I was yawning through my day yesterday. Feeling rather bored and brain dead. Nothing exciting was happening. Even salary had not got credited. Hmmm…
Suddenly, post noon, I get a call from an unknown number. I was wondering whether to pick up or not. I decided why not…
“Hey you nut case!” barked a familiar voice. My heart leaped – just like Wordsworth’s did when he beheld a rainbow in the sky!
“Sudha! You creep! Why are you calling from an unknown Chennai number? Are you in town?” I screamed in excitement. Attracting the eyeballs of all in the office. I think I was also grinning from ear to ear.
“Yup I’m in town, but only for the day, I’m heading back tonight itself. So drop everything and come, let’s meet up!” She ordered.
That is precisely what I did. I ran off from work and rushed to our pre-decided destination. Sudha is my pal from Gurgaon days. A Tamilian from Chennai, now well settled amidst the high rises of the gaon that desperately wants to be a city! She was visiting Chennai after perhaps 5 years and was excited as a kid in a candy store.
She was there on the street corner waiting for me and when she saw me she broke into a grin. “So hot!” she said happily, mopping sweat off her face. I was like - obviously, you fool, you want to walk around a crowded bazaar in the middle of a summer afternoon what else do you expect. Why can’t we meet up in a restaurant?
She: “Oh shut up you ugly Chennai cow!”
Me: “You deserve it you dirty Delhi buffalo!”
We hugged and exchanged more such pleasantries in full view of the street vendors who dropped all else and gaped at us.
Then off we went on a window shopping spree. No not at the shops – but at all the street vendors. From plastic toys, to fancy roadside lingerie, from glittering bangles, to fancy footwear, from safety pins to Dora stickers…we looked at them all with the enthusiasm of school girls. The fancy lingerie in particular attracted raucous laughter and comments from us …er but I cannot put them down here for fear of the censor board!
About an hour later – with a bag full of useless trinkets…we tumbled into a dingy little hotel. My friend insisted on eating at a ‘typical’ hotel. She did not want a fancy, air conditioned place. Humph!So we went into some nondescript place – something like a Geetha Café or Shanti Coffee Home or some such place. Can’t even remember the name.
It had blue walls that had gone black from years of soot. The ceiling was high, three ceiling fans were churning and bravely trying to cool the place. But of course to no avail. Anyways we settled into a rickety wooden chair and waited for someone to wait upon us. Presently a waiter did turn up and scratch his head. We asked for a menu card. Apparently there was none. He demanded to know what we wanted to eat. So we asked him what’s there. He took a deep breath and rattled off at the speed of light, in a sing song voice“Idli, dosa, masala dosa, mysore masal dosa, ghee roast, chutney roast, idi appam, appam, upma, pongal, molagai bajji, vayakka bajji, urulai bajji, urulai bonda, masala vadai, medhu vadai…da da la la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo … and on he went. We lost track of what he was saying after a point. He was not even looking at us. He was looking outside, at other customers, scratching various unnamable parts of his anatomy – and we were following his hand movements with fascination. Minutes later we realized the music had stopped. He had finished rattling his list and was looking at us expectantly. We exchanged glances and burst out laughing. It was that free, unrestrained laughter – and it lasted for nearly five minutes I think! The guy was looking at us perplexed like we had escaped from a mental asylum. Finally, with tears of joy streaming down our face we asked him to repeat the list. We wanted an encore! So the perplexed man again took a deep breath and went ahead at the speed of light “idli, dosai, da da la la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo da da la la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo la da la dee doo da la dee dee doo ddooo …”. And we laughed all over again! We were just short of falling off our chair and rolling on the floor.
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