Outpressions

  The minute you read this title, you may ask why "Varalakshmi Vivaham", why not "Varalakshmi  Marriage" or " Varalakshmi Vibogam" or something? Well! I just wanted the title to sound rhythmic with an alliteration introduced, the first choice failed this prospect while the second one sounded too grand for this story. Would you like to get introduced to Parashuram? If you wonder what he is. I usually don't give heroic introductions to people getting married if you would expect any, because they already have enough attention as soon as they get engaged as if they are the first of their kind in their breed to take this audacious attempt of getting married!  To make it simple he is the   groom. Parasuram was one from the surging population who went on to do MS in US and soon found work settling there after obtaining the prestigious green card and was entitled with a grand title of  honor “The NRI Mapillai”. Parasuram has flown back to India to get m...

It has not been a day since we moved to our new house, I noticed him strolling aimlessly around gasping my attention. Though I noticed his presence, I acted as though I didn't care about him a inch. He looked at me surprisingly ,probably noting that I was new there.He came near me took a look , smelled me and carried on without a word. I hoped he would initiate a conversation at least if not a welcome , I expected a "hi, hello" or something like that. Within seconds he vanished after a cold look. I don't know his name, I know I wouldn't get any reply from him either. There were no one around to ask his name either. He wasn't handsome or groomed well. But was charming for his kind. Hence I nicknamed him whitey. Each time from our first direct encounter, he grabbed my attention when I took a casual glance from my balcony veranda. Soon I discovered many in my neighborhood allured him and maintained good relationships with him by providing food. Some feared f...

"It was not Velu's fault to have not told us about his past " told Sindhu aunty to my mother.  " Of course it is not something that he could gloat or brag over" she continued.  My mother stood on our doorstep nodding off her head to emphasize that she paid heed to the slant news brought up by Sindhu aunty this morning. My mother considers it morbid to interfere or encourage gossips of any such kind. She never encouraged any judgemental speculation about anyone especially the ones that have passed many ears and retold many times by many curious creatures.  Though my mother was apathetic about such issues, Sindhu aunty and Vijaya seemed to be resolute about it and went on interminating and chatting incessantly. I too, never was so inquisitive about the gossip, whenever such people occupied the pyrol I went into the bedroom and continued with my business or whenever I dint have one I acted as if I was busily indulging with some household chore. When Vija...

It so happened that once it was Raju's destiny to have lived in a house in a community living  owned by his father Ramamurthy. He had been living under the same room ever since the initial days of his recollection would date back to. Every morning Kamala would wake Raju up, he would refresh himself with a boost or bournvita post which he would be insisted to take a quick bath with the warm water his father has steamed it for him at the temperature suitable to a kid's body. Every after this epic burden of events of his daily chores , Raju would come out of the washroom  with the towel wrapped around his waist  ready to take up the position under the running fan drying his wet body. This was the favourite moment of his life which would make him forget  certain situations like the worst  encounter with his teachers, getting punished for not doing the homework and getting  duck out in cricket   which he considered as the biggest problems and tragedy of h...

When the news about the re-telecast of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata reached the Ranga's ears, Ranga could not help but recollect the memories of past when the epics were first telecast in Doordarshan as serials. The promotions and marketing of the serial was unimaginably magnificent for the financial sector those days. Big banners and cutouts  were installed near the town theaters for the promotion. No other serial received such a splendid welcome in those days.There was a lot of expectations for the serial to begin.The buzz around Ranga's friends group was nothing less, they too were eagerly awaiting for the serial to begin , deciding on whose house they need to turn up to watch the mega serial.  Those days owning television was a dream come true, not every household could afford it. The story of it was not some thing new, he had heard it numerous times from the discourse when his grand mother(paati) forcefully compelled him to accompany her for Katha Kalakshebams. ...

The other security who played a crucial role in the process of  uninterrupted contemplation was Krishnan the watchman. Although Krinshnan was not a direct acquaintance to me, he was popularly well known figure with in the streets of  Perumal kovil in Madaveethi. Most of the encounters with him have been from the recollections of memories in past by few of my family members. Krisnan unlike the stories of other watchman is the security guard of  Perumal temple in our town.It was the time in mid 1960's that the word of security guard were looked up as an luxury affordable only for people holding higher government positions, like MLA,MPs , ministers etc. Neither was employing a security guard was affordable, nor anyone found it necessarily worthy of employing them as most of them opting to sleep outside the house in varanda. Moreover flat system and apartments were far from reality. Every household owned an independent house or rented one or were staying in an rented ho...

It was a warm Tuesday evening when i could hear old Tamil movie songs been played at a near-end of our apartment balcony which caught my notice suddenly while i finished washing my tumbler after a fine tea. I turned around to look where the music originated from. It was from Kandan's mobile phone. Kandan is a middle aged watchman of  another flat right adjacent to us. I could see him happily watching youtube  with a loud sound.Every morning Kandan would meticulously open the door for the people in that colony and ecstatically bestow his salute to selected portion of people who were either owners, or those who owned big cars.Those who hold positions like president/ treasurer of that colony also received his gleeful salute. He closed  the gates of the tall standing luxurious apartment which he was responsible to guard. Any one, even if he were the president of any country , would be stopped by gate, asked about the whereabouts and where he is leading to, what his intentio...

