I had no clue, I just rattled off my in depth knowledge on Tamil Industry singers.

Me : Karthik?

Mom : No!

Me : Unnikrishnan?!

Mom : No No!!

Me : SPB?!

Mom (Also a great fan of SPB) gave me such a threatening look as if she is going to push me down from the LIC building!

Me : Eh.. sorry.. came out in a flow! Naresh Iyer?!

Mom : No!!!

Me : Douglas Kennedy?!

Mom : Eh.. who is that?!

Me : He is a writer! I was just testing if you are really listening to me or not!

Mom : Hmph.. Ya! Krish! That’s it! Krish is the singer!

Dad and Gundu mama : NO!

Yo uncle looked at me – Uh huh! Fight is boring! Come we will go check out Third empire.

Thus we ended up in the front of comp and it turned out that some Belly Raj has sung the song. So the fight came to an end with everyone getting disappointed and myself and Yo uncle having a nice laugh!

Next day some other issue came up. This time it was the population of Chennai.

Dad : Would be around 3 to 4 crores.

Gundu mama : Cha cha.. Would be in lakhs!

Dad (with again a horrified look) Are you mad?! Ever visited T nagar during Weekends?! You cant even come out alive from that place, esp if it’s a festive season! And you are saying that Chennai population would be in Lakhs!?

Mom : 8 crores!

Dad and Gundu mama looked at each other and started laughing!

Yo uncle, who was happily sitting on sofa with a book turned to me and said: Comp is on! Go consult the third empire!

I googled and found out that its 4.34 Million. The reactions?! Don’t even ask about it!!!

The story behind my "Yo" Uncle's sheepish smiles!

Recently two uncles of mine, has come down to spend some time with us. I am pretty fond of both of them. One of them is lovingly known as Gundu mama (Gundu means fat in Tamil!) Everyone calls him like that only. In fact, majority of our common friends don’t know his real name at all. And the second one has landed straight down from Dubai. Nowadays he is trying to differentiate between Kozhambu (Kudumbu in his words) and Sambhar and also between Podi (chilli gunpowder) and Maavu (batter used for making Idly and Dosai). Thus, you can see his expert knowledge in Tamil. But he is one super cool person! So let’s call him the “Yo” uncle! (I do hope they don’t read this post in near future!)

Yesterday scene is something which is worth mentioning here. My mom generally makes the batter at home itself (In other words, Maavu archify with the help of the grinder). As in we don’t buy it from outside. She always does that in the evening but then, she remembered that she had to go to market to pick up few stuff!

My mom : Ok I have to go to market.

Yo uncle : (Since he knew that she had to carry out the maavu archifying process, he offered to help!) Oh ok akka, you carry on. I will put the podi in the grinder and finish your work.

[Sensing that some hilarious moments are about to follow, Yours sincerely and Gundu mama positioned ourselves on the sofa so that we don't miss out anything!]

My mom : ?!?!?! why do you need to put podi in the grinder?

Yo uncle: Why? Are you planning to buy podi from outside to make the Dosai?

My mom : AYIO! Podi is different. We use Maavu to make Dosai’s!

Yo uncle: “55 watt bulb sheepish smile” (In order to cover up the situation) ok then I will make Kudumbu!

Me : Is it a goan dish?! (He is from goa!)

Yo uncle: Eh? No, your mom only made it yesterday!

My mom : No I didn’t! I don’t even know how to make such a dish!

Yo uncle: But you made it yesterday for dinner!

My mom : What did I make for yesterday dinner?

My dad : Same old Sambhar! What else!

Laughter erupts which gets silenced by Mother dear’s chilly stare directed to dad!

My mom to Yo uncle: That was Sambhar!!

Yo uncle: “75 watt bulb sheepish smile”

Gundu Mama: What’s the connection between Kudumbu and Sambhar?! I mean, how can one get confused with 2 different words!

Yo uncle : Actually I thought Sāmbhar was the one which you made for today’s lunch!

My mom : Now what did I make for lunch?

My dad : You showed some mercy and made Kozhambu for a change!

Another laughing session which was again silenced by Mother dear’s threatening advances, following which my dad disappeared from the scene!

Mom : That’s Kozhambu !! Not Kudumbu!!

Yo uncle : “100 watt bulb sheepish smile!”

This announcement has been pending for a very long time! Parzi has awarded me Freakin Fabulous award.

Though I feel that I am not eligible to receive this award (as you can see from the amount of cobwebs my blog has gathered from past few weeks!) Please do visit her blog ! She is a total sweetheart with a nice blog!

