Cut the Cake

Riding through Chennai traffic while your running late can be quite a spiritual experience. Powering through that traffic light just before it goes red, overtaking that slow Mercedes – I mean you could have bought a Nano if that was what you wanted to achieve on the road, loser! In between all of this cutting and extreme over taking I’m reminded of a game we used to play as kids. A game that involved a lot of running, chasing and most importantly, selflessness. It was called, Cut the Cake.

Most games we played back in the day were very Darwinist in their makeup. Hide n Seek involved you hiding until ‘you’ are caught; you really didn’t care what the rest were doing as long as you were neatly hidden away. Catch n Catch aka Chor Police would mean there are a bunch of chasers and a bunch of chasees, if I may be given the liberty to coin my own word, and the games would begin. There was Crocodile, there was Red Letter, Dark Room and the list goes on. Now unless you really wanted to impress that girl with the cute ponytail and delicious tiffin, you didn’t really care a damn about anyone else as long as you were safe. But then all of a sudden in between this selfish desire to never be caught, someone would suggest, ‘Cut the Cake’. Now this is how it was played – You would have a chaser who would cease to become a chaser the moment he catches any of the chasees (thus, this word has been patented by me). Now the only way the chasees^TM can pile on the misery for the chaser is to cut the cake. This means, that a chasee^TM needs to run in between the chaser and the person he is chasing, the moment a chasee^TM does that the chaser has to change track and start chasing the chasee^TM  who just cut the cake. Its phenomenal because you can quite easily just stay away from trouble and never cut the cake but every once in a while is born a hero who will go and cut the cake and help his fellow chasee^TM out. This selflessness instantly spreads like an infection and suddenly the band of chasees^TM realize that the ultimate joy is in making that one chaser regret ever mentioning the idea of playing the game.

Now I’m not going to connect the above paras because there is no connection. Just that cutting through the traffic reminded me of cutting between the chaser and chasee^TM back when i was young enough to play this game. But this very inherent contradiction that was ingrained in us right at that age has always fascinated me. It amazes me, the lessons we have learnt when we were so young that subconsciously always will define us. I’m looking for more ideas and thoughts on these. Looking at building more stories, thoughts on humanity and the makeup of life through games we played when we were young. So let me know and let me collect these thoughts and present this better.

Until then, anyone for ‘Cut the Cake’?

The Red Miracle

‘Will I see a miracle this Sunday? Another story I can tell the world over and over again. Or does it really even matter..

I have been meaning to write this for a long time but have always pushed it for another time, for another day, for another season. It was always meant to define my love for one of the greatest affairs of my life. A 14 year long affair. An affair with the Red Devils.

My tumultuous but mostly thrilling love affair with Manchester United began in 1998. Since then they have won the league 8 times, the FA Cup twice, the League Cup thrice and the holy grail – the Champions League, twice. With all this success and incredible domination, a little arrogance does set in. As a United fan you do kind of inherit it. The difference being, you don’t necessarily flaunt it. You are expected to be stubborn about your support for them but that stems from the kind of pride that very few fans of other football clubs have the fortune to feel. This isn’t a commentary on the overwhelming success of United, this is a pilgrimage into the true feeling of being a United fan.

From the day I started supporting United I have always told people that they are the only entity in my life which always knows when I’m down and manages to pick me up from the dumps. This special ability comes from a belief that they will deliver for you. Eleven men on the pitch will always rally, always fight and always win for you. From scoring a goal in the 94^th minute to seal a derby, to two goals in the last 3 minutes to win a Champions League, to a wonderful save to win another – Manchester United have only conquered. They have always taken the most unworkable moment in football and turned it into something timeless, something more beautiful than anything around you.

I have spent many nights well past midnight cheering them, cried tears of disappointment and joy and the tears of joy were something I never thought I could shed. In a way every moment of my life has an accompanying United moment. I can trace back years of disappointment in life with joy with United reviving me in those desperate times. If it’s the debut of Ronaldo or the goals of Macheda or the hammering of Arsenal or the choking of Chelsea or the way we have brushed aside Liverpool in the past few years, they are a force unparalleled and united. Always fighting for the pride of the red under a manager who has defied time and the odds. In Sir Alex we believe. I have spent many days criticizing his tactics, his transfers and his general demeanor only to eat my words and burst out in applause for the greatest manager of all time. A man who many clubs, corporations and marriages should learn from because of his ability to make time feel like a constant, as he changes teams and tactics with such aplomb that he just never gets outdated.

