11-year-old Aditya went up to his mother.
"When are you going to have the Upanayanam ceremony for me?" he asked.
His mother was confused.
"Why, oh, well....umm, soon, dear!" she said.
"Why are you delaying it so much? Amma, I'm 11 ! Innum podalena thappu!!" said he.
"Nee ipdi kekarche podaama iruppoma? We'll do it soon. " said amma.
Adi smiled and left.

Adi's major reason to ask his mother to hold an Upanayanam ceremony was because he wanted to get some attention to himself. Somehow he had felt that all his relatives had quite forgotten him when his older brother left to study abroad. They all fussed over him so much that in between Adi had felt there was a period when everyone had even forgotten his existence. He had had to pack his lunch bag even himself - put the towel and spoon inside, and oh, get the water filled in his blue bottle (which, incidentally was broken, but since no one was bothered, he had to manage with that).... He was so angry that he had to so much of work when he had to study and also play those regular tennis sessions in school. One of his class mates had then suggested that this would be a good way to remind people of his needs and wishes.
"Hey, that's a nice idea...how come I never thought of it before?" he thought. And then started his implementation of the idea.

Slowly, after the first time he asked his mother this idea, he began to ask the others in his home too. He realised that the best people to pull on his side were his grandparents (who, incidentally, had been pushing for this from quite a while ago).
Well, the idea seemed to be working quite well, for his mom decided to talk to his father about the whole issue.
"Paarungo, avaney ketutaan...We have to do it soon...and besides, he's 11, and that's a perfect age for the ceremony!"
After some more talk, dad finally gave in.
"Yes, let's do it. I'll ask appa to ask the shastrigal for a good date during this month....if we do it in July itself, it'll be good as he won't be having any exams and won't have any problems taking time off from school..." suggested dad.

Soon, things started going in full swing for Aditya's poonal ceremony. Amma fretted about for pattu veshtis, pattu podavais, madisar podavais et al. This impressed little Adi greatly. He felt grateful for the friend who had suggested this idea. "What a brainwave," he thought.

The d-day arrived quite soon. Adi could see excitement rising up his spine as he was asked to do various things. The shastrigal, though, were pretty strict.
"Nanna balamma mantra-thai sollu...."
or
"Kiaya ipdi vechukanum....un ishtathuku pannapdaathu",
which made Adi wish he didn't have to go through all these procedures. But things got exciting again soon when his father taught him the "secret" : the Gayatri mantra with the pattu veshti wrapped around them. He also got wildly excited when he had to ask for bhiksha, though he would have done it without that droning Bhiksham dehi he had to say everytime,but still he derived a lot of pleasure as all mamis and atthais lined up to give him his bhiksha.

Then came the part which he had anticipating all this while - the presents. He could barely conceal his excitement as friends and relatives poured in with gift wrapped boxes of various kinds and size, and some with cash (he was not very happy with cash, he knew he would have to hand it to amma or appa the next day....presents were anytime better, assuming, though that the people had enough sense on what to gift a 11-year-old).

As soon as they got home after the Upanayanam ceremony, Adi wanted to open his presents. Amma and appa were very tired, but they let him open them nevertheless...at least that would give them some hours of rest, without any new nagging from him.

Adi felt his hands shiver with excitement as he opened the presents. Mama's present seemed very inviting. Before he opened it, he thought what it could be. Maybe a PS2? He had been asking dad for one for quite a long time...and probably appa had told mama about it...and mama had got it.....

He found his dreams soaring. Unable to contain the excitement, he opened it. His dreams came crashing on to the ground. Lay inside a set of Scrabble. And that too, the same set he already had. The rest were no better too, except for a set of beautiful Parker ink pens from Uma atthai and a blue digital watch from his best friend.

God! He couldn't believe that most of his presents had turned out to be damb squibs. Well, at least the ceremony had reminded people that Aravind had a younger brother called Aditya who needed to be looked after, too. But he felt sad nevertheless.

