We start our story on a really bright sunny day. Five boys Qasim, Esakiraja(in short "Esaki"), Jaikishan(Jaiki), Sabapathy(in short "Saba") and Rafiq start to school in the morning. They were a gang of five, aged around 10-11 and obviously the most gifted ones in the class filling the last bench. They always roam together and if not all of them you can spot most of these boys together. The story is set in the most happening place in Chennai - T.Nagar and luckily the School had a play ground. It cant be termed "Awesome" but it was good enough for a play ground. 5th hr every day was P.T. hr and these boys just love this time. They always form a huge group of boys and play "hand cricket". This is a version of cricket where you use your fist instead of the bat. This is bcoz schools generally dont provide bats to save all the glasses within the school compound and also the residential houses surrounding it.
So coming to our guys, two captains select the teams and finally Jaiki, Esaki, Rafiq end up in one team and Saba, Qasim end up in the other. Qasim is a pro in batting and he opens the batting for his team. The game goes normally and everyone is engaged until the moment when Qasim lifts a ball for six in the square leg direction. It ends up in the terrace above the biology lab and the ball can be considered lost as there is no way you can get to the terrace. But still some guys start in pursuit of the ball hoping it might have fallen the other side or the ever-irritated watchman gives them the keys to the terrace. Since Qasim is the one who hit the ball it is customary that he be a part of the team that goes out to search for the ball. This is a kind of "Endha naaye ball adichudho andha naayae poi eduthuttu vara sollu". So a team of four boys go to get the ball meanwhile the others catch a place under the trees to sit down and wait. Some quench their thirst with normal water(in transparent bottles) and some drink cold water (in Cool Kegs). Bringing a Cool Keg to School was a prestigious issue those days and people use to even bet on who's Keg is better by testing the water when they are on the way back home. They start chatting around and suddenly Vishwa, one of the boys in the group starts a convo with Saba
Vishwa: "Dei Saba un Close Friends yaaru da?"
Saba: "Umm...Rafiq, Jaiki, Mani...vera"
Saba: "Hmm..vera yaaru? Bharath and Esaki da..."
Vishwa: "Dei Karthik unnoda close friends yaaru da?"
Vishwa is the usual Naradhar as he goes around asking silly questions(poattu vaangaradhu) and creates a chaos in the group. Now Qasim is back from the ball hunt empty handed. As soon as he reaches he gets to know about whats happening around and joins the party. Vishwa continues his endless endeavour of asking questions and finally reaches Qasim. Now Naradhar starts his job...
Vishwa: "Dei...Ellarum avanga Close friends sollitaanga...nee sollu..."
Qasim: "Vera yaara solla poraen...Rafiq, Jaiki, Saba and Esaki da..."
Vishwa: "Hmm...avalo dhana?...Nee enna da Saba Close Friend nu solraa...Avanoda list la un per a sollavae illiye...he he"
Vishwa's job is now done to perfection and Qasim's face turns red. He is disappointed at being let down by someone whom he considers as Close Friend. He leaves the place...
Saba: "Dei Qasim illa da...marandhu...poi..."
Qasim: "Dei Saba poda...ippolerndhu naan un pechu doo!"
Saba: "Dei Qasim nillu da...dei solradha kelu da..."
Now Saba chases down Qasim and tries to calm him but of no use. Then they get back to their class. Now Qasim waits for everyone else to sit and chooses a place that is far from Saba. Timely glares and unusual sound of the pencil box being closed angrily reflected the mood of the scene. During the first break Esaki suggested the often played "pencil fighting" but Qasim refused to participate if Saba did and they dropped the idea. Then they formed groups to two to play "hollywood" and Qasim was left out. The situation stayed the same and as soon as the bell rung Qasim hurried with his bags to leave. Saba now tried to catch him and make up for it...
Saba: "Dei Qasim sorry da...plzz da...sorry da..."
Qasim: "Un sorry a neeye vechukko..."
Saba: "Dei naan enna seiyyanum nu sollu...plzz da"
Saba: "Seri rendu munch...?...illa Mansukhs la treat panraen...?Dei edhavadhu solllitu po da..."
Qasim: "Dei poda...naan dhan sollitaen la un pechu doo nu...po un close friends oda po..."
Saba: "Dei naan serious aa onnu solraen kekkriya?...plzz da....nee ennoda pesalai naalum parava illa...idha mattum kettutu po..."
Qasim: "Enna?"
Saba: "Unna andha list la sekkadhadhukku oru reason irukku..."
Qasim: "Enna reason?"
Saba: "Dei avanga laam ennoda Close friends dhan da...but nee dhan da ennoda Closest!! friend."
