Kajan’s Wedding Night!

Exactly six months back, the lead of this plot, Kajan Anna aka Kanna, joined our “Young Stars Volley Ball Club”. Our club is three years old, formed by the friends in Athiyadi village, about a mile away from the Jaffna town, Sri Lanka, only participated in this year community centre knock-out tournament with a first round exit. The club has only eight regular members, short of the minimum players to play the game in the evenings, sometimes we would makeup our numbers by inviting neighbourhood Nadaraja uncle and even Priya’s younger brother who is just turned eight last week. Our court is Priya’s home backyard in Athiyadi,  the area we proudly claimed as our home court, is made up of linings of strings made from coconut leave trunks, poles made from railway track wooden sleepers and the net is from the stolen fishing net at the Pannai Jetty area. “Young Stars” doesn’t fancy the set up style game anymore after Nadaraja uncle once got hit on his abdomen and fainted while playing at the nets. His wife rushed to the court, scolded us with all the filth words in Tamil language and ceased the ball from us. Our only ball is gone by then, the club members now just gather at the court to gossip everyday. That’s when Keerthi introduced Kanna to our team that day.

Kanna shown interest in joining the club and even promised to buy a volley ball for the club. Priya didn’t like this arrangement at first sight, but Keerthi insisted in joining him to the club. Kanna is well above the club’s median age, will be turning thirty this July, a wealthy man, jobless and the only son to his parents. He has a sister and Priya rumoured around that Keerthi is stalking her and that’s why he was pushing so hard to get Kanna into the team. Kanna’s father is in Switzerland, just managed to received the asylum status and Kanna’s Rolex watch would tell the new never before richness in the family. Everything he does, would directly or indirectly would refer to how much richer is he. He once told me, the watch alone would cost fifty thousand rupees. LTTE last week took him to the bunker to demand a ransom from the family. It is believed that they paid about two hundred thousand rupees.  An amount, none of the club families wouldn’t even can dream of. Kanna is the only player who wears shoes during our volleyball games. He comes in a green chaly motorbike. The bike runs on Kerosene as every other motorbike in Jaffna. One of the government ministers recalled his school day science subject and advised that LTTE would be using Petrol and batteries to make bombs, so the government banned the Petrol and any sort of batteries in North and East of Sri Lanka totally.City of Jaffna people are inventive enough, the mechanics found the way to tweak the Carburettor, so you can use few drops of eau de cologne to ignite the engine and once kerosene starting to burn, the ride will be fun. You can see people blowing eau de cologne drops in a long tubes while riding motorbikes. Lots of love stories kicked off in the suburbs by just helping young lady teachers kick start or push their motorbikes in the mornings.

Kanna always parks his Chaly in front of Nadaraja uncle’s house, which is just opposite to our volleyball court. Sooner we realised, Keerthi and Kanna have never played for the same side, letting one of them to play for the side facing the Nadaraja uncle’s house. Once in a while they would mishit the ball to uncle’s house backyard. Kanna would volunteer himself to jump over the fence to collect the ball. The mis-hits became more and more frequent by days passing and Kanna took his time to get the ball back to court. Enough to make Priya suspicious, he once followed Kanna to see him what’s been he doing while searching the ball, and caught him and Nadaraja uncle’s daughter Vanathy Akka seeing each other at their back yards. She would be nits picking to her younger sister at the back yards and every time Kanna goes there, they exchanged stares and sometimes a word or two. Priya seen this one day, went on to tell to his mother, and story started to spread everywhere in the village. One day Nadaraja uncle’s wife, went on to slap Kanna when he caught him talking to his daughter, next day Kanna’s mother came to the place and the fight erupted big time. Two days gone by, there were no more games possible, after Vanathy Akka’s mother ceased the ball and Kanna and Keerthi went to hiding. 

