Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Margarita Maamiyum and Lemonade Drinkerum

Ithula irukara character neeya iruntha naan porupalla...

Munurai :

I never knew my blogging would cause so much of cosmic collisions. Enga Oorukum , pakathu oorukum aruva vettu kadhai maari , nethu nadantha phonuraiaadalla neraya peru vailla vilundhenu enoda thambi phone panni sonnan. So got a bit worried. Adhanala Mr H kita keten. He said "kedakaraanga avanga, nee yeludhu apdinu sollitaar". Idhu Idhu..idhaithaan yethir paathen enpathu pola egiri kuthitu "odiyaanthu" (if u dont know what "odiyaanthu" means you should not be reading this in the first place) blogayanatha continue panren. "Valga... "Yen purushan Mr H".

Porulurai:

Coming to the nadu centre-karuthu, I always wanted to know what drinking had to do with being in a foreign country. My experience with alchohol has been next to nothing. In order to spice it up , lets assume my above statement is false.

Intha incident nadanthu oru 11 varsham irukum nu nenaikiren. My first experience with booze started. Infact it was a forgettable one. In our so called INDUSTRIAL VISIT (there is nothing industrial about it except if you want to call "thallu vandi varukadalai" a business), we girls , who were not the elite figures of our class , were given a beer mixed in coke bottles. Adha kudichu vaandhi kooda varla. If I had thrown up I would have thought that it to be a memorable experience. I think the dose of beer was relatively weak and by the way, elite girls got strong doses. My fellow class mate, the poruki pasanga must have had this wildest dream that elite girls were going to strip for them after their drunken escapades. In reality, all that happened was that they were made to carry buckets (which I thought was equivalent to the "sombu" that the elite girls gave after college) in nilagiri express to make their "sombu" girl friend's life easier by reducing the frequency of visits to the SMELLY Indian railway restrooms. I remember one of the guys, a fair boy was so remorseful (yeah yeah...) of this whole incident, he decided to sit with one of the elite girls, thro out the trip, much to her liking ( or may be his liking). Our gang of "sadhu" girls decided to skip I.Vs from then on , not becos of such behavior, but becos of lack of attention on us.

In 2007, when I was in India, I decided to visit my college. I happened to meet one of my distant cousin, in my college. He was elated to see me (he used take over text books from my brother, who had has inherited in a much pathetic state from my cousin Mr B) so I decided to drive him back home instead of his college bus. In a laid back conversation he threw the ultimate "BOMB". It seems a lot of his class girls are into drinking. I was so intrigued by this conversation that I ended up spending a couple of hours with him talking about this. He said the girls now even have brand liking. Lot of girls prefer Bacardi Rum and Smirnoff Vodka. He didnot know when they developed this habit but he says it didnot start in college. SO MUCH FOR MY SCHOOLING DAYS !!!! He went so far as saying one of the girl is a regular smoker. Ipo thaan enaku purinchathu why our kind fair much better in exam results. Romba charge yethitu vandhu exam eludhurangappaaa..... Naan kooda may be 85% vangi irupenno ennavo...Yaaru kandaa

So I decided to do my Ph.D in boozing habits of Desi Girls. I have a friend who lives in the same complex. She lives with a couple of desi girls (who remind me of my class elite figures) . So i casually asked her if she drinks. She said not really, may be casually. I was so relieved. I THOT I DIDNT MISS TOO MUCH. DESI GIRL PRIDE WAS SO INTACT.

But happiness was short lived. She told me in couple of weeks that they carry beer in their refrigerator. It so happens casual drinking means drinking a couple of days every week. Udambu yella pathikitu vanthichu...so Mr H kita poi romba polambinen. He , as usual, so what nu kettaar ? Enna manushanayaa neer !!!