End of one era!

Time: 12.30pm!

Venue: College OAT

Scenario : Random conversation ranging from few department’s sense to NCC talks to council talks to cousin’s talks to friend’s talks to latest news on IPL Over paratha panner, Manchurian rice, Sambhar rice, idli , fried rice channa and one lime tea !!

V : hmmm.. eppa enna panalam? Enga polam? (For those souls who don understand Tamil, its now what do we do? Where should we go?)

N : Anyplace is fine “Yawn”

“Excuse boss you have a msg!” A checks her mobile

L : Hey will go for ayan huh?

M : Yeah! “with a big 100 watt bulb smile on her face” (she is a big fan of surya!!) But I have to withdraw money.

V and N : Inward “Groan”

“Excuse boss you have a msg!” A checks her mobile

Me : “Yawn” Guys dabbu ledhu.. ! Didn’t know that you will plan to go out. We will go some other day

“Excuse boss you have a msg!” A checks her mobile

L : Ya.. even I am bankrupt.. What about Beach?

Me : I don’t have any prob!!!! (I am a big fan of nature you see :P)

N : It will be too hot!

“Excuse boss you have a msg!” A checks her mobile

V : Ya!

M : “Yawn”

Me notice a big smile on A's face!

Me asks her : What?

A: No more current affairs paper in our life!!! “With another BIG grin”

M: Yaaaa!!!! Then she gives another 100 watt bulb smile and claps her hands and starts jumping up and down!

V, L and N watch M do all this circus tactics for 2 mins and burst out laughing.

M sees them laughing and laughs along!!

Me and A look at each other and shake our heads! A gets another msg and again she checks her mobile. After 2 mins again V repeats the first dialogue, Hey where shall we go?

Me and N : “Yawn”

N : You know what? Let us all go home and sleep!!! I am sleeeeepy !!

Me : Ya ppl! Even I am sleepy. Myself and N started studying at 12 only yesterday night and I slept at 3.

“Excuse boss you have a msg!” A checks her mobile

N : I slept at 5. 30. We will go out some other day.

M : Ok ok ok!!

Conversation ends!

Bottomline : The conversation may be a waste of time but still I will miss it!! College life is coming to an end and there will be no more V’s comments on dress sense of few departments, N’s attitude and sarcasm loaded replies, L’s endless bitching about “You know who” and A’s endless talks on NCC and M’s circus tactics.. !

Yes Anusha I will miss your mokkai also... And I will miss all my other classmates also!! But I don’t want to get all emotional and nostalgic and write one big post about it...! Though these three years in this college were utter waste but I gained lottsa experience in many things (I don’t want to talk about it here cos my dad will bash me!!) (Includes good things also so pls dont get upset dad :P) and got lots of good friends and am happy for that :)

You hav got mail. And its nly spam!

When I was in Delhi, I used to write letters frequently to one of my brothers in Chennai. I have saved up all the letters which I got, right from when I was in class 6th to 10th !! We used to write regularly to each other, discussing all sorts of nonsense! My mom used to joke that I used to write ramayana and he used to write mahabharat. All our letters used to be so long! But ever since I came to Chennai, no one writes letter to me :( I still tell my brother that I miss receiving letters. And he jokes that I can still write him letters but should not expect any replies in return. After coming here, the only letter I got was from my close friend, who is still in touch with me. That letter was 9 pages long!!!! Ya, I did get one more letter from another of my close friend. But her hand writing would be just like a doctors handwriting. In fact, sometimes she wont be able to recognise her own writing.

Her writing would be somewhat near to the below one. Or wait.. I think even worse..

Ok fine whatever! The point is I still have not read the letter since I don't have that much talent to understand it. But I miss her. She is an absolute gem!!

The tradition of taking up a white sheet (it could be even coloured!! not a big deal), a pen and pondering over what all to write and penning it down has gone!!!

Nowadays no one has any time to even e-mail!! Though everyone have an e-mail to their name. Everytime I open my mail box, I am greeted by junk mails, idiotic forwards and spam mails! My another friend in Delhi has one good reason for not writing a letter! She states that there is not even a single postbox near her locality and she has to pester her dad or brother to post it, who eventually forget about the letter once they put in the pocket. Once I got her diwali wishes at the time of Christmas!! So you can imagine the scene. Eventually I never believed her excuse untill I got that particular letter. So nowadays I save her the trouble of writing and posting the letters by simply making one STD call. Our generation finds it amusing that once upon a time, there used to be pigeon mails. But at this rate, our next generation will find handwritten letters and post boxes as amusing !!!