It’s always tough to accept defeat when you are United, especially when defeat stares you in the face in the form of Manchester City – the butt of many United fans jokes and all of a sudden the new force in English football. This force has been built with 930 million pounds of Dubai money but at no point am I going to take away their effort from them. I detest them and have hated every win and every goal they have scored, yet I fade away in respect as I hurl abuses at their claims of dethroning United. I seethe in fury and go nauseous at the thought of them winning the league this year but I still remain amazed at what United have conquered this year. 

In a year when they have been accused of many things ranging from negative football to losing their grip on Europe, none of the detractors seem to realize that this was a year of transition like the past two years. When other clubs go into transition, they fade away for a couple of years and seem to lose their spunk, case in point: Chelsea. A team in transition and with a non- existent midfield is going to finish level on points with a team assembled at a cost of 930 million pounds and will finish above a Champions League finalist, a team with the league’s top scorer and player of the year, a team with possibly the best midfield and the best midfielders in Modric and Bale and a team that spent around 80 million pounds just on midfielders and with a manager who was destined for success. United have quietly gone about their business. They have stuttered immensely but have paced themselves well. This wasn’t a vintage season, this wasn’t United gold class, this was United ploughing and digging deep. This was honestly a hallmark United side, a bunch of guys slightly weighed down by history and in the shadows of the greats that have filled their boots in years gone by. This wasn’t a team of the brilliance of Becham or the magic of Ronaldo or the extravagance of Cantona. This was a team with the industry of Valencia, the belief of De Gea, the maturity of Rooney. This was a United that exemplified the values this club has always strived to achieve. This won’t be a team that will go down in history as gladiators like the ones in the past, this will mostly go unnoticed. But this team deserves more; it deserves its greatest compliment, the support of the million United fans across the world. 

As United take the field on Sunday for the last game of the season let’s not have our eyes glued to the City game only hoping for them to slip up so that we may win the league, take a little time off to watch our ‘boys’ fight it out at the Stadium of Light. Watch them play their game, which may not be pretty all the time but sure has given us enough highs this year. Remember that as a United fan all you have ever known is the joy of supporting the best club in the world and in that collective, resounding and loud belief lies your miracle..

The miracle in red.  

My shortcut, discovered!

You do know the true essence of a shortcut, right? Or more how that true essence can get eroded, suddenly and depressingly? It happens the moment it is discovered! Now you have previously seen my ability to rant and you also know about my new bike, my humble Activa. Well, now that I’m done with some shameless marketing for my previous two posts, I can move on. But then you will hear a lot of the two in the coming minutes so thought an introduction won’t hurt.

Well it all began on a dreary Monday morning. Got out of the house with Chennai’s humidity sapping the thrill of life and making me sick. As I locked the door and walked out I was greeted by bird shit on my scooter. As I wiped the shit off I knew, the day would only get worse. But the thought that I can get out of my house and reach office with 5 minutes left on the office clock, always left me with a wry smile. Not because the thought of getting into work on a Monday gave me a huge surge of the happies but just because I had a ‘shortcut’. Ah I so love that word. Its short, its cut, its all you need. All it takes is a turn off the main road, a 200 meter dash on smooth tar, a bumpy 60 meters on Chennai’s latest fad, blocked and dug up roads, and bang, I cut off 20 minutes on my travel time. I walked into my little breakfast shop to choose among the gourmet options available. Pooris or Idli, the choice was immense, the decision tough, pooris dipped in oil which will make me sick yet give me the will to live another day or idlis which will keep me healthy but make me forget that warm feeling of good food. I took the wise decision, I took the unheralded pongal, the snack so good the Tamilians decided to name a festival after it or it was the other way around. Ok moving on. I got back on my bike and sped off only to be halted by traffic trying its best to fit itself through a road as wide as a crisp dosa which I just remembered I could have ordered for. Damn. Anyhow I wriggled my way past the mess in my supremely well balanced Activa and guided myself into my little shortcut. Seeing the traffic disappear behind me is by far the most spiritual feeling ever. A quick dash on the smooth tar, a not so quick dash on bumps the kind they found on the moon and speed breakers meant for monster trucks and I took the final turn with that wry ‘I found this shortcut’ smile creeping up..and then it happened!

