The daily rendezvous
Venue:Seaview apartments terrace
Members:Unofficial Assocn of atleast 5 maami's with a rolling membership each evening.
With the evening breeze laden with moisture blowing from the east,the mosquitoes from the cooum river at the back of the flat used to have a tough time flying against the wind and getting stationed on the ladies,well-seated on the cement slabs of the terrace.The worst of these progressively noisy mosquitoes' problems was to find their gaps amidst the cotton sarees that the maamis draped themselves with and even if they were lucky to find their spot,they had to make sure it wasn't covered with a meticulously applied coat of Odomos!They had little chance to devour upon the blood of the kids playing on the terrace as they were hard to be found stationary for more than a second, amidst their hide n seek and lock n key games!
Every evening,the routine was perfectly followed without any deviation from the normal.At around 4.15 pm,the autorickshaws and the schoolbuses dropped the kids,all of whom seemed as if they were returning from a hard-fought war.The boys could be pictured with their trademark soiled clothes,blue-ink marked fingers,sweaty faces,well-chewed tie-ends while the girls had their unplaited locks of hair with missing ribbons,the hairpins sliding to the earlobe area,the oily faces with their bindi wrongly positioned.As soon as the maamis saw their kids,each one of them would get into the evening formalities.For the next few minutes,almost every house was filled with rounds of shoutings and unheard directions regarding the placing of the tiffin box in the sinks,putting the socks in the washing machine,hanging the uniforms in the hangers and washing their faces with soap etc.
Then it was time for the Milk Bikies and banana chips on the plastic plate with a glass of 'well-aathified' warm glass of boost or complan.
Homework was done as a group on the terrace which was split into 3 or 4 sections of gathering based on the age group of the kids and the comeraderie that existed between the maamis.
There were an unwritten constitution that governed these rendezvous.If carefully analysed,it would be easily evident that their was definitely a few components that decided the clique of maamis.Some of the factors were:
1)The floor factor : The first floor ladies would mingle only with their fellow first floor maami or maximum the adjacent floor ladies but never the 4th floor and viceversa.
2)The Age factor : Maamis of the same age or their kids being the same age/class in school flocked together.
3)The status factor : A stinkingly rich maami with sparkling diamond nose studd,Jarugai-bordering saree even for a casual get-together , always had a tough time being accepted in the simple maamis group.
4)The caste factor:It was hard to see the iyer/iyengar sects interact with each other.
5)Miscellaneous:The official language had to be tamil and north-indian ladies were never even looked at.
The maami's never addressed each other with their names.It was always someone's amma..Eg:Roshniamma,Sowmyaamma etc..If the household had 2 kids,the addressing was based on the youngest kid's name and predominance was given to the girls' names,i.e Radhika aunty,who had ritesh and Rohini was never addressed Riteshamma but was only called Roshniamma!
The discussion would start with the morning's cooking followed by the menu for dinner,digressing to the comparison between the cost of vegetables,digressing to the rising cost of Gas,which would lead the way to the criticism of the finance minister for raising the fuel prices and income-taxes.After a few rounds of the general bashing of the politicians and their parties,some maami would promptly bring in a dose of personal boasting about her husband or kid.Here,the nomenclature adopted to address one's husband was unique too.No maami dared to call her husband or her fellow maami's husband by their names.They were diplomatically addressed with the names of their kids - krupa-appa,gowthamappa.There was no dearth of topics for discussion.I cannot remember a single minute of pause during their talks.It was amazing to watch some of them talk at length about a variety of topics ranging from the tamilnadu engineering counselling to the tier 1 U.S universities to the U.S Visa procedure to the funding in the universities.The rate of information transfer was the highest from these discussions.
One hard to forget topic of the discussions was about the maid-servants.However hard-working the 'velai-kaaris' were and however sincere they were,they had their daily dose of accusations and bashings during the evening's discussions.No maami spoke ill of their wards or their husbands.
There was no means of arresting the fire-like flames of rumour and gossip that was the inherent attraction to the rendezvous.Every individual in the locality was carefully analysed,discussed and their lives dissected beyond repair.Sometimes even the relatives and second cousins of the flat residents were also not spared.There was no question of anybody entering the flat and looting anybody because every person entering the gate was carefully watched by hidden-camera-like eyes of the groups of maamis from the terrace top.
As the sunset occured,it was usually the time for these tired individuals to retreat to their houses.The beam of light from the light-house would start flashing against the the cement tank on the terrace and the tuneful noise of the mosquitoes would fill the area.One more eventful evening would come to an end as the ladies descended through the stairs to their respective floors.
-Raapi
Posted by rajesh | 
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