His sorrows did not end there, though. Very soon, the troublesome priest from the ceremony came home to teach him how to do the sandhyaavandanam. He felt utterly disappointed and irritated. He had to do this twice a day, and that too the second one at 6 p.m. when he would be playing! It had never struck him as bothersome when he had seen his father do it every day. Dad seemed to be very excited at the prospect of his younger son doing all this that for a whole two weeks, he came home from office early so that both of them could do the sandhyaavandanam together.

Soon, things became worse. Now all that everyone wanted to know was whether he did the sandhyaavandanam regularly everyday, not excepting that nagging priest, who also dropped in at least thrice every month and oversaw his prayer. If Adi skipped the prayer even once, his mother would pounce upon him and say "Idhukkudaan sonnen, it's too early for the ceremony-nnu....yaara kaetaa dhaane!" She seemed to be taking a new stand now, though she had convinced his father that it was high time Adi got his poonal.

Adi soon fell sick of all the attention poured on him. He tried his best to divert them toward his brother, but even when talking over the phone to his brother, all that his parents said were complaints that Adi wasn't doing sandhyaavandanam properly. "Konjam avana panna sollen da," they would say.
"As though you know he does it regularly there," Adi would mumble.
So much for 'brainwave' ideas and getting attention, Adi thought.

P.S: No questioning on the traditions; I've just written what I vaguely know.

Well, yes, they do ruin my life. What would should have been a blessing turns a curse. And it's all here, in Singapore, where day and evening (thankfully, not the nights!) they torture me into slow illness.

As I sit through lectures and tutorials everyday, slowly, air-cons freeze me into numbness. Yeah, physically and mentally. To such an extent that beyond a point I feel like a body just made alive by thawing after being frozen as a part of some cryonics study. As soon as I'm free to go out, I feel like some captive tortured by unique methods running out to freedom. But oh no! You only run out of a freezing air con-ed room to enter the bus which is cold too. Thank lord, though, at least I could control the little air-con outlet in the bus.

At times, or no, always, the closed corridors are colder than the rooms themselves that I would think kenathula gudhikardhu is surely a better option than leaving the room. And yes, the rooms are not good, either. Inside, I would sit trying to cover every little portion of my hands or legs that are exposed to the chilling air.

Enter trains, AC. Enter canteens, AC. Enter TV Lounges, AC. Enter labs, you would almost freeze to death. Even after having been here for a whole year, I am unable to stand it. I would feel so content in life with that ceiling fan...instead I have to return everyday with head aches and colds because of the air-con. And not to forget the innumerable number of times air-cons make me sneeze.

I wonder how girls here come in the shortest of mini skirts possible and sit in this freezing cold atmosphere in theatres. God! Fine, you could say romba naal pazhakkam but these places are like igloos!! They sure do deserve awards.

Well, there is no escape from this monster. All I have to do is hope that I get immune and don't react abnormally. :)

So much for air-cons!!!

By the way, I realised my posts are getting shorter and shorter! No, not good lah!

When Phobiac asked me what 'Pisa' meant, it sent into a long, nostalgic journey, stretching three years, into school, into a totally different life (Phobiac, did you ever think one question of yours would give such a chain reaction?). From that time, three years back , 'pisa' became an integral part of my life, assuming more than one form and dimension.

It all started in my class XI when I had to put up with this incredibly idiotic and irritating person in school; one who made my life miserable. It was one bad day when this person had gone beyond limits that I wanted to yell something bad at her, some word which would be powerful enough to withstand all the vengeance I wanted to pack into it. Though the word I had intended to say was 'pisasu', because of all that anger within me, the word became mutilated to 'pisa'(with a hiss in 's'), just like Saraswathi did something to the tongue of Kumbakarna so he asked for some boon he had just not wanted to ask. And lo! 'Pisa' seemed to be much more useful than 'Pisasu' because 'Pisasu' was just a kiddish version (what I used to call my sis when she irritated me beyond levels.). The word 'Pisa' thus entered my life, only to stay on forever.

