Hi readers!!! I know all of you are safe, many of you by now might have been vaccinated also… For those who have already been vaccinated here’s 👏👏👏 my claps and for those who haven’t, better get a jab asap!!! I know, the fear of injection is quite scary, no matter how old you are 🥴💉 but a little pain is ok, to put an end to this pandemic… It is only when we put an end to this pandemic that people like me would get an opportunity to troll mamas and mamis and troll them on this blog! Above all, I can also brag about myself on becoming a Lawyer 😝. I’m a tambrahm and I’m no different from my fellows who often have been bragging about themselves from their childhood, about their louvvee for arts, sports, studies and now marriage, mamiyar and their art of perfectly cleaning their baby’s poop, about which I’m not going to brag because I’m still Single coz Lawyer Ponna yaaru kalyanam pannipa? Case-u geesu nu potu vecha yaaru court-u veedu nu alayuva? 😲
Today, in this blog post, I’m neither going to brag about my louvvee for fine arts or sports or studies nor am I going to tell how good I’m at them… This blog post is purely about my tryst with them and how people began to appreciate me for being a Sakala-kala-Villi?? Valli?? Whatever!
1. Outdoor Sports- I was what, some 8 or 9 when my parents joined me for Cricket coaching and my sister for volleyball during the summer vacations. My parents no, they’re not braggers like other sweet tambrahm parents…. They’re experts in trolling their own children and literally yethify their children’s maanam in a kappal and tell bye bye to it and I think that’s how even I got their genes, to troll self and others as well… So yeah, the intention behind my parents joining me in cricket coaching was not to make me some Mithali Raj or something… It was for the sole reason that I was growing lazier and would not wake up before 10 am… So, to make me wake up early, Appa took me to the summer kids sports camp that’s held every year for 2 months in the playground opp. to my place and when he and amma would do their morning walk, I would be running around with the other kids my age and doing some warm-up exercises…. My appa no, to make it more interesting, bought me a pair of white shorts, new canvas shoes, white t-shirt and a cap…. With all excitement I also joined only to get tired and annoyed with so much of warm up and stuff…I felt so so bad for my poor sleep 😭😭😭😭
My parents, as they walked, they’d point to my sis or me to their walking friends and I think bragged about us… Or maybe trolled.. I don’t know, but one day, while I finally got to play cricket, my arch rival one fellow, Banerjee, who was very short and my age, would do a lot of show off with his bowling skills, bowled the tennis ball and it hit my head straight…. I did get injured but I resumed playing…. It was my turn to bowl now… Banerjee was the batter (you’ll connect the dots why I called him batter here) and he insisted I use the cork ball to bowl to him and he would hit a 6… Upon so much of pressure from Banerjee and his fans I also took the cork ball and hurled it… Few seconds later all I could see was Banerjee with a swollen right eye with a black rim around it, his fans consoling him and Banerjee crying like a baby!!! I walked away silently and Banerjee’s friend Kunal also walked with me telling I taught him a very good lesson… His overaction all became bussss… In front of all his fans 🤣🤣🤣 my parents also witnessed all this and for the good and safety of all other children, they stopped sending me to cricket coaching…. Else, batter Banerjee would have been battered from becoming a batsman! Today banerjee is a successful fother of 2 kids hitting mosquitoes with that electric bat! 🤣🤣🤣
2. Indoor Sports- This happened when I was in 6th std. I’m a proud student of Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Hyd, which is also one of the most prestigious schools among the tambrahm community in Hyd, which also doubles up for some brownie points during matrimony meets and stuff 😝. It was at that time when the IT Industry was in super boom and people began licking boots for software jobs in Amerikka…. Where ever we went people only spoke in fake accent, learnt computer languages and began aping the west. The Hi-tech City in Hyd was booming with these software people and NIIT came to our school along with Sri. Chandrababu Naidu Garu and Mr. Vishwanathan Anand, to promote learning computer languages in school. I being a samayalkaari at heart, knew nothing about chess or computer languages nor did I know about playing chess in the computer. Chess and computers were only for the elite kids pa! Somehow, I wanted to meet Mr. Vishwanathan Anand… He was the grandmaster, our State’s CM also came there… Our PT Sir came to every class and announced that those students who went for chess coaching or knew about chess could attend the event. My classmate only one fellow went(coz his fother only arranged the event… He was some pistah in NIIT) and there was me who also raised my hands and said I’ll also come. PT Sir wrote my name also and along with my classmate I accompanied PT Sir to the playground-cum-auditorium. I didn’t know where to sit and sat in the front row, along with all big dignitaries. This classmate of