Watha ummaley !!!!!

Hazy smoke all around , horns blaring , a vaguely visible red light ( god knows why the red lights followed by an area always refers to a that...) Anyway the red light here has no connection to that. With motors of each and every company competing with each other as to who coughs out loud, the array of vehicles stood along the stop line resembling a bunch of runners all set to go.The share autos who teach us the art of utilizing space be it inside or outside autos , the buses with every alternate one sitting near the window propelling a jet of paan and maneuvering it so that the trajectory just about misses your face , the quintessential chennai cycle wallahs devoid of all traffic rules and intended to provide training to every biker in applying the long forgotten art of applying brakes , the Yama's service providers -the water tankers , tha auto guys ( the ones who would insert a rod into your ass and come to fight with you saying your hole is not compatible so you got to pay him extra) ,the guys who forget that a two wheeler is not a three star hotel room and indulge in their wildest of fantasies with an equally cooperative girlfriend , add to it the smoke coming out from the stomachs of the not so lucky ones , who are of course alone in their bikes introspecting as to how come they were devoid of all these ...And as the law book says the guy who is having a ball of a time looks so bad that even u could pass of as a Brad Pitt in comparison , whereas the gal is a stunner ,...the rules never change ...and so do the ever increasing population of
"I don't have a figure " guys ...

Well its all nearly done with the entire traffic system of Chennai in front of you ...Oops Ialmost forget , the dada of Chennai traffic , MR MAMA as they are fondly called ,the traffic policemen , with the most sophisticated gadgets or as they make it make it out to be , right across every signals and the most peaceful roads where you were just about testing the maximum speed your bike can go , abracadabra , there appears our very own mama , from where ??? how??? when??? are the questions for which I could never find answers ...but somehow they are there, followed with rs 50 to rs 500 automatically moving from your pocket to mama's pocket depending on your acting skills and the your capability to evoke emotions( the story might range anything from a sick mother's medical charges to an about to be late tuition class )...amidst all this commotion stood a blue unicorn .

Why a blue unicorn all of a sudden ...Absolutely no suspense , that's my bike and I have got to keep the story moving. I was in my unicorn having a gala time with ' obviously you know who is sitting behind' ...dont remember what we were talking about and thank god I don't ... coz I am sure and I truly believe in statutory warning " listening to other couples talk even for a few seconds might be extremely injurious to your ears and mental health...". dont know why even the most boring of topics if at all you have one seem to interesting when you are in love ...( well honestly there are hardly times when you really have a topic , leave classifying it as boring or interesting )

And just about when I get a little bit closer to the one sitting behind , the light goes green ....Vroommmmmm ...there is a great uproar and with and every vehicle competing for its own space the journey begins ...

"Otha ummale , veetula sollitu vanthutiya "the auto wallah shouted to a cycle wallah .I Hate to translate it ." otha ummale , have you already informed at your place " ....lol...few things lose their charm when translated. Well it typically means have you decided to die in an accident .Anyways in case you were wondering why I didnt translate "oatha ummale " .Dont worry you will get the answer soon ...

And hold , you have got company , Its not just you who has got this doubt , the brilliant person sitting behind me also had the same doubt .

she: "arun ,what did he say"

me : "nothing di...just like that .. anyway at what time is our show ??

she : "Who cares,but you better tell me what he said and what it
means" .

I thought watha ummale entha ponnungale eppadithaan ...

me : "Otha ummale " ..

she : "What???"

me : "Otha ummale ...O..T..H...A....... U..M..M..A..L..L..E ....GOT IT ???"....

she : "Atha ammale "

me : nope its not atha ammale ...OTHA ...O AS IN OASIS AND THA AS IN PASTHA ..and followed by ummale and not ammale like UM AS IN GUM AND ALLEY AS IN ALLEY ..now try..

she : watha ummale ( trying to get an english accent to it ...Why are we so obsessed with the slang...at least leave these feel good tamil words alone ...)

me : not bad...but try getting the slang out of it

she : waatha...cha ..wootha ...nope ...otha ummaleyyyyyyyyyyy...hurray I got it

me : perfect...great now that you have pronounced it right I guess its time you start using...

and before I could really complete the sentence an auto wallah took a sudden left leaving me ramming my brakes just to miss the auto by a few inches ...

"OTHA UMMALEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY" , I HEARD SOMEONE SHOUT ....

Well , it didn't come from the auto driver ....Yup , it was the voice of a girl and it came right from behind me ...the student had perfected the art...

"Adi paavi" , I shouted

Before the auto driver could come out from the shock ( well , it was not just the auto driver alone ,add to it the entire crowd waiting for the bus ,the curious onlookers from inside the auto who were peeping their heads out to see who the contemporary revolutionary was , the shell shocked adjacent bikers, and of course ME ...) and start of with his string of venom , I just raised my throttle to its maximum ,thanking Honda motors for the pick up...vrooom I raced....5 minutes later there we were laughing our hearts out in some unknown road at some unknown place in the city with just a lonely laundry wallah at the corner to give us company...What an experience

Well , what fun it was...We just couldn't stop laughing ... to put it in a better way watha ummale what fun we were having....those were the days when there was no work pressure , no mba dreams , no deadlines , no gds , no p.i 's , no recession ( probably I would not even have bothered knowing what it was then ) ...those were the days when I had no money but still lots of fun , life 's only worry was where to go out the next day. How I wish i could get those days back

Sorry i just got carried away....the giggles continued and lost amidst them were all worries about the world , the impending semester exams , guys hitting on my gal , worries about what if her parents were to say "EVA ,NAMMA AVA ELLAI" , and the scary option of getting caught by the MAMA as I could see my speedometer needle wavering across the 100 mark....

I think 10 minutes was too long a time for her brains to have stop working , and as my fate would have it , her brains again started working and the inevitable question had come
"What is OTHA UMMALLEY ??????????????????????"

(To be continued )
(http://coffee-with-life.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-was-ten-minutes-to-12.html )