What further strengthened the bond between me and 'Pisa' was the welcoming of one another Pisa into home; she was this 'Candy' doll my sis gave me in class XI (Now, now, no discussions of class XI and dolls being presented! FYI, my sister got herself that doll in that age!! :P ). This 'Candy' doll was so scary to some people, and yeah, even in broad daylight you could shake her in some way to make her look scary. And when you are sleeping and she sits crouched somewhere, a so-life-like figure, you could even end up screaming. Such is the 'Candy' doll's power. For further help into visualising 'Candy' dolls, if you have seen all those 'pei' movies in Tamil where this cute doll goes about with knives, stabbing and killing people, 'Pisa' could so fit into that category. Only thing, she does not wink and close her eyes like those scary dolls in movies.

As my new 'Candy' doll looked like 'pei', I christened her 'Pisa', though oh God, she is no way close to the real 'Pisa' in school. My doll 'Pisa' is a sweetum, cutie pie. Thinking of dolly 'Pisa' sends into me pangs of anguish; she is not with me now. There in my friend's home she is, crouched, bundeled up and put in a plastic bag inside a dark, scary storeroom, waiting for me to come and take her back. Hope it happens real soon!!!

I entered the flight and found my seat. 20H. A middle aged lady was already sitting there.
"Excuse me, umm...that's my seat....", I said.
She quickly got up and sat in some other seat.

I stared at her. Does she know that flights usually have a fixed seat? Did not seem like she did. I sat in my seat and watched all the people getting into their places. Nobody seemed to be coming to sit in 20G. I was pleased. I loved travelling alone, without people next to me. I smiled.

My happiness was short lived, though. The old woman came and sat next to me! I could not bring myself to ask her to sit in that seat she was sitting before. That would be awfully rude. So I just shut and came staring out through the window. The flight was to leave at 10:30. It was 10:50 and the plane had not moved an inch from where it was when I had boarded it. As I was watching outside, somebody suddenly pulled my left hand. I was startled and looked. The lady next to me was looking at the time in my watch.

"10:30-kkey flight-a edukkanum illa? Time aaiduche!" she said.
I nodded. God! Was she the company I was going to have throughout the flight?
As though in response to her query, the flight captain just then announced that there was a small technical problem in the aircraft that would be set right soon. I groaned. Not a delay!
The aircraft finally took off at 11:15 after a lap in the runway for about 5 minutes. As the flight took off, I could not keep my eyes off the window to look at the city I so loved. How long would it be before I would see it again!

As expected, the lady next to me started her conversation soon.
"What are you doing in Singapore?" she asked.
"Studying"
"College-aa?"
"Hmm."
"Which university?"
This set me thinking. How safe is it disclosing information to some lady I meet in the flight?
After thinking for a few seconds, I replied "SMU".
"Appdiya...which course?"
"Uh.....management" I fibbed. I didn't even know if such a course existed in SMU.
"I see...."

Lunch was served soon. I could barely eat that drab food. All I was thinking was about that thakkali rasam, vendekkai sambar and cauliflower curry I had eaten at home. I sighed. This was how bad food was going to be, from now on.

I put on the headphones and started listening to "Bollywood hits". I soon dozed off for such a long time that when I woke up they were already distributing the immigration forms. I filled one. I knew that the lady next to me would soon ask me something about the form. And sure she did.

"The form asks for the number of days. What if I'm not sure of it?"
"You have your return ticket, right? You wouldn't have got a visa without showing it to them. So why do you have uncertainity in the number of days of your stay?" I asked. Then I felt stupid for that slight tinge of arrogance I had in my tone. She looked slightly startled.