mine whose fother organized the event, obviously sat right in front of his fother who was seated on the dias. Some more kids from other classes also sat in the same row as mine. They were all elite kids who discussed chess moves and mathematics and how they’d one day get into IIT after completing a course from NIIT and I was looking here and there like a dhaddhi not understanding a bit of what everyone there spoke… So much of eliteness only… I felt like a rag picker who got free entry into a lunch party at the Burj Khalifa… Mr. Vishwanathan Anand finally came to the interactive session with the students and encouraged students to ask anything about chess… There were these kids who discussed among themselves about something in chess and were discussing when to ask the doubt. I thoroughly heard what they were discussing and kept quiet. Mr. Vishy Anand was waiting for one of the students to ask a doubt and there I was with an expression brimmed with confidence and hand up in the air… Vishy was so happy and encouraged me to ask the doubt. I got the mic and all… I asked him the question much to the surprise and anger of those 2 elite chess coaching girls!!! I asked the doubts they wanted to ask 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Vishy was so happy that I asked him the question and called me on the dias. The newspaper reporters clicked my pic with Vishy Anand… The Grandmaster!!! Our school’s official photographer from Janata Photo Studio also clicked my pic with Vishy Anand and Vishy asked me my name and details… I told everything and also told him that my uncle knew him well… He asked the details of my uncle and I told him about my aunt’s husband who represented LIC in chess tournaments and was a well known person to Vishy. Vishy felt so happy to know about my uncle, took his phone number from me and spoke to him. The next day my uncle calls up my parents to tell “Your daughter is very buddhisaali” Vishwanathan Anand himself said so! And the word spread like wildfire among all my relatives… According to them, I’m the kid who met Vishy Anand and won praises from him 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Truth be told, I learnt to play chess only at the age of 18 or something and I suck at it till date!!! 😝😝😝 The only indoor game I play well is snakes and ladders 🤣🤣
3. Music- I love music, Carnatic especially… I’m good at identifying ragas, singers, composers etc I’m a good singer also but I won’t for the good of the society. I play the keyboard though. A little bit of violin, on which, I play animal sounds-Buffalo especially. On the other hand, my akka and other cousins were home-coached for Carnatic music by one Subbaraidu sir and one Sundari mami. Sundari mami is the maha Guru of all the leading tambrahm present day paatu mamis. My akka and my cousin would go to learn music at Sundari mami’s paatu classes and I would roam around the school campus where mami taught music. Same songs only daily they’ll sing. Mami would make me also sit along with other kids and make me sing along… I’d also sing… Later, my sis left music classes owing to “exam pressure” coz of 9th std. I was in Chinmaya only while my sis studied in another school. One day, when I was loitering in the lobby during break time, I met paatu mami there. I was enquiring in general, about mami and when my music teacher passed by, paatu mami caught my hand firmly and said “Amma Rajeshwari, write this child’s name also in the list. She will also learn the songs for the event under me, from today.” I was wondering what’s even happening there. From that day onwards, for almost 15 days, I learnt the Thyagaraja Pancharatna Keerthanam from Paatu mami herself and on the 15th day, I was asked to wear pattu pavadai and come to school. I also did the same. I was taken into the green room by my music teacher who carefully applied some pink powder on my face, lipstick and some more lipstick on my cheeks. I was asked to sit beside paatu mami and sing the Pancharatna keerthanas, behind me were some 30 odd students from various classes and were looking at me enviously for getting to sit with Mami herself and sing the pancharatna krithis on the mic. The event was the first ever Thyagaraja Aradhana conducted by our school in 2001, under the guidance of Paatu mami. Truth be told, I never even learnt basics of music but coz mami often made me sing with my sister in the paatu class she taught me those keerthanas thoroughly and made me sit along with her in the first row and sing! Mami who visited our place for some function was telling how flawlessly I sang the krithis and that’s how people still think I’m one chinna kuyil kalaimamani Chitra and ask me to sing one song at their aathu golu or such functions and I politely deny by telling I’m having a bad throat 🤣🤣🤣🤣
