Something Special!!

This is the catch phrase (or) caption used for the movie 'Gentleman' (Arjun, Madhubala) released in 1993. K.T. Kunjumon started this trend of slapping a catch phrase to South Indian movie titles and it caught on fire. Anyway, the point is, my trip to Boston for the New Years can be described with those two words: "something special" :) (idhuku perdhan thalaya suthi mookai thodradhu :P)

I flew to Boston to meet with my beloved friends from way back and this New Year will be atop my list of best new years’ so far! I know most of them from when I was 12 yrs old or so, back when I didn’t know that it takes more than just saying prayers to spawn babies :P We call ourselves the “Nice Guys” (our excuse is that we were half our age when we chose this name :)), we grew up together in Chennai, India and now most of us scattered across the US for the past 6 years or so. The sweetest thing is, we still get to hang out for the new years, just like how we used to back home! We still miss some of the guys from our gang but hey, this is more than we can ask for already.

Down to the details. I met with Rama, Raja, Swetha, Madan, Charu (Madan’s wife), Kalyan, BMW 330Xi (Kalyan’s wife), Pappu (Charu’s sister), Charu/Pappu’s parents and their pet cat, Cookie, which we love to harass. :)) There is a saying that ‘Brownies & IT are made for each other’ and most of us Brownies are no exception! Except for Pappu, who just graduated from Anna University, most of us are IT professionals who stare at our monitors all day for a living!

So what did we do in Boston? Just chillin, drinkin, playing cards, eating home cooked lunches and dinners and sharing good ole times, jokes and stories; it was almost a late thanksgiving, so to speak :)

“Enna kodumai saravan idhu”.

There is this scene, in the movie Chandramukhi. Prabhu’s hottie wife (Jyothika) is a psychopath who often goes berserk and Prabhu is in agony that instead of being “silfansi gilfansi” with his newly wed, he’s dealing with her crazy screaming. He seeks Saravan (Rajini), a psychiatrist’s help and while he shows Saravan his wife’s crazy behavior, he expresses his agony by saying “enna kodumai saravanan idhu” while slapping his forehead with his palm and flapping his cheeks in the process. This one dialogue has become super popular and we overused this dialogue (one out of every 5 sentences uttered) to joke at each other. Invariably, we’d crack up every time somebody said it because it reminded us of Prabhu’s face. Here’s a link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K-m81U0_PE

“Crazy Asians”

The stroke of midnight on Jan 1, 2007. We returned home after a night of bowling in two cars, to celebrate at home and some of us made it earlier. When the second car arrived, we all ran down to greet “happy new year” to the rest and we were all screaming and hugging each other, blowing little trumpets and out of the Boston blue, five crazy Asian teens on the street joined our celebration, started hugging us and it got all emotional. Raja claimed that one of the chinks got super emotional and was jumping around in tears of joy. Priceless :) We still don’t know how they bumped into us but who cares? :)

“Namakku kalynama?”

Swetha is the epitome of innocence. She was asking me about when I was planning to get married and I asked her “namakku eppa kalyanam?”. In Tamil, “namakku” means “us” but it’s a colloquial way of asking “when are YOU getting married?”. She took it literally and asked me “ennada, namakku kalyanama?” in utter shock. We burst into laughter and explained that it was a joke but I kept messing with her since then that her and I should get married while Raja, who hangs out with her, was like “en kudumbatha enda kozhapara”? :)) We all crashed at Swetha/Raja’s place on New year and while Swetha was trying to sleep, I was peeking into her room from outside while singing songs for her :)))) The things that alcohol does to you, is amazing. Swetha – “mishava” enna venalum sollatum, I say we elope to Hawaii and open a little idli kadai. What say you? :)

“Chasing Pappu”

Over the years, I’ve been messing with Madan that I’m deeply in love with his wife’s sister, Pappu simply because it ticks him off :). I met Pappu for the first time this new years’ and just so Pappu doesn’t feel unnoticed ;), I was telling her (as much as I did to Swetha) that she’s born for me and I’m deeply in love etc :P It was all good-natured, harmless fun and I hope Pappu’s “aal”, the guy who called her at 11.59 p.m. on new year’s eve, doesn’t “auto-la porula pottu thookify me” when I’m in India ;) By the way, Pappu – Keep eating lots of vendakkai, you need it for sure :)

The “welcome”

I met Raja, Rama, Kalyan and Madan at the Boston airport on Friday, Dec 29. Initially, I didn’t recognize them because they were dressed up in suits and ties (which I definitely didn’t expect) and carried posters saying “Welcome Bharath, future CEO of Microsoft, but currently working at Starbucks”. They had three huge yellow placards with bold black lettering. Suave :P I had onlookers take pictures with me and my homies ensured that all living organisms at the airport knew that the banners were made for me. Grrr! :)

If I write any further, I’m sure most people won’t continue to read :). So, let me hold my horses now. The bottom line is that I’m proud and grateful to have such friends and I hope our friendship continues to flourish no matter where we go. I can’t imagine how crazy it would be when we all get married and hang out with our spouses. Needless to say, the wives would go “enna kodumai saravanan idhu?” :))))