"Um...maybe you could explain it to the people in the immigrations counter....I don't really know because I've never had to do anything this way..." I said.
"Yes, I can do that", she said.
The flight had started its descent. I looked down at the city polluted with lights, where I would be spending many, many days.
"How will you go to your university, ma?" the lady asked.
"Uh, take a cab...."
"Nobody will come to pick you up?"
I smiled. How I wished somebody would!
"No."
"My son is coming to pick me up."
"I see.."

The flight landed with a thud and went on with such a furious speed I thanked God and blessed the man who invented seat belts for airplanes.
By the time I had reached my university and my room, it was evening and I was hungry, for I had eaten practically nothing during the flight. I went to the canteen which had the Indian stall.

"Hey Vani!!" yelled Preethi, my batch mate and close friend. "How was the flight?"
"Yeah, ok....now, I'm starving, let's get something to eat", I said.
We bought our food and found a long table occupied by Indians, seniors and batch mates alike. All of us chatted continuously, catching up with three months of tales at home. Anthara was particularly funny, telling us stories which kept us in splits. I could hardly eat; I kept laughing with tears in my eyes. As I laughed, I suddenly looked up to the door as someone called out my name. It was Vikrant, my school mate.

"How're you....I just landed...so shameful we didn't meet up even though we were in the same city in India..." I said.
"Yeah...and hey, my mum has come. I just picked her up from the airport....she said she was hungry, so I brought her here..." he said.
"Oh, ok.....where 's she?"
"Oh, there she is, in the queue for food...."
"Ha! Sad plight no," I said, turning toward the queue,"..... for your mom to stand in queue and..."

I stopped midway, shocked.
The lady from the flight was in the queue.
"Is-s she th-the lady in the green saree?", I asked him.
"Yeah, how did you know....and she was saying that she met a wierd girl, you know...studying management from SMU it seems...."
"Vikrant, that was me!" I said, feeling slightly ashamed.
"You?? When did you start studying in SMU?? Oh ok ok...I see, very cautious, not disclosing information to strangers, is it?" Vikrant roared with laughter.
I was turning pink with embarassment.
His mom came soon.
"Dei, indha ponnu thaan naan plane-la paathen da..." she said.
Vikrant laughed more loudly, with Preethi giving him company.
Soon, the whole table with Indians was bellowing with laughter, and Vikrant's mom cast me wierd looks.

Not very long ago
A young, little girl,
Tried to write a poem,
And let her thoughts unfurl.
But alas, what she wrote,
Seemed more
Like an essay
With the lines broken,
And written
Just to rhyme.
(Ahem! What does it look like now?)

Poetry and I have rarely gone together. As far as I remember, the last poem I wrote was in my grade seven about cartoons; this “poem” talked about how cartoons can make even fussy eaters (kids) eat their food quickly. Very dumb concept, I know, but well, the poem was quite cute. I remember just two lines from the entire poem now:

“Ow! Ow!” cried Jerry,
Jumping up and down in a ferry.

God! Like most of the kids, my idea of a poem was a story basically split up so that the last word in every other line (or okay, every second or third line) rhymes with its counterpart. This way I strained my class seven vocabulary to find words which rhyme and this was a hell lot of effort. This poem was to go into our class magazine, “Fun Fiesta”, edited by Yours truly, and the name of the magazine suggested by my sis. Fun Fiesta was quite a good success for its very first edition, though it had to be stopped very soon for it being very unproductive. No more could we go about the business without money and of course, no parent was really willing to give their daughters money for a silly (!) class magazine. Also because some of my class mates became pretty dumb and started giving me crossword and Crayon Corner from the Young World asking me to “publish” it in their name. Fun Fiesta, hence, stopped being “printed” after two issues because of the aforesaid reasons.