Within a week there was a sudden turn around when Kanna lodged a police entry, Tamil Eelam Police, a police organisation run by LTTE under their de-facto government, arrived to the scene. They have been tipped as the “Love Police” by the public as they are quite known for turning romantic affairs into weddings especially against the Jaffna caste system norms and obviously became not very popular among the Jaffna’s high prolific “Vellalar” caste. Police warned both the parents, they arranged the wedding date and warned them against any dowry demands.  Nadaraja uncle in fact was bit happy about how things have gone. Kanna would go to Switzerland as a refugee soon,  a wealthy life for Vanathy akka waiting ahead, so does the case for her entire family. There cannot be any dowry and Kanna’s family lost their bargaining power from the moment they went to police. It all happened of a sudden and the wedding is planned within a week.

Athiyadi village was gearing for the occasion, so was Young star team. The club made a hand written banner, wishing the couple with the club name covering the most part of the banner. We placed  the at the gate entrance of the Vanathy Akka’s house.

In the wedding morning, Keerthi came up with a plan to arrange a movie night on that day. Movie nights have become special events in Jaffna on wedding days. People could watch movies only during such events. Movies are generally banned or censored by the LTTE regime. Censorship was so strict, once a Tamil movie of length 140 minutes was shortened to just 45 minutes with most of the romantic scenes were censored. Romantic scenes means not the Hollywood style sexual scenes but even if the heroine wears a skirt above the knee, short or a top with any sort of cleavage, the scene would be cut down without a mercy. Keerthi’s dream job is to join the censor committee some day, so he could watch most of the un-cut versions. The current committee is comprised of a retired judge, a college teacher and a post master. One would still wonder what is post master to do with a movie censorship. That’s the way it is!!

So we all gathered at Priya’s place to plan the movie night. Keerthi is responsible for the movies, his cousin is running a video shop and we all believed that he smuggled many original VCRs from India by boat. Priya is responsible for the generator. Jaffna lost the electricity after the year 1991, leaving people using the hurricane and chimney lambs for lights at night. They would use Kerosene or coconut oil to lit them. Now you realise how desperate we would be to set this movie night up, a rare out of the blue moon event for all of us! Suresh is responsible for collecting 5 bottles of Kerosene and a three ounces of eau de cologne. Out of all these, Kerosene collection is the toughest part. The ration system allows two litres for the poverty line families and one litre for the rest. Poverty line is determined by monthly income, so most of the families with members in the foreign countries would come under the poverty lines since none of them leave any records of their foreign members in the ration system. The government servants’ families would be considered richer though their salaries are around five thousand to thousand rupees. An amount Kanna spent on the gold bangle to present to Vanathy akka in one of those wall jumping episodes.

Keerthi had managed to collect the movies from his cousin. five movies, all of them are Tamil, “Roja”, “Annamalai”, “Chembaruthi”, “Thevar Magan” and “Puthiya Paravai”, we were compelled to get ‘Puthiya Paravai”, an old 60s classic, because of Nadaraja uncle offered one litre kerosene if we agreed to do so. And he demanded to play that movie at first too. We were left no choice but to obey him, getting one litre kerosene is like a dream when other sponsors giving two to three hundred millilitres range! Keerthi is so excited to watch Annamalai, a Rajanikanth super hit but not many watched in Jaffna. He said, the lead heroine Kushboo is appearing in a bathroom scene and Rajanikath accidently seen her naked while going to find a snake in the house. He claimed his VCR tape is uncensored and all of us were so thrilled.

The night arrived, not to mention that Kanna and Vanathy akka are now married, the couple’s room is just near the the living hall area where our movie night to be held. The generator is arrived on time. Priya hired the generator for eight hundred rupees, the amount we couldn’t collect on time, so Keerthi stole couple of cash gift envelopes in the wedding, even then we are still hundred rupees short. Television and VCR player are from Kanna, his father sent them over two years back and barely been used ever since. Starting the generator is a big procedure. First of all, its not a power generator, it was a water pump turned generator. Again you use eau de cologne to kick start it, a procedure would take 30 minutes if one gets lucky. So Priya started the procedure and we were on time at nine, the first movie “Puthiya Paravai” played. This was where we went wrong, after twenty minutes, the visuals started to be fuzzy. Keerthi stopped the movie, got a screwdriver and tried opening the VCR player. The crowd started to make noise and kids started to play around. Priya wasn’t sure about what Keerthi was going to do. Keerthi told the VCR head needs to be cleaned and the old movie is full of dust. He couldn’t open the VCR. This left us with no choice, but to knock the couple’s room to get Kanna out, he is the owner of the VCR player and he might know this. We knocked and shouted to get him out. He wasn’t amused, opened the half door to come out and helped us open the player. The tape got stuck and the head was full of dirt. We used cologne to clean it and continue playing. Kanna went back into his room, warning us not to knock the door again. Keerthi took over the reins now. After two more similar stuck and clean-ups, we decided to get rid of the old movie.