Then I thought I was polling the wrong crowd. After all, these girls did their MS here, so I decided to change my test subjects. Who better than friends of Mr. H and their spouses ? After two weeks was the grand finale. We went to one of his colleagues home. It was a navarathiri party. I am a great fan of navarathiri, for I love GOLU. Mrs. P (friend's spouse) had setup this real nice golu , 5 small padis and lot of kutti kutti bommaigal. There were a few of her friends , who I know, not much though. They all sang , some typical BRAMINISH SONGS with their "NOT-SO M.S" voices , "WWF like thigh slapping" and "half closed eyes" (which for some reason made me think they were high on cocaine) . I was like the thalayati bommai except I was staring sometimes. It was a lot of fun. She prepared a grand feast for everyone. There came the 10000-wala of the feast, six pack "Bud Light". Almost all the high-cocaine women, jumped and grabbed a bud light. YENNA ULAGAMADAA SAAMY !!!! Apo thaan I felt "Naan Romba Backward". Therinju thaan yenna "Backward Class" nu vechirukaanga, Indian goverment. I would have been even happier if I had SC/ST. I was shocked. To my agony , Mr H made a statement, Mrs P yennaa style aaa, dhum adichaa paathiya ??? Now I was fuming. Kadhu , Mooku yella pakamum pugai. Sundal added for it too. Those ladies were the TRUE MARGARITA MAAMIs.

I said may be we should try and see what is in that. Yennoda kovatha purinja Mr. H, next day took me to Olive Garden. Joining us was my cousin Ms S. He told me "May be we should just taste something less strong. He never drinks too. So he had no Idea. So we asked the waitress, (her name was Sarah), to bring us mild saraku, a cocktail, which she suggested. Mr H was so afraid he would get a ticket for drunk driving. When he asked if the cocktail was under driving limits, she almost went ballistic with her laugh. She said "you have drink 100s of them". Maaname pochu. Finally I tried it. My cousin tried it. Mr H tried it. Nothing, NO SURU .
I did not like it one bit. My cousin kept saying "itha vida konjam strong aa try panni irukalaam". Now I have this slight doubt if my cousin is a tiger under sheep's clothing. Time will tell if she is!!!

I was so upset that Desi culture was being lost at frantic pace. Ennavo Po nu vituten. Last week Diwali dinner ku Mr H boss veetuku ponom. A nice tamilian who owns Mr H's company. He has been here for last 26 years. Romba nalla cook. He made some nice Shrimp-Biriyani,Chicken gravy and some Aval-Payasam. It was just a few people who were important to him, one of them was Mr P and Mrs P. My whole image of her was now that of a coke addict-carnatic-drunkard. I thought to myself, my god, another round of BUD LIGHT.

Here comes the twist, Mr. H boss, served everyone home made lemonade. I , for once, was thrilled. I made up my mind (much to Mr H's dislike) asked his boss, "Sir Neenga Drink Pannuveengala ???".

He says.......... "No Way. No one in our family drinks. My wife (who is a Dr ) inspite of her social engagements, doesnot drink. We vomitted once when we were made to taste wine in NAPA valley"

AHAAA.... Yenna answer. I had won my moral victory. Clean knock out.

Then I realised Desi pride is not kept intact by these so called "STYLISH MARGARITA MAAMIs" who have been here for just a few years but by the true indians who have been here for much longer and live life on their own terms & principles. I think Iam one of them and Iam proud of it.

VAALGA NEE YEMAAN VAIYATHU NATIL YELLAAAM !!!

Mudivurai:

So here is the score line:

LEMONADE "NON-KUDIKARI" MANDU - 1
MARGARITA "KUDIKARI" MAAMI - 0

Peace

Blogapiranthaval






1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What a drowsy post.......nice narration...

Be a Roman when u r in rome is not compulsary may be ;)

A true incident i want to narrate which was abt Indira Gandhi's...When she went to a conference in a foreign country...she din forget the indian culture of saying vanakam[namasthe] instead of handshake n she decently refused the liqour which was served for her...

might be this post will inspire me to throw some light on our stupid borrowed behaviours which r not healthy...both for mind,body n society...hats off...