The old lady

The old lady who cleans my floor bathrooms really made many of my mornings bad. I wished I could go on with my day without seeing her, but it seemed to be impossible. Most of my classes start before 9 30, and hence I always find myself running into her whenever I want to bathe.

It is quite a silly thing, I could’ve just gone on, ignoring it, but increasingly it was getting impossible to ignore.
The old lady mumbled something to herself every time she saw me.
Me, an Indian.
And it is not just me; it was the same thing with another Indian friend of mine who lived on the same floor. We noticed that every time she saw us, anywhere, she would start yelling in Chinese.
After some other case studies of Indian girls, we decided that she was doing this only with us, Indians. We concluded that she was being racist.
And now that we knew she was mumbling (I know she was swearing in Chinese!) only with us, it made us more irritated, and me with a higher degree of temper, fuming. I had to get it out of my system, somehow.

There was one fine day when I had my semester’s most-important presentation. I had to make sure I was in a fine mood all day, and not get myself excited or anxious over anything. I convinced myself to be calm, as I knew any slight tension in me would ruin my presentation.
I went to have a bath. As soon as I entered the bathroom, I unfortunately met the old lady. As expected, she started cursing. I decided to be nice; I smiled and said “Good morning!” This made her enraged. She began yelling even more.

I decided enough was enough.
I had a bath quickly and came out and stood face-to-face with her.
Again, she raised her pitch and started shouting even more.
I took a deep breath.

“Ei patti, ozhunga un velaiya pathundu po! Naan onna enna pannen….kezhavi! edhukku nee ipdi panra unakku kozhuppu romba jasthi! Oru naal na poi office la sonnadaan nee adanguve!”

It was a long sentence and I had spoken without even pausing for breath. I was panting. But strangely, I felt extremely happy. I would have never dreamed of saying this to some poor old lady, but this one did deserve it. Now I had cursed her back and she would be wondering what I said, just like I do when she yells at me. I was happy that I was not upset for doing so (keeping in mind my presentation).

The lady glared at me. I glared back, my eyes full of spite.
She began talking.
“Office-la poi solliduva? Vamba velaikku vangadha..”
My heart stopped beating for one micro second.
I opened my mouth to speak and it went dry.
I finally managed to get some syllables out of my mouth.
“Tha-tha…thamizh!” was all I could say.
The old lady gave a wicked grin and nodded. I ran out of the bathroom right away.

“Oh My God!! What have I done”, was running in my mind all the time. I quickly pulled myself together, prayed to God and apologised to Him, and made off to school.
There one of my Singaporean friends told me that many of the oldest generation in Singapore could speak all the three languages here: Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. Gosh, I was stunned and ashamed.
The next time I saw the old lady, I apologised. This time she smiled back. Soon, she even stopped cursing.
And what had I intended by yelling back at her in Tamil!!

P.S.: Again, fiction only. The ladies who have cleaned around my rooms are very nice and we even have little chit-chats often!! ;) But one old Chinese woman did give me the creeps one day in a bus stop when she commented about my black hair.. in Tamil!!!