Qasim: "Dei apdiya da..."
Now Qasim and Saba are back to normality or in other terms Qasim would have said "naan inimae unnoda pazham!"...And they walk together to their homes...Next day...
Esaki: "Dei epdi da Qasim oda serndha? rendu perum apdi sanda poteenga?"
Saba: "Dei avan dhan ennoda Closest friend nu sonnen da..."
Esaki: "Appo naan?"
Saba is in a problem again but still he manages a way out of it...
Saba: "Nee ennoda Best Friend da..."
What!! He coins a term for everyone. Now this was the intention of my post we might have done this at some point of time in our life but we dont do it anymore. Why? Why? I dunno. What we did when we were 10 might be meaningless but it might be meaningful now. I dont think anyone actually sits down and lists his friends once you grow up. We now think of it as silly or immature but i think this is very important that everyone does this. We dont have to actually list a priority order or something but atleast make a list of your friends and see how big it is and also like how soon you start trusting people and add them into your list. We dont have to reveal the list to everyone but just have a list to see how it changes from time to time. See how it changed over time, who mattered sometime back and who matters now and whom you have lost and whom you have gained, does everyone in the list knows what you are upto right now?. Goes back to the very basic term to maintain your friends and keeping in the touch. Now a days even thickest of pals in college are like Hi-Bye types whenever they meet in some mall or accidentally get next to each other in a traffic signal.
This might be useful sometime down the line when you meet one of the guys in your gang over a cup of coffee and both of you wonder "Dei namma gang la andha gunda oruthan iruppanae da...?mudi kooda curly aa...konjam sotta...dei veriththanama ellarayum kalaaipaanae da....? cha...avan per kooda marandhuduchu da...enna pannittu irukkano...?yevan uyira vaangittu irukkano?"
Suddenly i have started feeling that a lot of people around me have changed or rather i have been having a misconception about them or it could be a timely thing...people suddenly turn introverted, maintain secrets which you get to know from someone else...people dont consider you an important part of their life anymore...Nobody likes to be the last person to know everything, even Phoebe doesn't...i am not talking about a single instance but have come across this many a times in the recent past...when you get to know that they dont talk to you anymore the way they used to before then you get a bit disappointed...you dont reject them totally but you start feeling insecure...or left out...but the beauty of nature lies here...same as the convo between Saba and Qasim...you are certainly going to be angry at the other person but as soon as Saba comes down and puts his arms around Qasim's shoulders and talks to him everything is back to normal...
People now-a-days leave it to "paatha pesikkalam...ketta sollikalam..." but to me i want to atleast make sure that when something important happens you communicate it...be it a mail...be it a call...its never late...Ofcourse i am not saying that you should tell everything about you to everyone you meet but as i said sit down and prepare a list of people whom you think who really care about you and who would be there for you and keep it to yourself. Keep track of it and ofcourse people in it. It really matters and it really helps. Either make sure you maintain a list and call up everyone on their bdays(I dont do this as i am really bad at remembering bdays) or else have a day once in a while where you call in a set of people and talk to them or catch up with them no matter where they are and what they do. I am not following whatever i have said above but atleast i am planning to take steps towards this.
Ofcourse, there are people of the types fuck 'em all!! I dont give a damn!! What the fuck!! go to hell!! Who cares!! types and they wouldnt even consider reading down this post...or thinking about it...but i do bcoz i had to waste/pass my time and also your's(the readers) until i get sleepy.
These small reciprocations and expectations do matter in life if you look at it in the larger scale.
P.S: @mani - "I am Back!!"
The taxonomy doo!(to break) and pazham!(to fix) a friendship...i dunno the etymology or the reason why they are used but every one knows it...i dunno why this hasnt yet made it into the
Madras Bashai page in wikipedia...
I wanted to try my hand at writing a story...so this post. I wanted to see how a story sounds if it has names you really cant map to and thats why i chose these names which i think are
random enough. Also to me they did not fit for 10 yr old boys but still tried it.
When looking for names these were extremely hard to omit - Joseph, John, Arokyaraj, Paulraj, Ram, Shyam, Ramesh, Karthik ,Bharath, Mani and Ganesh.
EsakiRaja - this is the name of one of my friends...I dunno his whereabouts right now but his actual name was "Esaikku Raja" which later became "EsakiRaja" and then "Esaki".
Ofcourse the story is placed in my school Shrine Vailankanni Senior Secondary School in T Nagar for those who dont know that i studied till 10th in a school diff from Ahobila Mutt and also for those who pretend not knowing this or to those who dont want to know :P.
