Parry's Corner

Shops in parrys

The m-i-l decided to paint our local "town" ("downtown" in American lingo), aka "Parry's Corner" red by her presence with the excuse of buying knick-knack-brick-bracks to gift to kids during Navarathri that is three months away.  Sometimes I think had the m-i-l been around in the late nineteenth century, she would have laundered and ironed the Indian Tricolour on the day the baby was named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.  I know of advanced planning, but with the m-i-l everything is so advanced that you'd need a time machine to visit her in the present.

But I digress.

So, with the new found time due to (a) a deadline so far away, you’d need hubble to see it and (b) the kid being off at school "full day" rather than the meager two hours as until last year when I would just have enough time to take a leak before rushing back to school to pick her up, I bravely volunteered to accompany the m-i-l, more to see if there were any k-k-b-b I could pick up for myself.  The m-i-l as usual planned every detail of our rendezvous a week ago, and I left this morning after spending a good half-hour haggling with auto drivers to take me from our end of town to my m-i-l's without demanding my pound of cardiac flesh in exchange.  And so, as the auto took me through the town I grew up in, the mind automatically shifted to reverse gear, bringing back memories of places long known.

As the auto crossed the bridge over river Koovam at Saidapet, a dilapidated building at its bank reminded me of a school classmate called Deepa, whose father owned a posh furniture shop in that building.  It was called "Grafix Furniture" and was a landmark in the area.  Deepa herself had a bit of a celebrity status as she belonged to the "upper middle class" in a school full of middle class kids.  And what is more, Deepa's mother would visit school everyday in their chaufffer-driven car, wearing synthetic sarees, in stark contrast to the rest of the Tam-Bram moms who would be draped in chungudi. And she would wear lipstick. LIPSTICK.  We would look at her clandestinely, believing that even a look at her stained lips was a sin-of-sorts.  Deepa was a chubby, curly haired, oily skinned, fair girl, prone to throwing tantrums, if I remember right and always shepherded around by her elder sister Prabha.  I wonder what became of them.

We turned into a few random lanes and entered the bastion of middle class Tam Bram community of yore – West Mambalam.  As I crossed the Ayodhya Mandapam, I could not help remembering the platoon of friends that haunted the area.  Soumya, my first friend in life lived in the area, and I have spent hours at her house playing house, something about both of us being neighbours and cooking for each other (girls will be girls).  Sudha, a friend during adolescence, did not have a phone in her house and we would send letters to each other every week during summer vacations listing the activities for the week, the books we read, the cousins we met, and planning the next meeting.  For some strange reason I remember the gift we bought for her housewarming event.  It was a wall-hanging that said “Old things are always the best – old books, old wine, old friends”.

Fast forward a few hours and the three women (mil, sil and yours sincerely) left for our excursion, resolved to not let the scorching sun go waste.  As we crossed panagal park, I remembered Sugan where we bought our uncomfortable uniform material and Kesavan, the tailor, who single-handedly stitched three sets of uniforms each for over a thousand kids in the area every summer.  If there is a heaven for tailors, he would be king.

After much excitement we reached Parrys corner.  I wistfully thought of my first bicycle (Hero) that my father bought for me from there when I was in sixth class. A red heavy contraption that groaned and moaned as I pedaled to school for the next seven years of my life.  And the Chenna Kesava Perumaal Kovil that my father once impulsively dragged me to, a day before my big exam.

For some reason, that is where nostalgia ended and current events took over.  After dragging our feet over most of the tar-melting roads, we filled our bags with junk and more and returned, a spent force, ready to gulp down the Indian ocean after desalinating it.

Image from : http://jonnadula-madhu.sulekha.com/albums/allphotos/slideshow/204962.htm