Pongal brings to my mind a weird and funny incident and the other day GB aka 'yabba' Gayathri mentioned the word "puraa" (pigeon) and I couldnt help myself ROTFL, a la SSM style.
Setting: My "thalai Pongal" (first Pongal after marriage)
Year: 2000
Situation: my grandparents' home in a village near the South Indian port city of Tuticorin.
Okay, now many of you would be wondering what I was doing in my grandparents place for the thalai Pongal instead of going to my in-laws house in Erode. Well I for one dont believe in going to my in-laws at the drop of the hat for every celebration not that I didnt like them but coz I shunned the various small rituals that the new bridegroom has to perform and have heard enough incidents where the groom has botched enough to make him a look alike of Senthil or Koundamani!
There was another important reason why we dint celebrate Pongal that year because dad dearest had just passed away on Dec 6th 1999. Though
being an agriculural family, my grandparents house wore a very solemn
look sans any festive decoration while the whole village was pulsating
and wild with excitement as is usual of rural India.
My marriage, about 50 days earlier, was a low key affair and not many in the village knew that I was married. The winter, if you can call it so in the dry arid regions of Southern Tamilnadu, was just over and the sun was beating down harshly on the brown landscape and the heat and sweat brought a few of those ubiquitous pimples on my boyish face...ahaaan;)
I was too bored that evening and decided to go to the huge, old village temple and sit on the steps of the 'theppam', the temple pond, to ogle at the village belle who were fetching water. Hmmm. (some people never change;) My wife did not accompany me as she stayed back with my mom who was shattered by the loss of dad and was crying most of the day thinking of old times.
Till date come any festival and mom is so very depressed and is teary the whole day. I do understand her torment. Poor she. Not that I am not reminded of old times but atleast I am able to divert attention, but she finds herself hapless. Ok that is way beyond the point and if you would permit me to use a hack expression, "I digress."
I was sitting alone and presently a village youth came along and we struck up a conversation and he was mighty impressed that I was a physician. He was extolling the virtues of traditional medicine and I was having quite a tough time refuting it.
He had noticed the couple of zits on my face and asked me slyly if allopathy had a cure for it. I invoked all my acquired knowledge of the subject and said YES. Dont we treat acne with isotretinoin and antibiotics? Well, he had a different idea. Smugly he said he knew a sure-fire method to get rid of them.
"What is that?" I query him.
He: "Lady's "puraa" edhuthu mugathuley theycha seriyaa poidum."
I loosely translated that as "rub a female pigeon on the face" coz "puraa" in Tamil means pigeon.
Now. what the hell? How do you identify a femme pigeon and why rub that
feathery creature on your face?
I: "Enlighten me sir"
He: "Puraa edukkanum, aana andha lady ku theriyakoodaadhu" (take the pigeon, but without the lady knowing)
Riddle after riddle. So now I had to go around looking for a "puraa" owned by a lady!
I: "puraavai pudikkaradhu avlo kastama?" ( is it very difficult to catch a pigeon?")
He: "kashtam illey, yaaraavadhu paarthaanganna thappa ninaippaanga"(not very hard, but if someone sees you they might think bad of you)
Now why would some one have to think bad about a crazy doc who is chasing pigeons in a hamlet, though I would have made a spectacle of
myself!
Wonderful opportunity to beat the boredom and to try out an indigenous
medicine, I thought. But I needed help, so I told him that I might enlist the help of a few village boys in my "puraa" adventure.
He: "illey saar neenga mattum dhaan poyi adhai edukkanum" (only you should go and take it)
Wait. Was I missing something? Wasnt I supposed to 'catch' the puraa? But he is talking of me taking it as if it were lying dead! Again I ask him for enlightenment.
He: "adhaan saar, ladies ullaara poduvaaangaley? adhu" ( you know the thingie that the ladies wear inside)
I: "BRA sollureengala?" (do you mean a BRA)
H: "Aaama saar" (yes sir)
I was literally laughing my arse off.
Holy shit. He meant BRA and was prounouncing that as 'puraa' the tamil
equivalent of pigeon!!! ( you dont expect an uneducated man to pronounce better than that)
I really am flummoxed by this gentleman whose good intention was to teach me a cure for the pimples, but I still dont understand the logic of rubbing a woman's brassiere on my face and that too the wonderful garment had to be procured without the knowledge of the owner. How is that for a remedy?
I actually wanted to ask him the size of the 'puraa' which effects the best cure, but refrained, to avoid hurting his sentiments coz he was visibly disturbed when I couldnt control my peals of laughter.
What if femmes had acne? Yucks. Unimaginable. What would he have recommended for the few zits on my butt? :)))) Think of the sorry state of the femme whose bra I decided to flick! Won't her delicate heart be broken to find that her single device of "upliftment" has been looted? Why would a newly married bloke run around for a piece of lingerie item to rub his face on when he has better things to ......cut cut cut...;))))
Then I told him I was married. He was shocked and asked, "Even after
marriage do you get those?" I seriously didnt understand what he meant.
I then went back home and narrated the incident to my wife. Since then
she has been watching me whenever I go into the bathroom and the
neighbours too havent complained of any missing "stuff" from their
wardrobes! What with many femmes having a "wardrobe malfunction" these days:)))))
In case any of you are having thoughts in your mind, I dont have them
zits now and NO, I dont have a bra fetish.
PS: The above incident is a true one:) and isnt a figment of my fertile imagination:))))))
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