4. Dance – My parents always make it a point to embarass me by telling about my dance performances for crappy Item numbers and such songs in front of TV at the age of like 3 or 4. They even have some pix of the same which I’ve hidden so that they don’t post it as their whatsapp statuses and embarass me further. I absolutely love dance, Kuchipudi is my fav dance form. In Chinmaya, we had this activity class where we were supposed to learn one traditional art form every year. It was a way of exposing us to our traditional art forms. In that manner I learnt kuchipudi for 3 weeks, under Sri. Nandkishore Chawla ji, who made us write “dance” notes also… I learnt a few mudras also… Later, it discontinued coz I shifted to learning keyboard. Once in my 5th std, my value education teacher, urgently took me to the cultural room and handed over a flute to me and asked me to act like krishna. She also taught me a few dance steps and made me practice them. She then called my senior didi, made them stand around me in a circle, played some Krishna song and made them all dance. I was the chosen one for the role of Krishna in the Raas-Leela dance, for the inter-school dance competition at Bhavans. Our team won not because of the Gopis or something. It was because of the Krishna who danced with a pair of kannadi on her face with the best expressions. Bhavans school teachers also took pictures with me posing as Gopis which embarrassed me to bits!!? They all loved the bubbly kannadi pota Krishnan, oops Krishni 🤣🤣 Days passed and I was given the first priority to play the role of Krishna in all the dances and plays. One day, during maths class, when I was worried that my maths teacher would come to my bench asking for my undone homework, I heard my value education and music teachers rush into our class and with the permission of our maths teacher, they took me out of the class, straight to the music room, along with a few other students who were learning classical dances then. There were around 5-6 tambrahm girls who just started learning the basics of Bharatnatyam but were boasting as if they’re getting Padmashree only in the dance form. There were some other girls who were a year or 2 experienced but they acted like they’re running Kalakshetra dance school since ages and were gurus to all the great dancers. I didn’t know why our teachers assembled all the dancers at one place and of all. Why me? They took us to the Shiva temple in the campus and that’s when I saw this aunty in a handloom cotton saree, dressed so nice and was so elegant in her behaviour. She introduced herself as Malavika Sarukai and she came to pay a visit to our school for some purpose. Our teachers sat down along with us and Malavika Sarukai also sat down. She explained so many things about dance and all those dancer girls of my school were so excitedly looking at her face. Almost all of them were idolising her and were speaking to become a dancer like her some day. And I was sitting there unable to understand what was even happening around me! I never learnt dance like them. There were 20 of us of which 5 were Mridangam boys, 14 dancer girls and 1 who was lost in her own world of secret seven and hot wheels cars. Malavika Sarukai ji was answering questions from the students. I was the only one who didn’t ask her anything nor did I speak anything. Malavika ji called me and asked me to speak or ask her something. I was wondering what to ask. I didn’t know a bit about all the nattuvangam or thalam or adavugal or anything. I didn’t know what to ask such a great dancer. I was looking at Shiva’s idol in the temple and quickly remembering Shiva-Leela serial and Om Namah Shivaya serial I’d eatch on TV, I asked her what’s Thandavam and how is it different from normal dance. Malavika ji was surprised with my question and answered it. She appreciated me for asking her such a unique question which is unusual for a beginner student to ask. Malavika ji took me closer and asked under whom I was being trained. I innocently pointed at Nandkishore Chawla ji and said he’s only my Guru. Nandkishore Chawla ji struggled to smile. Since that day I was considered some dancing prodigy only, in Chinmaya and the next year Malavika Sarukai ji was honoured with Padmashree for her contribution to Dance. Truth be told our music teacher took me as an extra because the strength was less 😝😝😝
5. Studies- No comments except for the useless fact that I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology, PG Diploma in Business Administration, Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Law 😝😝 People think I’m some intellectual only… Truth be told, I’m now 29 and one day I aspire to successfully run a bhajji-bonda kadai ☺️
Dear Mr. Vishy Anand if you ever read this please remember that I never intended to lie about being a chess player. I just wanted to meet you so that I could brag to my people about meeting The Grandmaster!!
Dear. Malavika Sarukai ji, I’m sorry I knew nothing about Classical dance then. Nor am I a connoisseur today but I absolutely love dance and I do watch your YouTube videos once in a while. Ofcourse, I do a bit of dancing with my little niece to shed some weight!
Note: This post is just to spread some laughs to all my readers during the tough times and I didn’t find anything better than my own little experiences to share. I have utmost respect to all the people mentioned above, especially our Beloved paatu mami Smt. Sundari Janakiraman mami. 🙏🏼
And one day when I launch my Bhajji kadai it would be great if it’d be visited by the above mentioned Celebrities, so that I’ll take a picture, frame and hang on every wall of my small bhajji-bonda kadai 😂😂
Love and Cheers,
Aarya a.k.a Meenu Iyer ❤️
Aarya Writes 