An Overheard Conversation

Yesterday I happened to go to Chennai Airport and be in the arrival section for roughly around 3 hours. I saw an interesting thing in the airport. I will tell about that towards the end of this article. Now the matter is about an young married couple, especially about an interesting conversation of the girl with her parents when the Guy was away for a while. (Disci - This statement has no implication that the conversation of a Guy can never be interesting).

The guy is 27 years old and the girl should be around 25. The girl was slim, had a very fair complextion. I was waiting on the visitors side of the fence and they were on the passengers side of the fence. Her parents were standing next to me. The young couple first came to her parents. Her mom greeted her son-in-law "Vaanga Maapillai Sir". I could sense a line of sarcasam in her greeting. He smiled at both of them and then went away. I could see that he is going to his parents who stood a couple of foots away from her parents. Then the girl started her - mostly one-sided - conversation. Being a relatively new blogger, its tough for me to write the entire conversation here. So, I will write a few of them here:

"He wants me to be polite. How can I be polite? They want me to drop and pick up kid from the day care, visit super markets in the week-ends. And at the same time I they want me to be polite with him. His father says that no one used to argue with his son. In that case, they should not have got him married."

"His father says that they all are open and they openly discuss anything with everyone. I also told that in our family also we are open and discuss anything with everyone."

(So, here I understood that the fight is between the father-in-law and his daughter-in-law).
"He asked whether you have any idea to buy a house there (From now on she refers to her father-in-law, unless otherwise I specially mention). I told 'yes', that will be good and an investment. For this he said, 'thats ok', but that should not be a commitment to stay there itself and you should be ready to dispose it and come back. I want you to come back after a couple of years".
She added more and more and more. Some of replies given by her father and mother were:
"Yes, you should be like that only. We have not sold you to them. We have just got you married" - Her Father.
"Nanna Sonne di" - Her Mother.
And then suddenly her husband came and told "Ennama, polama...". She abruptly stopped her conversation and smiled at him and they went towards Emigration checking counter.
I know to that these days girls are very choosy in selecting the guy for marriage. In addition to that they want to be dominant also it seems.
- spgr.

An Announcement

This is to announce that I am going to write and post many interesting stuff in this blog. So keep watching.

Our Diwalis...

(Inspired by Shen's recent post, I was prompted to write this blog... So Shen, here is my version...)

The massive Diwali celebrations were when I was in my high school classes... But here I will go in a chronological order... I do not remember much what happened during Diwai when I was very young except that a few big boys from our neighbourhood used to come to our home and fire all the crackers in the name helping me in cracking them... I vaguely remember Appa also firing a few... During those days Diwali was nothing more than wearing a new dress...

Now coming to my massive Diwali celebrations... In those days it was not 'Diwali', but 'Deepavali', as thats how it is supposed to be pronounced in Tamil. I dont know how and when north-indian accented word 'Diwali' replaced 'Deepavali'. I got first encounters with the word 'Diwali' when I was in Coimbatore doing my UG. There everyone anticipated 'Diwali', everyone bought dresses for 'Diwali', eveyone wished each other for 'Diwali' and everyone went to their native for 'Diwali' and not for 'Deepavali'. Whoever prnounced it as 'Deepavali' was considered as one who hails from a remote village without buses, but with 'Naataamais-The Theerppu Tellers'.

So I also had to jump to the word 'Diwali' instantly as I come from a city, which is as big as Coimbatore. For Your Information, I am from Trichy.

Coming back to high school days Diwali again, Diwali starts months before its actual date. In January, when we buy the new calender for the year, the first thing we look into it is when Diwali is. We will start hearing ads in radio and TV which are signs of the nearing Diwali. The biggest event of Diwali is the 'Diwali Purchase'. Its not purchasing Diwali, but purchasing dresses and other required items for Diwali. We generally go for Diwali purchase before the Railway Bonus, this is because the town will not be much crowded before the Bonus.

We will start around 3:30 in the afternoon and reach the town and first parents used to take us to the ice-cream shop where we will have ice-creams. Appa and Amma invaribly will be having lime juice. Then we will get dresses for each of us, "Show us the lattest designs..", the words that mom utters to each of the salesman showing us the varitiess. In between me and appa will have tea in the shop near the Mangammal Chattiram. And Amma used to buy one vessel for every Diwali. Then finally we will have food in hotel and wait in the bus stop for returning. Once we reach home, we will sit forming a circle in the hall and spread all the items bouth in a mat and we will go through each and eveything of them.

Probably the next day or withing a few days one evening we all will go for a walk to the tailoring shop and giave the dresses for me and Appa for stitching. A week before the Diwali starts our sweets prepartions. It starts with Murukku. Appa will take the lead role, Amma doing most of the work on Appa's instructions and we three taking the support and testing roles.

Another important is the fire crackers. Appa will be bringing them while back from work. We will spread this on mat and will be viewing them for a while. Year by year the items in the pack kept decreasing. On the Diwali eve we used to go the sandy to make the last minute purchases.

Rest most Shen has covered... Catch you again the next post... You can read her post here


-SPGR.

