Maami Saagasangal Part II

Hmm…Considering people could stand that tripe…I might as well continue to the next part!!

After a couple of similar disasters, my dad had gotten fed up of paying to the rants of RDX’s owner and got me my first bike. This was around the time I had learnt cycling better and I was glad that my dad hadn’t gotten me those stupid, girly LadyBird bikes. Maybe he had intuitions that I would be the future rebel of the family, he got me a “streetkat”. Now, this bike came with a conditional warranty that it should never be ridden by girls who could fall into the categories of adakkam, odukkam and naanam and conveniently, I’ve never bothered to even get near those terms!! The only glaring part was the stupid basket in front of it. “Schoolku lunch box eduthu ponumilada…adaan poda chonnen!” explained my mom. But the maximum work tat basket ever did was to transfer maangais and thengais between the neighbourhood houses. Very soon, everybody in C.pettai used to recognize that it was my bike in the street due to weird sounds my brakes used to hmake and most importantly, the way I used to pedal. Yes…I used to monkey pedal which also helped in me getting a huge following of maamis in my gossiping about how I will never be getting married in the future. But what they never understood was that the bike was very heavy and you needed to put your full energy to ride it. I never used to bother about the gossips until the news reached my parents. My dad was all for it “You ride however you want da kanna”. That didn’t stop from getting myself branded as “Aambalakaamakshi” by my granny, or the publicity that she made out of it. News traveled far and wide, and soon my perippa and perima called me up from Hyderabad to enquire about it!! Gradually, my granny gave up on me and I continued riding around the streets of C.Pettai. I used to make sure that I ignored the street behind the Pettai temple as I was still scared that the erumamaadu episode might repeat.

Years trickled by, I grew older; grew, more in terms of girth rather than height. I never even bothered about it until the day came when I stared weighing more than my cycle. Ironically, I also joined a new school for my higher secondary which had a very traditional uniform that made me look like a clown when I rode the bike. Soon, my cycle was starting to get neglected and it attained its old age. I couldn’t bear to see it dying, so, I asked my dad to sell it off. When I finished my school and got into college, my dad thought it was right time to buy a two-wheeler. “Why?”, I asked “I could still get back my cycle and use it”. He didn’t want to point out my bloated status, and just replied back saying that he is getting me a bike so that it would be convenient for travel. So, the next week, my house welcomed the “Scooty”. My sister was doing her higher studies out of town, so, I missed the chances of fighting over it with her. But, my adventures were endless.

There was this phase when I started eyeing my dad’s antique bike, a TVS Suzuki. I used to wait for dad to get back from office and flick his keys as he used to love his vehicle a lot. Though, all I could do was just kick-start the bike, oblivious to the fact that it had a gear. My dad noticed my futile attempts and offered me to teach his bike. This included a lot more gaalis from my grandmom and her saga of how badly I have ruined her name and reputation in the neighborhood. Thus started the hopelessly bad teaching sessions by my dad, which was culminated into “burn tending sessions” by my mom. But I didn’t give up. There have been a couple of times when I had sneaked out with the bike. Those times, I used to practice behind the pettai temple, for I was sure that my dad woundn’t bother searching there (I stationed look-outs for tentative erumamaadu runnings). During one of these occasions, I did some mess up with the clutch and the bike stopped. I didn’t know what the issue was with it, and so, started pushing the bike all along. I reached home after a 3 km trek, only to find my dad fuming about my in-competency in handling the bike and that I broke it down. Apparently, one out of my innumerable cousins had pottu kuduthufyed to my dad. That was the last time my dad ever let me go near the vehicle.

Sigh!! I had gotten used to my Scooty by this time and did not feel let down about the restriction. Not that the relationship with my scooty improved. Once, I and my dad had gotten to the market to get the usual kaikari for mom. I happened to lose control of bike and fall down. Little did I know that my dad had reserved his vengeance for repairing his bike. The moment I fell down with bike, the sweetheart that he is, he didn’t bother picking me up, but chose to look and laugh at me! I grumbled and somehow steadied myself. Back home, he gave the wonderful explanation that since, I was a girl, anybody would’ve helped me out and that it wouldn’t have been so if he had fell down. And worse, I ended up suffering from a huge boil as the stupid silencer had fell rite on my leg. Sniff! I have never seen my dad much happier. So much for ruining his bike….I still have the marks!!!!

No no…it doesn’t end here. There shall be another torturous session on my Car driving…he he…till then…d byes….

PS: Will soon start a glossary for the weird tamil words.