Nostalgia – A jolly good subject!!!!
Let me try. I have told this story at least twenty five times to my wife (and she still tolerates me).
I was five years old, in my Senior Nursery Class (UKG). We were residing at ICF Furnishing Colony, later known as ICF West Colony. An aayaah took me to school and dropped me back home. We were around ten children or so, swarming around the not-so-kind aayaah. One of the kids happened to be our good ‘ol MP Sudha (she was in A Section – I was in B, perhaps!). Since Sudha’s home was further west of mine, she would be picked-up first (along with a few other kids) and I would be the last one to tag along.
It was half-yearly exam time and as I stepped out of my home to join the aayaah and her coterie of students, my mother quickly came out and handed me something that I had apparently forgotten. It was the traditional cotton yellow bag (manjal-pie), with the accessories necessary for a kid to write an exam.
As soon as Sudha saw the bag, she went bonkers. Right in front of my house she started crying loudly at the aayaah. The aayaah enquired what the matter was. Sudha, still crying, said, “Aayaah, paadu; aayaah paadu.” (paadu means sing in Tamizh).
Aayyaah got stunned at this sudden and strange request and this child wouldn’t simply relent. “enna kannu idhu. ippadi nadu rottla ninnu paada sollariye.” (“What my dear, asking me to sing right in the middle of the road.”)
Sudha was now becoming uncontrollable, “aayaah paadu; aayaah paadu…”
The aayaah was forced to relent at last, “ada ennadi rock amma pallakku nedippu, en nenju kulungudhadee… siru kannaadi mookuthi maanikka sivappu, machhaana izhukkudhadeee…” and so on.
Sudha got furious, “song illa aayaah… paadu, paadu…”
My father had to step-out and clarify. Sudha had forgotten her examination writing pad and was wailing, “Pad… Pad…” The aayaah thought she has made a sudden fan for herself in Sudha and reluctantly obliged with, “ennadi rock amma..”
Still fresh in my memory!!!
Cheers!
-Sathya
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