EVERYDAY ROUTINE: The mornings in Chennai was unusually beautiful. The pleasant and quite atmosphere allowed me to sip my ginger tea with peace in my house varandah. I glanced at my father, to what he was up-to. He had his own way of enjoying his morning routine by nosing inside the newspaper sipping his daily ginger tea which my mother made every day without fail. I had revisited my home after a brief stay in Bangalore because of work. I could see Mrs. Minnal down in the car parking taking her daily walk. She was called Minnal by everyone, after Eshwari Aunty coined her that name due to her lightning speed walk which she took on daily mornings and afternoons. Our building was neither so tall nor too big. It was built on one ground with which 18 families shared car parking and gym.Footpaths were made around the car parking to let everyone walk. While everyone would take 1-2 minutes to complete their one round of walking, Minnal would complete it in 30-40 seconds. While we  we...

Women's day have been a very hyped event in corporate world. The buzz would be mostly because of lesser females among the existing work environment."Sex ratio" as you would term it in social studies is not equal as expected. So there was a buzz about the things that's got to happen on the day of women's day. This is not actually the first corporate outing I was ever invited for. But this was the first I decided to attend. There were a couple of momentary events which required my presence like someone got married and was eagerly throwing a lunch party to celebrate the fate of life. I smartly escaped from couple of those lunch parties that were thrown before. Probably , to be honest, I was mostly unnoticed when I went missing for those occasion, as I was a new joiner, fresher. My team was very self -satisfied team to accept any sudden outside member whole heartedly. I did feel a little bad for not including me or taking notice of me, but gradually adapted with t...

It is not the usual scenario in the households of southern Chennai region to have vociferous discussion on a topic. The voices were too loud that it penetrated the neighborhood houses, deafening all the others in the street. One high pitched voice especially was ear-splitting. Everyone from opposite flats peeped out through their windows out of curiosity. Rather me out of embracement shut tight those old wooden windows and sealed them. It was anyways futile, but I was a little Panglossian those days to accept the harsh reality. I couldn’t believe the fact that, a sudden arrival of a confused clamorous family would stir a curiosity in the whole neighborhood. Being in nearest proximity I was technically the most affected of the serendipity. “Baaalaaaaa! Baala!” shouted Kamala…. She was wearing a long nighty kind or a night gown. She panted heavily, with a panicked expression came running down, her dress was dangling very similar to how a tent would dangle in a forceful wind. Well is it...

It is been a tradition that all of us in our high school need to perform a skit for our language assessment. The best play would participate in intraschool competition. Our Tamil class had always been very perticular about staging a play for the assessment and narrowed it down by giving it a topic “kapyams and idhihasams”. There are 2 Idhihasams( Ramayana & Mahabharatham) and 5 kapiyams in Tamil. Quickly there were 3 groups which was formed out of nowhere and choose Ramayana, manimegalai,and valayabathi. Only sevaga sindamani , silapadigaram and  kundalakesi were left in the topic of kapiyams which we had no clue about the storyline to make it a script and stage a play. Mahabharata play on the other hand had too many characters to be staged which could not make a justice with just 7 of us remaining. Hence for our Tamil skit, remaining group of girls left out , finalised to stage silapadugaram.  Silapadigaram tells about the protoganist merchant named Kovalan w...

I never know why, monkeys are the most spotabble species wherever I go. The reason might  be that they mingle well with the human ecosystem and many a times spotted so often that they blend in with human species so well that sometimes it would be tough to differentiate the behaviour between certain Human species  and monkeys. After All they say apes are our ancestors.   An encounter with monkeys are peculiar as they would pop up from nowhere and take you by surprise.Spotting  monkeys are quite common near my college. But we weren't quite familiar with that while we were freshers. Once it so happened that one of our senior went to fetch washing soap from her room leaving behind the tap and cloths to wash at the restroom. Before she would continue her dhobi job, mr. Monkey gave an entrance to drink the water from the tap open . Mr monkey had a taste of  green piece of soap near. With the disagreement in taste Mr. Monkey threw the soap with dejection direc...

It was a 5:00 am train to Vellore that day. I had only known the previous night that I had to head towards Vellore for an official meeting. My father manged to book a train ticket and boarded me in Central. Meanwhile amidst the hurry to board the train we surprised a couple from another compartment enquiring about our seats being occupied. After finding my seat in another compartment I waved at my father, thinking about "why should a couple board to Vellore for a honeymoon? wouldn't  they have a better place on earth? or may be they are heading back to their home town after honeymoon".But neither Chennai is a  better choice.Concluding my speculation I turned out to find another interesting family beside. A couple with two children nearly about 4 to 5 years old. The younger one creating a scene to gain her mothers attention, while the elder was trying to distract the younger one. The father was trying hard to fall asleep amidst the tantrums. The chip munks,  did their be...

Being brought up in an urban city , it is nearly impossible to have any sort of wildlife encounter. It is mostly  dogs, cats, crows, pigeons, sometimes cows and buffaloes are the only species that we were in contact with. In Chennai, though places like Guindy park, Vandaloor zoo, IIT-M promise you of a fabulous encounter with the kingdom of Animalia, it is quite difficult to encounter a monkey outside these places as evolved species(of monkeys) are quite dense. Perhaps the later evolved species(the humans) are rather too busy to notice it. My first encounter with this interesting animal was when I was an year old. It was when we went to Solingar hill to have my hair shaved. As a kid, it was so confusing to differentiate between a saloon and temples, as most of the time I was taken to temple with long oiled hair, and return back shaved. My Paati had preyed to the Lord, that she would shave my hair in five different temples and Solingar temple on the hill top was my first(encount...