Now its Annamalai time, kids demanded it before they all can going to sleep. The bathing scene indeed arrived, but nothing shown but the Heroin’s face, Priya started to curse Keerthi, so did Suresh. Annamalai was well received by the audience, of course its Rajanikanth movie and we all get to see him only in wedding nights! Now the time is 11.30, Priya said, the generator needs a cool off and we played the next movie one hour later. This time the movie is Roja, quiet famous for its songs, Priya said its a Maniratnam movie which none of us were even aware who was he, half of the crowd fell asleep when Roja finished at 2.30. The next show was Devar Magan. Most of the crowd left the hall by then and only Suresh, Priya, Keerthi and Kanna’s sister were in the hall. Priya was totally annoyed with Kanna’s sister still awake and especially with the Keerthi’s show-offs with the VCR operations when she is around. Keerthi showed some pride on only himself could operate the complex TV and VCR systems. Sooner she too went to sleep, Devar Magan climax scene was nearing. The time is 4.15 AM …

Kanna’s door has opened!

Everybody forgot the movie now. Excited to see Kanna coming out of the room. Priya looked bit jealous but Keerthi was excited. Kanna wearing just a saram, uncombed hair and still sweating, at least he looked he was. Priya just whispered to keerthi that Kanna just came out of the room only to annoy them, and he should have just disturbed his hair before getting out. Keerthi didn’t give a dare at it and asked Kanna,

“How was it Kanna”

“How was what?”

“The thing”

“The thing?”

“Yeah the thing…”

“No, nothing”

“Why the hell you are here now?”

“I have a movie, lets watch it!”

Priya and Keerthi are now bit surprised.

“What movie is it?”

Kanna went straight to the television, picked a bag besides it and took a VCR which didn’t have any labels in it.

“What movie is it? Devar Magan isn’t over yet” – Keerthi couldn’t hide his anxiety

“No time, Vanathy would wake up any time, lets watch it quickly”

“What is it”

“An Adults Only one!!!”

My Relationships!!!

 

I am right here at the Changi airport, Singapore, gate number 15, waiting to board into EK 404, the flight to Melbourne.  There is a little girl, sitting in the same row, is playing something on her iPad2. I can see her excitement and the care when using it, a brand new piece. What was I doing at age of nine? Indian Peace Keeping Force(IPKF) was on the march to capture Jaffna town. I can still recall a moment, my father was carrying me while fleeing to Nallur Temple with all my neighbourhood families with the belief of forces won’t attack religious places, there was a shell went pass us and exploded few hundred meters away. We all fell, father, mother, brother and sisters, we all fell down on the ground. Fortunately none of us hurt, we just had scratches! I stare at this little girl playing with iPad now. I can see a great peace in this girl’s face! Reminding me this soulful song from academy away winner A R Rahman. Who the heck said “The World Is Flat?”

My friends Kajan, Ajee and his wife Laxmy all came to airport to give me a warm send off. We went for coffee at the airport Dome Cafe.  We were chit chatting about my future plans, Kajan’s wife called from  Colombo and wished me too, not to forget their son Sangeeth, the kid is too cute and we always love playing together. Thank you guys!

Suddenly Ajee and Laxmi presented a gift, I opened it and it was Thomas Friedman’s "The World Is Flat". Ajee has been recommending this to read for long time, an influential book for him. I don’t remember a day he forgot to talk about this book. Now he has given his own copy of such a book to me. It takes greater courage for someone to present the book he or she owns and loves. Its our habit, while presenting books to each other, we make sure, we don't give it just for the sake of giving it. When you present a book to someone, either you should have read and realised that the receiver would adore it or it should be a book he or she long waiting to read it! Two weeks back, I visited Ajee’s place for a dinner and presented my Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” copy to him. Its a book I loved when reading, its a book which was in Ajee’s reading list so I was sure, he was going to read it! Now its my time to read “The World Is Flat”, I will start it once I finished my current reading Terry Pratchett’s Mort!