There was a traffic jam! On my shortcut! A traffic jam! How was this possible? But it did not matter. I had been discovered. Now I know how Columbus would have actually felt when he landed up on the wrong continent, how Ricky Martin felt when the world realized he was gay, how Hitler felt when they teased him in school for his moustache, how Ratan Tata feels whenever he sees a Nano on the road, when Bill Gates uses an iPhone, when Manmohan Singh eats an aloo parantha while Anna Hazare goes hungry.. Wait not sure what the connection was meant to be. Something about feeling stupid and deceived basically. On the whole, there were bikes, bullock carts, cars and a tractor for crying out loud.

I cursed, seethed and called upon the stench from Buckingham (popular sewage canal in Chennai) to engulf this street and drown these people in the rage welling up within me. They honked, they screamed, one of them spat and a cow knocked into me. This was not how it was supposed to be. It was meant to be quiet and calm and quick. I was fifteen minutes late and with no clue of what to do. I had given up to the traffic gods when a man on a cycle next to me had the gall to question the honking cars as to how they found his shortcut. I instantly cut across him with all the power and might of my bike and sped on the side roads treading upon sand, garbage and car tires to get past it all and reach the front. It was over, I had triumphed, battle of the soul over the mind. The kind of exhilaration Neil Armstrong felt, Gandhiji felt, for crying out loud the kind of joy Mr. Bean felt on replacing the painting in that movie. I soared to the front and there right at the front I had one last look at the perpetrators, all of them who had taken away from me my five minutes of morning joy and just before I took the turn to hit the main road, I could bet to all the gods up there and around, they looked back at me with the same disgust and hate.

Mine, was not the only shortcut that had been discovered that day!

Ranting over a Chicken Fried Rice

Yes. I am not pleased with the world around me now. So I choose to rant like every responsible citizen of this democracy. I will rant about things afflicting me personally, connect that to something happening with the nation and blame people who have no bearing upon my personal life. After all a god almighty rant demands nothing less. So here goes:

First of all, what’s all the fuss about the new iPad? A lot of us can’t afford it so stop rubbing it in. And anyhow all Apple did was polish of the creases and wipe off the dust from the previous one, so stop hanging that white shiny carrot in front of me, it disturbs me while I buy chicken fried rice off the roadside.

Now Mr Sunil Mittal of Airtel, I swear on the aforementioned chicken fried rice, I will go all Gordon Gekko on you (that is create havoc for you in a smart, suave, investment banker avatar) if you don’t get your company’s act together. When you offer Broadband, DTH and mobile service – ensure that your employees know that they all belong to the same company. If one of your DTH guys come and wrecks my Broadband wires once more, I will take that disgraceful logo of yours and feed it to the first Vodafone looking pug I see. And don’t you dare tell me they are different entities within the same company. Draupadi was married to Arjuna but she belonged to the Pandavas, okay I don’t know how that makes sense but considering you keep sending me messages for reduced call rates to Europe when I have never called Europe, I’m sure you will find a connect.

Let’s now focus our attention on YouTube. Love the concept, love how it makes auto tuned Dhanush sound like the best new thing out of Chetpet but for God’s sake what is wrong with the comments section of this website. Why are people spewing such venom out there? A simple song from a new movie which has casted an extremely talented Pakistani actor, started of a war of words between two people about Kashmir. You jobless losers! Wake up, smell the chicken fried rice and shut up. We have our politicians to take care of all these banal conversation. Grow up guys, but then that will only make you 12 so what’s the point. And for all those people who say YouTube is so much fun because of the ‘comment wars’, please do use Google’s other great invention, Google Maps, to find your nearest shooting range and just take a walk around the target area. Mighty fun that will be.