After this last poetic effort of mine, I decided that it was high time I stopped trying to write poems and concentrated on stories instead. So Chumki came up. In the next year, a joint effort between me and my friend happened and we came up with a story titled “The Hallucination”. A very weird story it was, and it still got published in our school magazine, replete with typos. Next year, I went a step further and wrote a story in Sanskrit. Uhh, well, this wasn’t my story, but was an Akbar Birbal thing translated into Sanskrit. It was very funny to imagine and write Akbar and Birbal talking in Sanskrit, with me consulting the dictionary to find the Sanskrit equivalents often.
These school magazines are highly funny things. When my sister was in her seventh grade, she wrote a poem on teachers, which was published in a newspaper. When she was editing her school magazine, she came across the same poem being submitted by another school mate of hers. When asked, this girl said she had copied the poem from some other school magazine. One silly poem written ages back, and it was still making rounds.

Not knowing what more to write,
That girl,
Who had stopped writing poems
Ages ago,
Again tried to write one,
To finish her post.
This one,
It seemed to her,
Was worse than the one
She had written in the beginning,
And knew that it was best
To shut up and stop.

My mind is busy wondering what to post on the blog….it’s been a week since I posted and I’m desperate to write anything so that my previous dumb story isn’t the first thing people see if they visit my blog. I’m thinking of topics ranging from the awesome song “Chaiyya Chaiyya” to my lil’ vacation in Bangalore to the trip to the vegetable market yesterday. Interesting topics for me, though, I wanted to put them further by at least a week or two.

As I spend my last two weeks in India for this vacation, I wonder how drastically life will change after those two weeks. Difficult to believe that! I feel so ‘out of touch’ with staying in the hostel, cursing the food and best (or worst?), studying. It’s been ages since I picked up any book that has to be ‘studied’; eons since I went into the kitchen with even slight intentions of cooking. I’ve just been lazing around in the house and religiously attending marriages of relatives. People whom I meet there find it astonishing that I had a three-month long vacation. With utter disbelief, they ask, “Oru thadava ooruku poitu thirumbi vandhuttiya?”. I could not help but smile; my school mates started their exams a month after I came, had a three-week vacation and have started college again. Each of these people burns with jealousy when I tell them how I struggle to ‘joblessly’ spend time.

One week in Bangalore was a lot of fun; spent most of the time playing with kids of my relatives. It was funny watching my nephew crying when he returned from school, chiding us for coming late to pick him up, when we were in his school ten minutes before the final bell. The return journey from B’lore was, though, bad. Thankfully I got a window seat and I refused to give it up to anyone who even ventured near asking for it. With me were eight people returning from a marriage, I assume. Fat people they were, and they made it a point to deprive me of my legally allotted space and squashed me to the window. They kept eating, how on earth it was possible I didn’t know; as soon as the train left the B’lore station, they started eating what they had packed from home (or wherever), followed by generous numbers of bananas at any frequent interval possible. As though these weren’t enough, they kept buying most of the things people from the pantry were bringing; I’m sure the pantry guys would have made a fortune that day, all thanks to that family which tortured me. Adding fuel to the fire was a huge group of college students who boarded at Katpadi. Though they managed to steal even that little space my neighbours had left without stuffing their luggage, it was fun to watch the seniors rag their juniors and I slowly drifted off into making my own plans for how to give my college juniors a ‘warm’ welcome.

Now, at home, telephone is perpetually busy, people calling in and out; television rendering its services to my grandmother, who is busy watching a mythological serial in Telugu; what she can understand, I wonder, but frequently she keeps smiling and saying “aah!” as some mahatvam of Lord Krishna is being shown.

All last minute bouts of visits have started and I’m busy making lists of things I need to buy before I leave. Duh! Can anything be more boring than packing!! Thankfully, mum is here to do it for me this time.

This time, two weeks later, I would be wondering where to go for lunch. Back to present. Lovely home food ready now.

Going out of town for almost a week. Won't be posting then, mostly. I don't have the heart to leave the blog "un-updated" for a week. So here's a filler post of a story written quite a while back.