Mort, a gift to me, during my last days at hSenid from my colleague turned friend Harsha,. The book is a serious and serial exciting, a topic which is something I am passionate to know about. The novel is full of metaphorical critics on mankind’s beliefs. A story of Death and his apprentice Mort. The flow is so demanding and tricky with full of clichés, made me reading some of the pages twice before understanding the theme of them. I was almost stuck at the re-annual farm concept. Is he challenging the belief on so-called destiny being designed upfront? Clueless metaphor!!

My friend, Anbu bought me “The Sprit Of Music”  from India. The book was by then just got released, only in India. There were couple of other friends who were in India too. But I only asked Anbu, because I know he loves music and he can understand how much I was already excited about that book. So he bought and given it as a gift.

Amudha, my best friend in Singapore by far, who shares probably the maximum common interests with me,  read Lahiri’s “The Namesake” under interesting circumstances. It was the time I wrote the “Coffee” story in Australia. She is usually the first reader of my stories, she is a native English speaker, so I usually ask her to review before go on to publish any of my stories, so did the case for this too. While reading, she told me she bought “The Namesake” when visiting to Kolkata recently, but haven’t touched it still. I told her its a must read, especially being married to a Bengali gentleman who’s migrated to Singapore, she can relate a lot from the book. She nodded, they both went for a weekend trip to Sabah, Malaysia. She finished reading it while just relaxing in the beautiful beaches of Sabah. It was so meditative she said though was bit slow in pace. Of course it was Namesake!

There is something common on the books Ajee, Harsha, Anbu and Amudha shared with me. The respective books are totally different in their genres. One is about business, other is about music, another on man kind’s beliefs and theories around it and “The Namesake” is contemporary.  But they represents the type of relationship we share between the presenter and the receiver. With Ajee, we usually discuss on career, financial and personal management, so exchanging “The Tipping Point” and “The World Is Flat” represent that flavour. With Harsha, we usually discuss Antagonism, Theory of God, Life After Death, relationships and of course girls, so it was apt he gave me Mort. Anbu, a guitarist by himself, discusses a lot on music with me, so it was A R Rahman’s biography. Amudha shares more close to heart friendship, someone who mentors me in life! So it was not surprising that it was the book “The Namesake”

I am clueless on how to end this post. Post modernist writing style emphasizes not to stick with any plans on writing. Let your thinking to wander and flow like a river and it will reach the final destination. I feel its the destination for the post too. Its a kind of post, which doesn’t require a finishing touch. May be an open ended post!!

There you go, the final boarding call is made, getting ready to leave with a hope of finding more friends to share more books and relationships in Australia!! May be its a REANNUAL WRITING like Mort’s re-annual winery!!! 

“The things I want to know are in books, my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I never read.” -- Abraham Lincoln

Note: The content of the blog neither modified nor reviewed, keeping the feel of the moment as it is.But the links are added just now.

I am Jake in short JK .. errrh.. Jessie

"The next train to Flinders Street station via the city loop will be departing at five", the recorded voice was played when I pressed the green button. I sat on the near by bench which is inside the safety zone. We are tipped as soft-targets for crime and advised to stay within the safety zones in railway stations. Epping station is in its usual quietness. It’s a Saturday morning pro spring weather of 21 degrees, more than enough for me to leave my pullovers inside the car. Some drunken teenagers are playing Footy using empty VB beer cans at the platform. Two of them look like Vietnamese; another Lebanon and an African origin together with couple of native Aussies. They all talked in typical Aussie slang which something I am still struggling to adapt even after this many months in Melbourne. I am visiting my sister’s home at Dandenong to attend my niece's 16th birthday party.

Beside me, an old lady playing the yesterday's MX paper’s crossword puzzle. Though she finished most parts of it, she still stuck with one last word I guess. The word starting with ‘G’, forth box is ‘O’ and ending with ‘E’. No idea for me on what that word is anyway. The very next page has a coverage on the tenth year of commemoration ceremony of Serbian mass killings and another exclusive on a nude celebrity scandal. The lady doesn't appear too much bothered about this page. She is fully into the puzzle.