How can I forget the powers to be in Tamil Nadu. On recent trips to Pondicherry and Bangalore I had the pleasure of walking into a wine shop without being shoved around, spat at or offered Old Monster instead of Old Monk. I walked into air conditioned wine shops with people who were buying their first drink of the night, not their 10^th for the hour. I could browse and walk across sections dedicated to beer. It felt surreal. TASMACs are no fun, they are a small introduction to what life would have been for cavemen when they went to the neighborhood barter store. I mean come on, everyone wins if you make the alcohol easy for all to get. It would be a great complement to my steaming chicken fried rice.

Some quickies. The non sexual kind.

Rahul Gandhi – growing up doesn’t involve growing a beard, it’s all about growing some politician horns and getting those ballots in the box. I will only believe your vision for this country when you manage to park yourself in Manmohan’s currently idle seat.

Manmohan Singh!! Get pissed, jump, clap, scream, do something man. You can’t possibly let a bunch of clowns ruin that Oxford head of yours. You are going out and there is no doubt in hell that you are, so I say go out with a bang. Tell the Congress and your allies how they got together and wet the country’s pants and how they should have the spherical to take the blame and maybe, maybe, you just might get my vote of sympathy.

Tendulkar score that century already. Stop the press!!! He just did. Thank God. Time to let the floodgates open now.

Mamatha Banerjee and Mayawathi. You guys met before? No? Oh my my, you must. You will kill each other with your obnoxiousness and what I would give to see you both rip each other apart. Ah yes, I would give my plate of chicken fried rice.

KFC!! Improve that monostrosity of a Zinger of yours back to how it used to be. Remember the days it used to be delicious and people used to come to KFCs just to eat that. Oh wait you don’t remember that, because it was when Rahul Gandhi started growing his beard, a long long time ago.

I dare you Sonam Kapoor, oh I just dare you to act in another movie. I have spent around 1250 bucks on tickets and popcorn on you. Don’t make me come to Mumbai and make you accountable for each rupee. We work hard for our money, I mean previously my Dad used to but now I do too. It doesn’t come easily so please when your choosing your next role, let it be for a silent movie. It can win you an Oscar.

Phew. Time to get back to my chicken fried rice. To forget all that is wrong and miserable. To remember what really is good. Nothing like an almighty rant to get you going. Until the next rant…    

The 12 km Burst

When I landed on the shores of Chennai much like the British and the Portuguese, I too felt an all -conquering need to make this place mine. After all this was going to be home for some time to come…These thoughts found their genesis to an extent with a 12 km dash I made on the ever so popular and road much travelled, the East Coast Road, lovingly and conveniently known as ECR.

The journey doesn’t begin on a stretch of road extending from Thriruvanmiyur but begins on a little lane in Perungudi. This is a story of small yet important patches of my life here and how it all nicely led up to this day.

My first morning in Chennai was characterised not by jitters for my first job, but greater fear of getting to work in a city where not knowing the language can lead to instant alienation. After hitching a 60 buck ride for a kilometre long stretch, I instantly knew life was going to be a bitch. An ability to bargain, crassness coupled with rudeness and stoic apathy are a deadly triumvirate and a much needed one to tackle the Chennai rickshaw driver. But I was to learn that gradually, until then, my knight in shining armour (the black and yellow kind) was here. The shared auto. A concept both unique and extremely gratifying, a big auto stuffed with people to the brim, who share the cost of the ride. Simple and effective and in one simple discovery I had managed to get rid of the scourge of the Chennai rickshaw driver.

Thiruvanmiyur is for all practical purposes on the periphery of Chennai, right at the edge of civilization. It’s at that precise distance where friends begin to make excuses about not coming over to your place. You start throwing beaches and proximity to Mahabalipuram to them as bait. but all in vain. This reduces you to a very obvious reality. YOU HAVE TO GO WHERE YOUR FRIENDS ARE AND THEY LIVE EQUALLY FAR!! So I began my first tryst with the city buses. With strange numbers like 21Hct, PP19X and the ilk, it felt like I had just walked into some secret military testing base. The buses honking, the crowds of people and a 29C nearly driving over me brought me back to reality. 29C is a bus route which spans Thiruvanmiyur to Perambur. It’s also the one bus that connects all the bus stops of the major all girl colleges(Stellas, MOP and WCC,.. beat that) which should be a great opportunity for most men to exercise their charm and chivalry but is mostly an exhibition of just how terribly stupid and cheap we can get. A story for another day and a more serious occasion. For me, this route proved to be a lifesaver, connecting me with all the places I needed to ever go to. The frequency is simply brilliant and with Volvos doing the route too, I couldn’t have asked for more. From Alwarpet to Egmore to Ispahani to walking distance from Sathyam to yummy eating joints in Nungambakkam. Ganesha, had found his mouse.

