Thursday, August 16, 2012

At Madras!

I simply can't come to playing the game that many seem to be doing - call cities, roads etc with names that have the local flavour. While I agree with the fact that the local cultural ethos may be brought to bear on nomenclatures there should be pragmatism and the tendency to go overboard, should at best, be avoided.

Anyways, I shall retain the older names as I'm familiar with them and I only hope that some rabid guys don't join issue with me.

I landed up at Madras on work, half an hour later than the scheduled time of arrival. It was a smooth flight but I'd another glimpse of human behaviour in the aircraft, which I shall narrate. The couple sitting in front of me were off to the Thirupati temple gathered from their conversational pieces which were at a higher decibel level than normal - they're a foursome, actually. The lady was ungodly sick - thanks to the samosa she'd eaten at the departure lounge - according to her husband. Sometime, during the flight, she'd dropped her hair clip and was requesting through the gestures of her hand - through the gaps in her chair's backrest - to retrieve it for her! It was rather strange, for, had I been in her place I'd have got up and made the request formally. Anyways, chivalry runs deep and the clip was retrieved without ado.

My 'saarthi' was Ilamparuthi - meaning, the early morning sun, in Tamil - a smiling, positive, young man. He's currently doing his BEd but he's ambitions to start a travel agency, owning a fleet of vehicles. He's 28 and the second of three children to his parents - his father is the head teacher of a middle school. To a specific question as to when he was contemplating marriage and as to whether he was in love, he says that these have never been contemplated as his father was strict and that he doesn't stand such 'nonsense'!

I was pleasantly surprised to see a youngster of his generation being mortally scared of his dad. But it's a fear that flows out of his respect for the old man. May god bless you in your endeavours, young man!

And Ilamparuthi is gonna be my company for the next couple of days. 


Tailpiece.

The Madras traffic is as mad as ever, with roads reduced in width thanks to the metro coming up!

No comments:

Post a Comment