The train arrived at the platform with near empty. I got into the first compartment as usual. The teenagers have ceased their game, lit a cigar and shared it. Smoking and drinking are considered very normal here in Australia. My in-law used to tease me "You teetotalers don't have a place here mate". Once in a party, when I said I am a teetotaler, my friend offered me a beer! Unsurprisingly for them beer is just another form of water. Enough with the embarrassments, I now changed a bit and even become a big fan of South African Red Wine and getting to know few whiskey brands to cope up ! Now I don't drink whiskey but wines!

I heard the last train announcement before the departure. I started reading the novel which I bought last week. "The Namesake", a contemporary Booker price winner Jhumba Lahiri novel, my friend who recently migrated to New Jersey recommended to read this, claiming every migrant from Asia to western countries should keep a copy of it.

When the train was just about to leave, I closed down the book and stared outside. I noticed a girl running towards the train waving her hand to stop the train. While running, her jacket and handbag slipped in the floor. She said something which must be "Ow shit". Train driver too must have seen her, so he stopped the train. She now bent down, collected all the things on the ground, walked into our compartment. On the way, she gave a big thumb up to the driver, had a big laugh too. Typical Australian!

Incidentally she straightaway rushed to the seat just in front of me. She said a usual "Hi, How you doing?" to me, I delayed my response, confused on whether to say "Good, Your Self?" or "Good, How you doing " back. Most of the times people don't care what we respond anyway.


Lalor station is reached. Few more boarded. Epping line must be the quietest in Victoria in terms of commuters. I moved to window seat to give a room for the guy just got in. I hate the cigar smoke smell; always keep away from the guys jumping into trains. They bring that bad smell with them. He smiled at her, bantered something about the weather, and then tuned his iPod in. By then she already pulled her sweater out. Now although I keep the book open in my hands, I couldn't concentrate on it. I started staring at her completely. She wears a long V cardigan with lace tank top inside. She is little fatter and shorter than most of the Aussie girls of her age. She occupied the whole front seat with her pullover, handbag and jacket. Interestingly she has a bridge piercing with silver pearl. Her water-shine diamond lipstick matches well with her piercings and dress. She was looking outside the window, closely watching the traffic in the high street while humming a song. I think its lady gaga. The lady has not found that word yet. Reservoir reached.

She suddenly turned at me, not sure she realized me staring at her. She gently smiled. I can't remember the rule number three. But still went ahead with my own way. 

"Rocking weather, ain't it? U guys having an outing today?" I knew she is traveling alone. So using the word 'guys' to single woman is little odd. Bottom line is I just don't know how to start a casual chat like this.

"Yea, cool ha ... I’m going to Collingwood game, big game for us, isn’t ?"

I hardly follow AFL, simply because I don’t understand the rules. It almost looks like Rugby. Then again I don’t understand Rugby either. All I know is, Aussies are mad at it and Victorians in particular. Fortunately, my niece is a Cats fan and she told some of her favorite players' names to me once.

"Well, I follow cats, Gary is good ..."

"Fair enough! He is a legend, sexy too!”... No wonder why there are many sex scandals in AFL. All the women are behind these footy players and when money and women combine, that's hunting ground for paparazzis.


"Anyway you Indians are cricket crazies, ain't u, I stopped watching the game after Warnee retired" ... These days I never correct people when they mistakenly regard me as an Indian, at times I don't see the difference either !

"Well me neither, I love watching Tennis, Especially Roger’s back hand slices! "

"Roger? I couldn’t stop laughing when he cried at Australian Open last time, Such a shame for a player of his caliber” 

"You know, he could be game's the greatest player ever, but still he sleeps with his wife, goes to toilet in the morning, kinda things all of us do usually ... ha " .. I think I am little carried away by now. Some team coach made a similar comment on famous cricketer Sachin Tendulkar recently, but probably I timed it wrong.


