By the time they met, they were Kitchu mama and Vitchu mama. Universal mamas. Mamas to everyone. They met on a park bench, both drowning in the grief of the JarigaiLakshmi Udipi Hotel closing its shutters. Vitchu mama’s favourite bench was on the other end of the park, but today they were painting it with a fresh coat of slimey green. They both were quiet, looking at the mid-morning madness that had enveloped the city. A drunkard cam to Kitchu mama and asked for money. Kitchu mama dragged up his rage and shouted ‘Yen da, Brandhy kudichadu porada. Onakku oru anna kudukamaaten. Po da, kadangaaran.¹. Useless fellow. First you will drink Brandhy, then do vaandy“.²

Vitchu mama’s heart skipped a few beats. This mama said Brandy. Which meant he had seen a lot of Tamil films, and was not really familiar with alcohol. Anyone whose only interaction with alcohol was the black viscious liquid in Shivaji Ganesan films knew it as Brandy.

They got talking and figured that they had been coming to the same restaurant for the last many years, but usually separated by half an hour. They preferred JarigaiLakshmi Udipi to Sreenivasan Udipi because the former had the relaxed atmosphere of a school canteen. Plus, somehow the bearers looked clean and didn’t talk much. Most importantly, there was enough natural light in JarigaiLakshmi Udipi to facilitate reading a newspaper. Sreenivasan Udipi on the other hand had small yellow bulbs that were about as powerful as glowworms.

Old men, they both agreed – need bright light. It is then, that Kitchu mama and Vitchu mama began to meet everyday to try a new Udipi restaurant. One day they found the exact place they had dreamed of. A rack full of newspapers. A bearer with clean hands but a grim face called Saami brought them their idlis and coffees. The world was sane again. Kitchu mama lovingly called out, “Bring it again, Saam.”.

1. Haven’t you had enough brandy? I won’t give an anna to you. Get lost you ____ – I can’t think of a term that gets the essence of kadangaaran [back]
2. vaandy = vaandi = vomit [back]

This was the curse of IT firms. They had offices in Bangalore. And many of those who worked in the glass-kissed buildings were from places like Mumbai and Delhi. The ones from Madras were alright. They had a right to be in Bangalore. But the others annoyed him. The girl on the desk ten feet away from him, constantly reminded everyone that it was Bombay and that she would never call it anything else. She would talk about Bombay, how beautiful Marine Drive was. All he wanted to say was, “Who fucking cares?”

Freeriding on the vocabulary of the locals, the North Indians had picked up words like Machhan. Or they randomly suffixed “Da” at the end of every sentence. Especially when talking about philosophy. Like when his flatemat Gurjeet said “Separation of coding and testing is so superficial da“.

Now everytime his sister called him on the phone and used the word “da”, he wanted to bang his head on the table. This corruption of the mundane. Something as lyrically insignificant as “da” had been turned into an assertion of engineering identity. A term of endearment now ruined forever because instead of reminding him of a Sunday afternoon as a child, it reminded him of an uncomfortable chair in a wannabe pub in the city. Surrounded by the overnight Machhans.

Well Gurjeet … fuck you da.

Janardhan Ramalingam was a very polished man. Even if his name had been truncated to an ultra-feminine Jan, one look at him, and you would think he was born with a suit. Every Friday night, Janardhan goes out drinking with his colleagues. Like any other good show-off, he never quite talks about the wines. He merely sniffs, gargles and raises one eyebrow. On Saturdays, he goes out with the same crowd and eats meat. The secret however is that he cannot digest meat. His mother told him so. Apparently, it could cause extreme constipation. He pretends to eat it, but meanwhile, he actually was shuffling the meat into a secret pocket stitched onto the jacket.

But all this was fine till the credit-crunch hit. Many of his jackets were getting old and he needed new ones, but getting the ones with secret spill proof, odour resistant pockets was going to be very expensive. The technique of making these pockets was patented by just one tailor on Bond Street, and apparently involved a complicated process of convection.

Pocketless, this Saturday he finally was forced to eat meat. To his surprise, in contrast to the expected bowel issues, he ended up having a bad case of loose motions. Suave our Janardhan maybe, but he still wears his poonal. Now the sacred thread had to be tucked expertly behind one ear. An ancient vedic principle insists that the poonal is a material that permits conduction. Therefore, it must avoid all impure things.

Whatever high-flying suave gentlemen may admit to, loose motions isn’t one of them. And so it was, that he frequently ran to the club’s toilet. The other gentlemen merely thought he was rushing to check mails on his blackberry. Which is more acceptable. On one occassion however, he forgot to untuck his poonal and walked nonchalantly to pile some more meat into his mouth. At which point one of the diners asked him what the white threads were for.

Jan (wishing somebody would call him Jaanu like his mother did) told them that it was an ancient Indian ritual to ensure that the economy would fare well and that interest rates would be cut. It was a symbol of solidarity and a prayer to the gods of finance. The thread went to the holy propellor around one’s temple and sent power prayers. And thus the renaissance started. The following Monday, all of the financial district’s white gentlemen came to work with a white thread stuck around their ear.

But the pundits were wrong, and the markets did crash.

PS – Yes, it’s seven words. Decided to combine one three word request and a four word request. Phew.