Long journeys, the summer and a lack of novelty set in. Public transport was still convenient, cheap and a boon to my wallet but was soon becoming an arduous routine which my mind could not take anymore. The roads of Chennai are wide and inviting, beckoning me to unleash myself on them. On my own terms. I needed a 2 wheeler to really enjoy this city, a city I have been itching to discover. I want to be able to wake up in the morning and ride to a quaint Armenian church in Parrys when my mind demands. I wanted to ride to Sathyam at 10 in hope of getting tickets for the night show, only to be turned down and enjoy the ride back. I wanted to get out of work and head to that lovely fish stall for a plate of 40 buck prawns on Bessie. Ride to Saint Thomas Mount and watch planes take off and disappear into the Chennai sky, fly like the wind on Radhakrishna Salai over the flyover and admire Music Academy on an evening when it’s lit in all its glory. Midnight coffees at the Hyatt, cheap beer from a Tasmac, stay at Kottivakam beach till the cops chase me away, ride to Amethyst (best coffee shop in town..Period) and read a book sipping a bitter Frappe. Endless thoughts, spiralling in my head for months now. Bus windows, front seats of share auto, non existent meters of rickshaws were all the motivation I needed.

Back on that lovely ECR stretch on a Tuesday evening after filling fuel in my new second hand Activa. I stood and saw the road open up in front of me. It’s like all of Chennai was offering itself to me, saying ‘Son, go, you deserve this. Let rip and she will hold you good. Let this remind you of all the good days and the not so good ones spent on my roads. Let this be the day you break free and finally unleash yourself on this imperfect but addictive city’.

The rest is a whirl of speed (not too much Mom, so cool it) and joy. A 12 km burst on ECR that shall be forever etched in my memory of one of the better, make it best, day of my life on Chennai roads.   

A Wedding List

Two of my very good friends decided to get married on the same day. That’s two weddings and not one. With it came a huge logistic dilemma of running across Chennai for the various ceremonies and now as a bona fide Chennaite, I along with a friend was expected to manage this coordination for all the friends coming from out of town. Not that that amounted to excruciating schedules and timelines being drawn up but sure allowed me the special benefit of showing off a city I have come to truly love. But above all I got to experience one of the Tamilian Brahmin (better known as Tam Bram) communities greatest show, the wedding. Yes, I must agree that I had my reservations of the fact that there will be no alcohol or meat. I mean aren’t everyone in the hall allowed the luxury of forgetting the fate that awaits them or has already befallen them. Ask me and that’s the reason alcohol should be allowed in a wedding. But then these are just things I say to fit into the mould of a twenty four year old guy who is tuned to believe that marriage is the end of the road. My views are very different, my views are for another day.

Both my friends are girls and were getting married to guys who besides being simply amazing were also the loves of their respective lives. Our entire friends circle had been preparing for these wedding for sometime now and all of us were united in our pure joy for this great occasion. A Tam Brahm wedding is truly a very emotional experience. As I had friends explain every nuance of every ceremony, I couldn’t help but begin to observe the various characters in a wedding and their reactions to the proceedings, it sure does make for some timeless entertainment. Here we go:

The Wedding Romantic

These people charge themselves on wedding adrenaline and go all energizer bunny on us all lackluster spectators. They enthrall us with stories of how their wedding will be, how the flower decorations will be different, how the hall will have so many more people, how their partner will wear exactly what they have in mind. All in all how they have the entire two days playing like a stuck tape recorder in their head. Even though my first reaction is to ridicule them, I sit back and think that your wedding day, truly is your most special day, so what’s the harm having it planned perfectly. So just as I begin empathizing, one of them begin with how they have had their wedding planned from the age of 8. Alarm Bells!!!