Story 1 - The Begining

Finally I reach home after a heavy load of work at office. My wife and others were ready and having their dinner and they were with full of enthu about going to our native place after a long time. As soon as I entered home, my best half hurried me to get ready soon as only one hour is left for catching the train.
Understanding the situation, I also got ready soon, having a quick bath and quick dinner. We all set out carrying the lugguages, two each, came down the stairs and as usual we came to the main road and started waiting for getting an auto. Now 40 minutes are left for us to catch the train. It takes roughly about 20 minutes to reach the railway station.
Two empty autos fled past us, I just left them, since it is customary for me to leave an initial set of autos. The idea behind this is, if we get an auto immediately upon coming out of the home or out to the main road, the auto fellow will think that we are in a hurry and charge high rates. With this idea I left the first 2 autos. At this point my wife threw a different look at me, for which I normally used to pretend as if nothing happened.
A third empty auto also fled by. Now I am waiting for an auto which will come near us and ask whether we need an auto. The logic behind this is that, an auto without any business for a long time will be in search of business and naturally we can negotiate for a resonable(if possible for a lower) amount.
Yes it happened, and an auto came near us and its driver looked at me keenly. I was happy at the way he looked me, since it showed that he had rightly identified that I am the responsible person who can take my family safely to our destination.
I started the negotiation process
"We need to go to Egmore railway station, four of us"
"Ok Sir" came his reply.
"How much"
"Fifty rupees Sir"
"We normally give forty only. We regularly travel in this route"
"Normally it is forty, but you are four people. Only three people are allowed to travel in auto at a time and if caught by those traffice police, I will be in trouble."
"You auto men always come up with some stories. Once even five of us have travelled to Egmore at this time for forty"
"Forty-five Sir"
"No only forty".
At this point my wife whisperd into my ears "Its ok. we shall take this auto. Its getting late and only 30 minutes are left".
I was not ready to compromise on my offer of forty rupees. Its high time that I need to learn the negotiation skills. This experiences will also help in my work to negotiate for promotions.
So, I told her "Wait, forty is the correct amount. This man is greedy. He wants to earn a lot in a few trips. Anyway all these money will be going to the TASMAC only".
"Only forty. If not, we will another auto" I told him.
He just left the place murmuring something. I was shocked. Because even I was ready to pay forty-five if he didnt agree this time, as it was getting late.
My wife and this time my mother too threw their different look at me. My father was just watching all these happenings, as he normally doesnt put himself into any trouble.
Luckily another auto came.
Again I started repeating the process.
"How much to Egmore".
"Sixty Sir"
"What??? Sixty??? Upto Egmore only".
"Yes Sir. Now it is night time rate. Ten rupees extra."
At this point my wife interupted and whispered into my ears that "Its better that we take up this auto or we are going to miss the train".
I turned around to see the reaction from my parents. I found my father missing from the scene. My mother was eager to get into the auto. This can be attributed to her eagerness to go to her native place.
Anyway I was not ready for this amount.
I tried to negotiate with the auto fellow, at which point my wife was screaming "Appa got a taxi. Since only twenty minutes are left, we can go faster in this and get the train. Come on, get in". I saw my mother already seated comfortably in the taxi and my father was just holding its door open for me to enter.
I was not ready for that. Taxi will be too costly than an auto and now I am ready to pay sixty for this auto. But still I had in mind that I can talk to this auto man and bring it down to fifty atleast. So, I asked my family to come out of the taxi and come here.
Since my family knew about me, they partly hesitated, but I insisted.
Suddenly I heard something from my wife, totally unrelated to this situation -
"Ennanga(roughly translates to 'Dear' in English), its already six-thirty. Get up you need to get ready and catch the 7:20 bus to reach office on time".
Oh no... Even I couldnt find out whether we went by auto or taxi and how much we paid for it and whether we caught the train. She could have allowed me to sleep atleast for ten minutes more. But I cant ask this to her and I was happy that atleast in my dreams I was able to take decisions on my own.

My training days - 1

After a long time I am back here with an idea to describing some interesing happenings that happened when I trained to become an AS Engineer (nothing great, just a computer programmer) at Trivandrum.

I started from Trichy by Trinvandrum Express in the afternoon in the first week of September 2003. The same day I reached Trivandrum around 1:30 in the mid-night. On the way train passed through several cities of Tamil Nadu that I have not visited before. Some of them were Tirunelveli, Nagerkoil, Thakkalai. Out of these Nagerkoil attracted my special attention, may be because of the huge fans that generated electricity through wind energy.

On reaching trivandrum railway station, took rest in the waiting hall and early in the morning, went outside the station. One auto driver, a pakka chetan with a beard approached me and asked me where I have to go. I told that I need to go to "Aruvi Hotel". He replied "aruvio", which made me understood that he is quite familiar in taking trainees from station to that hotel, where the company has arranged our stay. On getting down the meter in the auto showed "7", and I asked how much. He told, it shows the kilometers travelled for each kilometer its 7, so I have to pay him Rs. 49. I was a bit doubtful, but since I was new I just paid that amount. Later I came to know that the distance is walkable and we need to pay only the minimum amount which is "7". Long live that chetan. This incident also created a sort of fear about the city in me.



But as things progressed found that Trivandrum is indeed a very good place stuffed with nice people around. The city also had some strange characteristics. I will write about them in my later posts. A few years down, I became closely tied with a famous city near Trivandrum, but this city is in Tamil Nadu about 47 kilometers from Trivandrum. But I may not get chance to write about how I came to be related with that city, as I may not get permission from the authorities(it is actually authority, but have to use plural here, due to the massive power the authority posseses :-) ...).
see you all back soon (as if lot of people are browsing my blogspot all the time)... so i will change it, see me back soon (now its apt)...
- spgr