Aakanksha sat brooding in a corner. She glanced at her watch. 4:30 P.M. Another hour left.
She fished out her music book and searched for the song taught last weekend. Ah! There it was.
She looked around to make sure no one was watching. She quietly shut the door. She marked the page on the book and flung it across the room.
There! Her anger lessened a little. She silently opened the door and again made sure no one was watching.
She took the book and went to the balcony. She peeped out. All her friends were down there, playing. One looked up and saw her.
“Anku! Coming down to play?” she asked.
Anku shook her had.
“I have music class.”
“Oh!! Ok, bye..”
Aakanksha sighed. She quietly pulled a chair to a corner of the balcony and sat there, barely being visible in between the many clothes hung there to dry.
She tried to remember the tune of the song.
“Samthajhanulla Kella….”
She tried repeating the words over and over in her mind. They rang no bell. She even began doubting if she had actually learnt this song.
Oh yes, the date said it all. She had learnt the song last Sunday.
Damn it.
She so fervently wished she could skip the class at 5:30. This 11-year-old girl could never contain herself when she thought of her music class. No bad words were left out if she wanted to describe her music teacher.
Aakanksha had started learning music as a 5-year-old. Though she was very passionate earlier, this music teacher from whom she had started learning three years ago had literally pulled down to abysmal levels her interest in classical music. As an 8 year old, she would throw tantrums as every weekend approached, weekends being the only two days of classes. (Whew! That was a relief, but Aakanksha didn’t want classes anytime!). But as she grew up, she realised such tantrums wouldn’t work and almost resigned herself to the fate of attending music classes every weekend.
“Samthajhanulla Kella….”
“Samthajhanulla Kella….”
Ah! Finally she remembered the tune. She quietly hummed the tune to herself, or rather, in her mind.
She looked at her watch.
Oh god, it was 4:50. And she had not memorised the words yet!
She quickly began memorising the words of the song and trying to recite them with the book closed. Lord, she prayed, as she kept forgetting at least three words at each attempt.
Do I really have to go to such a dreaded music class, she wondered again. Though she had tried to reason this out with her parents many a time, they seldom listened. They argued that this teacher had improved her singing, which was, in fact, true, and they had no plans of stopping this class.
By the time Aakanksha had come close to memorising and reciting the whole song, it was 5:10.
She quickly gobbled the food kept on the table and got ready to leave. As she weaved across the traffic, Aakanksha bathed in self-pity. She felt like she was approaching her doom. She was sure she would forget the song by the time she reached the class and stared at her fierce looking teacher.
She finally reached her music teacher’s house. Aakanksha gulped down that knot of fear in her throat. She left her slippers outside and entered the house. It was astonishingly empty. Aakanksha was stumped for words.
Am I too early or too late, she wondered. No, she was on time. She stared around in bewilderment.
“Aakanksha!” somebody called.
She turned. It was the tenant living on the first floor of her teacher’s house.
“Yenna ma, ipdi vailaye nozhaiyaadha paeru vechirkaale un appa amma….”
Aakanksha smiled, despite all her worries. Many had told her the same thing.
“Miss had to go out of station unexpectedly for an urgent work…she will be back on Tuesday. You can start coming for regular classes from next weekend.”
Aakanksha’s heart leapt with joy. She managed to check the joy right on time from erupting out in front of the neighbour.
She smiled.
“Seri aunty. Mami kitta naan vandhennu sollidungo.”
Silently she went out, wore her slippers and closed the gate. Once out of the house, she gave her biggest smile ever and laughed. She ran, skipped and danced in glee almost half the way back home.
“Amma!” she yelled as soon as she got home. “Inikki no class!!!”
“Adi kazhudhai….thappichuttiya….” her mom smiled.
Aakanksha ran into her room and stylishly threw the bag into her shelf. It landed in its proper place.
She raced down the stairs and ran to the park to meet her friends. Boy, wouldn’t they be surprised!
She suddenly stopped running, and paused for a few seconds, thinking.
Next class, next weekend, she wondered.
She then shook her mind off it and started running. That can be thought of later at 4:45 next Saturday!!