I am far better than 'em.

I still remember the time ( some 9 years back) when my sister kicked me in her sleep and which resulted in myself falling down from the bed. The reason behind her well aimed kick in the sleep was the blanket ( Actually it was me but I would rather blame the blanket. Its always a nice feeling to put the blame on someone else) I am a person who feels very cold when it is just little chilly weather. For example, now its monsoon time and its raining 24/7 and usually ppl won't feel cold that easily unless its really and really cold but throughout these days, I will feel comfortable without fan for the whole day. So on that fateful winter night, unknowingly in my sleep I pulled her bed sheet for myself. And my sister, unknowingly in her sleep, kicked me out of the bed. But let me tell you it was not a monsoon time in chennai, but a cold winter time in Delhi. Recently my dear friend was pulling my legs about such nature of mine. My friends finds it quite amusing. It reminds me of different people's behaviour, whom I knew in Delhi.

The next building twins whom I knew where one such amusing example. One guy would feel very lazy to have his bath everyday due to the cold weather. So he would go on without having his bath for a week. He, atleast would change his clothes everyday. While the other twin would be lazy to even do that. He would change clothes once in 3 days!!! Ultimately no one would know about it since he would be wearing pullover or jacket when he comes out. But one fine day, his mom disclosed this secret to us!! She pleaded, begged, scolded, threatened, cajoled him to not to be like that but when there was no signs of his changing his habit, she simply called all the kids on the block and told this. Out of embarrassment, he started changing his clothes everyday. But I don't know about his bathing habit!!

During that time, it would be very difficult to get up early in the morning for schools and offices. After all, who would like to leave the cosy and hot blanket and bed. Ultimately all the kids would get up late and go to school late. To avoid this situation, my neighbours, brother - sister duo used to wear their school uniform and sleep. The next day, their routine would be getting up, brushing their teeth, combing their hair, eat the breakfast and off to school. Trust me, most of the small class kids used to follow the same example.

I even remember all the mothers in my colony grumbling over the fact that all the jeans and shirt pockets were having lots of ground nuts in it. And also the complains of mothers of tiny tots. According to them, there was no point in mopping their house everyday since all the tiny tots do is wet the house every half hour!! Now actually that's not fair. After all these lil kids would also feel cold right.

And sleep - it was something that used to come in few seconds! No one used to have sleeping problems at that time. Most of the time boring classes would make us sleepy but at that time, on would find kids sleeping even in interesting classes. In fact, one can find even teachers snoring away in the staff rooms!!! We used to wait till the teachers sleep so that we can submit the last minute homework to avoid scoldings for late submission. 

Though I suffer a lot during winter time, But its one weather which I love the most!

Monopoly and basketball. I miss them!!

I miss those days...!! Those days when I used to get up at 5 in the morning!! [ I know, I know 5 is too early for me but ya, I did got up at 5 in the morning ] and then myself along with my friends gang of about 10 to 15 girls and guys would set off to a nearby park and play leg cricket and gallery ! Believe me, it was fun. Half of the time would go in dividing the teams itself. After the a game of leg cricket and gallery till 9, all the mummy’s would come out and yell loud enough that the whole colony will hear it. And the gang will vanish in minutes!! My mom used to complain that how come I used to get up early in the morning to play but never to study during the exams. 

Now coming back to the point, that why I started missing those days was the game of carrom. Out of boredom, I dusted the carrom board and played it with my family. And yeah! I and dad won the set. I knew that my dad was pretty good at carrom board but today only saw his skills. At that time I was thinking about the games that I used to play with my friends. The basketball court at my school. I used to bunk my morning classes and used to play basketball citing the reason that tournaments were coming and we need to practice. I just love basketball. But ever since my school life came to an end, I never even touched a basketball till now!! And I miss that game.

I love the game of monopoly also. It was always fun and never ending. My mom likes scrabble. It’s her all time favorite and she is pretty good at it. Though it used to be boring in the beginning but we started enjoying it. We used to invent strange words on our own and used to swear that such words existed!! Then dad would get the dictionary and mom used to check whether such a word even existed!! Hmm…!! Now everyone is busy with their work and no one has any time to play and all. Though I would love to play a game of monopoly or basket ball with anyone who is interested!! (Actually I don’t even know whether I still can put the ball in the basket with ease as I used to, but still...) What to do!! Life moves on!! ...!!