"Coool, you are such an uncanny! Ohh Gee, What’s that book? Is that "Namesake", wow that's an awesome contemporary, I read it twice!” Surprised with her gesture, I just looked at the book cover again and told

"Oh is it? I just started it”


"Yea its good, my ex boy friend gave it to me .. I loved it, specially that guy...Errgg what's his name? Ahh Gogol, the story line hangs around him and his family !”

"Don't go there please, I just started !, I don't like people telling the story of novels and movies !"

"Yea Yeah I won't reveal the story, you enjoy "

She looks little annoyed with my response. But then of course she doesn't know, I usually struggle to use right vocabulary at the right time. I know many of my colleagues tipped me rude and arrogant behind the backdrops. May be its time for me to change !

She didn't continue the conversation after that. I am back to "The Namesake" now, but my mind is still trying to read her. The fact that she read "Namesake" irked me a bit. She must be a literature fan, reads contemporaries. Now I started observing her little more deep. It’s a mistake to say she is beautiful. ‘Awesome’ could be the right word. She retouched her lips three times already. Also adjusts her cardigan to hide her mild cleavage time to time. Her lace tank is not enough to cover her entire beauty. Is she trying to show it or hide it? I don't know. But whenever she does it, it draws my attention and doesn't help myself taking out my eyes away. She doesn't wear long heels. I think she might just look gorgeous in traditional Indian Saree or even Sudidaar.

The guy next to me already left and now only we three are at our compartment. That lady has given up the puzzle; the word could be a strange one for an Australian. I need to ask it from my father. Sometimes he may know it. Merry station reached.

I couldn't stop myself thinking about her again. She read The Namesake, means she should have had some Indian connection through her ex boy friend. May be he is an Indian too. Who knows, she might have done some research study in Indian contemporaries. Does she know A R Rahman? Jeez, She should like Indian music and food then, the things I can't just live without. Who knows, she well may even get along with my parents too. My father is a conservative, but I am sure she is too good of a person to ignore. Mother might find it difficult to speak in English with her. But I can always teach English to my mother. So that too wouldn't be a problem. Having her will help me moving on with my new life too. In case my case gets rejected, she can still sponsor me. What if she does get to know that I am still living with my parents? Oh my goodness, I should never utter a word about it. May be I should settle my parents to separate place. Let’s see.

She at times turned at me and smiled too or did she? I am not sure. I noticed she got a cute little dimple when she smiles.We are now two stations away from Collingwood. I don't even know her name. I am trying to recall what Will Smith was doing in "Hitch". Nothing comes to my mind now, blacked out. Shall I ask her name? May be "By the way, I am Jake, your good name please", damn, that's too old fashioned, what shall I say. Why don't I ask her for a coffee? mmm even I can join her for the match. I can skip niece's birthday party. Asking coffee would be fine, but is it too early. What if she says "U Bloody I!@#$ns", should I react politely then? Surely she is now single and free. She said she had ex which means she is free now. What was their problem. I am sure he was wrong. May be I will ask her name first and see how it goes.


Next station is Collingwood. Now only two of us are around in the compartment, the lady also left. Its strange on an AFL match day, the whole compartment is empty. Certainly the day meant for us. The weather is also neither too chill nor too hot, perfect for the situation. Now I decided. Let the party go, I am going to the game with her. How could I ask her name? Mmm "Hey I am thinking of coming to the match, U free to join with me?" .. mmm that's bad, May be "Hey, I think it would be fun if we both went together "... Well, it sounds cool, but should I use 'go' or 'went' there? Damn my English. It’s my father who didn't teach me English well. Why everybody got good parents but not me? Forget it, the best thing is to introduce myself and then check with her whether I can join, Collingwood is nearing, Nothing to lose, lets askkk...

"Hey maite.. I kinda thinking, why don't u join with me to the match, May be a coffee after that? Sure gonna be fun ! .Jessie !" -- she offered a handshake, I was shocked and stunned.

“Holyyyyyy Shittttttt .. ”

“Excuse me .. ?”

“No nothing, Oh yeahh, absolutely ... pleasure  is mine .. Jake in short JK . errrh.. Jessie !”
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"Basic Principles, There are none" -- Quote from movie 'Hitch'