Hiatus

Dated – July, 2010

Life happened. For the past two months. The usual you know. Changes small and big. My reticence to accept the new. My yearning for everything that was familiar and comfy. And so the silence. I talk when happy. I write when happy. My system shuts down when ruffled. No I haven’t been moping. Was just taking my own sweet time to settle down in good ol’ Chennai.

So now I am back. Missed the blogs. Realized they unclutter my mind. This new phase of life has a routine to it. Routine and I never got along too well. The two years prior to this were spent in the most unruly manner. I don’t miss college as such..but yes.the omnipresent friends..the random plans at weird hours…the relentless pursuit of fun in many a strange ways. All that is sorely missed. I never let them know how much. Mush is not good for the image :). And since when has words been sufficient to convey anything!

Murphy’s law states that the best laid plans go awry. When you really wish for something, it falls short of what you asked for. Maybe it wasn’t Murphy…but some wise guy did come to this conclusion. Chennai was an exception. I wanted to come here (yes you read it right!). And the plan has played out to perfection. I am in the Tam’s City of Joy. I stay with some very dear friends. Its not a flat, but a home I come back to. The city has not shown a day of bad weather, ever since I’ve touched base. And that my friend, in Chennai, is nothing short of a miracle. A month and a half of good weather! So all is well. And yet, I took almost a month to adjust to everything. Definite signs of being hopelessly spoilt :).

Am slowly and surely finding my way around here. Some things worth a mention –

• Apparently here, there and where all sound like the same word in Tam. A friend did try to teach the intricacies involved – ‘inge’ is here and ‘enge’ is there. Actually I still don’t know which is which and I have decided to use them interchangeably till I put myself in a fix. Till then, its ‘inge stop’ for all the auto walas to ‘stop here’. 😀
• The Sun Direct (cable) customer care folks talk in Tamil even when one takes the option for English. So we end up having parallel conversations with both of us not making sense to each other. Conclusion is that cable recharge shall be done by anyone except me!
• ‘Teri ma’ apparently means ‘Do you know’. Now really man..up north these words are the who’s who of Hindi abuses. So I’ll take a while to smile and say ‘illa’ or whatever the word is for ‘no’ everytime someone asks ‘Tamil teri ma’ 🙂
• Thou shalt buy vegetables from the local vendor only when the requirement is of potato, onion and other common things which people understand in English. Saying you want bhindi won’t get you anywhere. Ofcourse, Reliance Fresh is my saviour most times.
• Our bai talks only in Tamil and loves to talk. Irrespective of the target audience. 😀 Its pretty much a game of DumbC with both sides losing desperately. Its quite hilarious because mostly I am an observing and highly entertained third party (Roomie gets to play 😛 )
• Every second Tam is called Srini. Every third one Bala. The frequency of these names is alarming to say the least. In one meeting, I had to address three Srinis. The communication gap was not my fault. 🙂
• If you want to watch a Hindi/English movie in the weekend, you must book latest by Wednesday evening. Beyond that, make other plans for weekend.

There are a whole lot of other things which are different here. Some funny..some foreign. But am guessing that a person from here thrown in Delhi could throw up an equally long list of eccentricities. So what the hell…we all deal with change..I shall too. So here’s a promise to post more often. Travel every month (this month Andaman on the cards 🙂 ). Like the life I live (love is too strong a word :P). Keep in touch with all that matters. Remain sane. Yet retain the insanity that defines me. More later!