The Dark Wedding Humor Comedian

The usual quips of this wedding spectator will revolve around ‘gallows’, ‘undertakers’, ‘doomsday’, ‘Mayan calendar’ jokes and a few ‘end of days’ jokes thrown in too. They always make for the best humor at a wedding until you have one of those aunties who may as well have gift wrapped her ears and given it to you, turn and glare at you like you are vermin. Yes, well these are the guys and girls who just have to get these jokes out of their system. The Wedding Romantic will look at them with disdain and will instantly become the butt of all the jokes. So you keep laughing at these jokes and then look a little harder at the’ life of every party’/’depressed alcoholic’ in the making and wonder if they even know what they are talking about and tend to pity them a little. That stops the moment you go on stage and they go upto the groom or bride and point out how the garland around their neck can also become a noose and they do an undertaker impression. Rolling on the Mandapam Laughing (ROML)!!

The Back to the Mandapam Spectator

Well this one is a character. Affable, intelligent and with an acute case of ADD. At a wedding, they will have their backs to all that’s happening to the couple that’s going to pay for their lunch and will have a comment for all else in the wedding. They will check out all the hot singles in the room, pass adequate ratings and predictions on how their lives will turn out. They will also look at the oldies in the room and imagine the conversations they are having which will mostly range from match making to ‘so when are you due’ questions, utterly reducing the oldies  to a collective incapable of any other intelligent interactions. They will start finding faults and often times hilarious things with the stuff the camera guy is capturing. On the whole they are the ones least bothered about the occasion and most indulgent in creating their own. Hats off to them for being so completely aloof and so unbelievably entertaining.

 Disclaimer: Don’t be around them if you have family at the wedding. Trust me!!

The ‘Coming soon to a wedding hall near you’ Groom/Bride

These are the ones who know their chance is coming up. They are universally the butt of jokes for everything. They watch the proceedings silently, like they are memorizing the order of things. Tam Bram weddings have the unique ability of starting everything before the sun is up, therefore the early morning jokes laced with the subsequent lack of a late night after that get thrown around mercilessly. They quietly take the jokes with ominous warnings of ‘it will happen to you soon too’. They are intercepted by relatives and people they have never met with questions of a wide ranging quality. Following are the questions with answers I would love someone to give:

‘So when is the big day?’ – You talking about the day I lost my virginity? I was 16 and it was sometime in June, it was raining that day and..

 ‘You must be so excited, no? – I don’t know about myself, but you sure seem to be excited. Now that’s all matters.

Do you have butterflies in your stomach? – Oops how did you get to know of my carnivore oddities. So the other day I saw this blue winged one on my window and I got my fork out..

You know, just leave these guys alone. They really have their own issues to deal with. But don’t miss a couple of jokes on them. Priceless reactions in return.

Amused. Bemused. Stuffed

This category is where I usually find myself. Wedding food is always exceptional. Linked to the thought that the more stuffed you are at a wedding, the happier the marriage, families leave no stone or gulab jamun unturned in their quest to stuff your guts out. I always choose shamelessness over dignity at such occasions and pig out like its 2012 ( Oh wait, it is) You will have a very unsavory label attached to you, but savory reminds me of all the sweets available. Even though Tam Brahm weddings are veg buffets, they are veg buffets eaten by the Gods. Every dish has a touch from heaven and for a guy who is known to have eaten his first masala dosa at the age of 2, this was just an out of body experience – quite literally. After all the hogging at constant intervals I tend to remain generally bemused with the occasion and amused with all the characters described above. I’m the silent spectator at these weddings except for when I’m chomping all that food down. I am the one who mixes a bit of all the above because I myself am quite undecided on who of the above I am. I am the one who is the butt of the jokes and I am the one cracking them (music builds up superhero movie style). I am.. Wedding Man.. Well couldn’t resist that one but at a wedding where every one is a character straight out of all those wedding movies you have grown up on, you best belong to this one. It’s where all the fun is!!

