South Chennai vaasi -2

Walking up to the crowded Mylapore, referred to as Maadaveethi around the Mylapore Tank in the evenings, is a tough task! I get lost in the hustle and bustle of the lanes, the blaring horns, the zipping two wheelers and the whoosh of auto rickshaws (almost ramming me!). That just doesn't mean I am disinclined to make these trips. Am I crazy? Perhaps!

I can say like all the people who cross 50, "The place has changed so much. Every one seems to be in a hurry and people just don't care! What the world has come to?" But I love watching the people and weave stories around each of them.

Then there is this invisible person walking along with me often, I keep sharing my thoughts with this person. So many thoughts in a nascent state waiting restless to get the magical form of words - small and neat, vivid and colourful, twisted and complex or emotive and profound! (Haven't I mentioned this earlier?)

Whatever is the errand, whichever time of the day it is, whether or not my invisible friend accompanies me, there is a sense of blending with the crowd - a fine thread binding everyone together. I am alone, yet amidst an intense conversation!

So, there are those moments of instant and beautiful connection with fellow beings - the fruit vendor calling me with her laughing eyes, the child peeping from the mother's shoulder at me with a mischievous twinkle and opening those flower-bud lips in a friendly smile, the naughty youngster trying to scare me just whizzing past me hiding his sheepish grin or the corner grocery shop owner, sharing his views on the social political events. 

For over five decades, there is this shop selling freshly roasted groundnuts, puffed rice and other related stuff just behind the ever crowded Mylapore bus stop. A small shop where beyond the counter, just behind a jute partition, we can see one person roasting the nuts with regular banging of the long- handled ladle along the iron pan (Oh... how I love to watch that!). It is a small family run business. When I first was pulled to the shop with that aroma of fresh-roasted peanuts, the sons were young men assisting their appa. The brisk efficiency and the coordination between them made me happy. They are all friendly, showing the right amount of interest in the customers and their concerns. After a long gap, when I went there, the father's place was empty and he was there looking down on his sons from a photo. I could see the sadness and feel their sense of loss. I felt nice that I could express my understanding of their loss and they accepted it gracefully. Then I used to see the mother pitching in regularly. 

Now, in one of my trips around the streets and lanes of Mylapore, I made a beeline to that shop and the young man greeted me and enquired after my daughter. Just imagine, the countless footfalls to his shop day after day in all the years I used to go to the shop with my daughter!  Where did he learn this customer care?

There are more such stories of the city that became my second home.