I’m sure you can add many more to the above not-at-all exhaustive list. So do let me know and do enthrall us. Till then I just want to wish the best to my two good friends whose marriages I had the fortune of attending and also to a very special friend in Mangalore who got married the same day too. You were always in my thoughts and I’m sure that all the three couples are going to be immensely happy and blessed. But for the rest of us.. On your marks.. Get set.. Go/No!!

  

When Chennai wets itself..

So when I landed in Chennai, they warned me of the summer. ‘It will burn your pants off’, ‘You will lose the desire to live’, ‘Legend has it that no outsider has survived’, ‘Hope you have an AC dude’. Yup so I heard it all and in between my consternations on how to wrap my mind around getting past this hellish summer, some kind soul remembered to warn me about the monsoon too…

‘It begins to rain and then it doesn’t stop. Every inch of what you previously were introduced to as the road, will lose all its identity and just become one huge puddle of water waiting to be splashed on your newly polished shoes/ironed pant/snazzy party shirt/face (true story).’

I used to wake in horror at the thought of this all depressing season. Never been the greatest fan. And yes they write many a prose and poetry of this wonderful season but to me it’s just a messed up coming together of all that is terrible.

Wet muddy slush                Check

Slush on your clothes          Check

Nowhere to walk               Check

Cancel plans coz of rain      Double check

Did I Mention, slush?          Check

So to all the romantics out there who wait for the rains to profess your love, don’t do it in Chennai. Now when it all began I had the fortune of being out of town. Like how Switzerland must be feeling every time some part of the world breaks out into war, I sat comfortably numb to the fact that I was going to be thrown right into the battlefield very soon. Upon landing in Chennai I was greeted with wet roads, remains of a shower, scattered umbrellas, women in wet silk sarees..Ok back to reality. Basically, a colossal mess. But no rain, none at all. Could it be over?

I quietly sauntered into my house as not to disturb the rain gods/devils and tucked myself into bed with ‘Here comes the sun’ slowly playing in the background. And that’s when that eerie voice returned in my head, ‘it begins to rain and then it doesn’t stop’ . True to his words and apparently the ruling party’s manifesto, the rains returned the next day. Now I would like to use the words’ with the vengeance’ or ‘like its going out of fashion’ but it was much worse. I mean I was looking at the dictionary for the right words when it got blown away with the wind. Instantly there were flash floods on the little street outside my house. The victims being every pair of shoes/chappals in a 5km radius, lowest office turnout rates in a year (since the last Rajnikant movie release) and a floating Egg Bodimaas stall that had the name ‘Mobile Egg Cuisine’, couldn’t be more apt.

I stared at the roads ala John Cusack in 2012 or even Jack Black checking out an inflated Gwyneth Paltrow in ‘Shallow Hal’ and there was nothing shallow about this. It was pure chaos except that nobody else seemed to feel that way. It was like another day for every other mortal/superhero on the road. I mean these guys were just waking up to another day. I, was waking up in a nightmare or wait, a wet dream (PG rating mentioned^*). So I waded to my office, jumped on a few bricks and crossed the rivers of Chennai’s monsoon. Then I turned back and looked at the mess and was amazed at how we adapt, like we were born with these abilities. Come the summer we curse and get through with all that we can remove off our bodies, come the monsoon and we wet ourselves (ha ha ha) with thoughts of getting wet everyday.

Then when we least expect it, the sun creeps out from behind and goes all ‘Peek a Boo’ for a couple of days, teasing and tantalizing, and with me wanting to give it one solid slap. Finally it appears in all its glory and across town people start running up to their terraces with bucket loads of clothes to put it to dry. Panting and relieved at the same time, they put up their clothes and smile in relief and like naïve kids return to their daily lives only to be greeted in the evenings with a downpour and clothes thrown all over the terrace and your sense of belief in all that is good taking a major beating.

But we still wake up the next morning, wear our Sunday best and get down and dirty back in that all conquering mess. We roll up our pants and flip out our umbrellas and raincoats, make a silent prayer hoping for the winter (story for another day) and make the dip in the unholy waters of the Chennai monsoon.

At the end we prevail.. But the monsoon kindly begs to differ.