4/19/10

what can you do when you feel bored

note-all photos are of poor quality.adjust.

so in one of the blogs i read-http://bit.ly/cq3quD

was talking with one of my chennai friends about this difference in our perception of humor. the tamizh mallu ones are quite similar. goltu kannada ones same. and then the north indian ones. the cross regional attraction is not that great here. and as the lady complains most of the famous indian humour blogs seem to have a tamizh or mallu behind it. even on twitter. same story.we worship crazy mohan.

you see its basically the tam bram sense of beauty and humor. they are skeptical and cynical, like natural. ask them tam brams who know live in joint families and all. atleast half the family will be pj-ists. the athimbers(breed of uncles) usually. sama pjs. even in normal times never has a straight forward comment been passed in my family. all of them are indirect, spun with puns and highly cynical. once you get past the cynical part that usually hurts, you tend to appreciate. some people dont get the cynic or sarcasm part and laugh along. my thatha was a theatre artist. did the comedy work for his group. he wrote the jokes for himself and acted them out.am talking of 1940-1960 period. now including my dad 8 kids. one died early. of the seven 3 inherited his sense of humor. the typical tam bram humor. told with a smiling face. met by a smiling face. cynical. the puns. the double meaning stuff. higher line of tamizh they use. the brahmin tamizh is totally different form the normal. and its not like what the tamizh cinemas make it out to be. brahmin house holds are never quiet. something has to keep on happening. they always something discuss. colorful.

and the gods. every orthodox brahmin family like us will own a temple or two. and have small size figures of gods called vigraham. get up early do pooja,change the gods dress. i love this part. we have loads of small colorful silk pieces. i love dressing them up. they are the length of a grown ups fore arm. the vigrahams i mean. every chitra pournami we all get together, each household cooks whatever the lady specialises in,go to beach and enjoy. all grown ups will also play. amma always made bisibela bath. range it will be. and when about 30 of us sit and have it together pjs again. true there have been lot of squables among the women, but it goes on you know. considered normal.


the mallu have similar stuff going. and another way is how you pronounce. the accent. stuff like halo dubaiya.. brodhar maarg..likeyachaild.. nanari payale.. but the best humor site imo is one mr.shenoy. a mumbai northie fellow. his googling make seaching faster,the co-ordinate ones are gems. i showed them to my appa. over joyed he was. and when i told him there is a whole gang on twitter which appreciate such stuff he even enquired about. i say even because he loathes technology net cell and all. unless its really serious appa always have a shenoy up his sleeve.

my dad and his youngest brother are regarded as one of the finest pjists our family has seen. in any family function(which in our joint family system means death annivs,60th bday and any shit) after food they will sit down with the thambulam(beatle leaves and all) dad and my uncle will start off..they will pick on someone..usually new and like enquire, which to a stranger sound like a concerned person asking stuff. he will be finished off that day. in dads office circle same story.

amma is more serious. and it doesnt help that my bro inherited this. many times appa will say one of those shenoy sentences and amma will do the hitting head thing. she has had it for 23 years now. cant blame. and i will also do the hear hitting thing when my bro adds to it. when ever dads friends come they expect me to crack those pun pj stuff. disappointed they are.i used to do those pj things in 11 th and 12th and all. but Friends got irritated. cant blame thing. i never shut up. and they are not used to this thing. so i shut up. havent opened till now.


this jan one of dads best friends celebrated 60th bday. so the whole crowd was there. one of them uncles told me what happened in 1987. dad was working in bhopal. being the guy from whom i inherited all this laziness he remembered 15 days before marriage that his colleagues cant read the tamizh wedding invite he had with him. so he asked his friends to print a simple english invite. they were meant for his seniors. so had to be official and all. being bugged by his pjs this is what they printed.


more such stories i have been told. for long they had me believing that appa was a normal fellow who scored 100 in his puc math and all.. did bcom.. had a bank job before he finished college..worked hard and helped his 3 sis get married..turns out it was nothing like that. appa was a gethu photographer. won competitions and all. he decided to become a proper pro. and the first photographs he sold to papers were from a camera he and and his friend had made. which meant they take that device to the place.remove the cover once. thats all. one shot.

anyways dad got the bank job so that he could earn a bit and get a camera. in 1984 he got his camera. 3000 rupees. that was huge in those days. and he needed lens. so each sis had to give away one of those chains. he promised to buy them later. he had saved like hell it seems. and he got and stared clicking. will disappear for a week with no info and come back suddenly. but then new rules came. thatha retired from pwd. so dad had to take over and marry off the three atthais. then they had him married him too. so struck with bank job since then. he clicked so much. it was only this year i got to see so much of the old photos.

now i have got his old slr. a pentax. a part is needed. waiting for it to arrive. he gave it to me on a promise that i keep it loaded.always. he did. used click me and my bro a lot. so many photo in my house. all these days i knew a different appa. it was this year i heard loads of weird stories. like going and camping in unknown beach stretch for a week for photos and all. and he listened to english music. lol. and this time some of his friends gave some old photos that i dint have before.few of them..


the old mandavelli house in the 80s.big green independent house.photographs of chennai from that era are brilliant. i like that chennai better than the present one. grandpa in the centre. he is going to hit 90 this year. he is considered gethu astrologer. but after telling the star charts and all he advices the party the logically good choice. was ridikuled when he suggested the temple owner to let the son go ahead with love marriage and all. violet saree grandma.green saree eldest daughter.then the two other daughter. top from left-dad's elder bro,the youngest bro,dad,dads younger brother..


dad when he was in kovai..

dad(on the pipe) and his room mate in bhopal..

dad had to go away after couple of weeks i was born. grandma dint let him take photo of me due to superstitions. never left me she..still dad managed..

dad's friend gave this.again me the chamathu..

my year old brother.reason why you should always keep your camera loaded..

when we were in delhi. my mothers amma. dear pati who is no more..that f1 driver..guess..guess..

free
ps-like i said am bored

18 comments:

Srishti said...

Hahaha! So cutee!! :D The photos really are cute. :) Seriously.

Y'know, I always got the impression that south Indians are very strict and all, always punctual and disciplined, as opposed to North Indians who seemed a little more laidback and casual. But I was so wrong! Haha, I bet you have an awesome time with ur family. :)
Cool.

I'm bored too! Temme what to do.

Srishti said...

And OMG, that invite has GOT to be the FUNNIEST INVITE EVER!!!
Swear.

HaRy!! said...

bro.... photos opice la theriyala.... but ana vilakam super.... 30 of yu together...antha joint family gethu than... ana ore sandai sometimes.... my dad was a basket ball player...so he did hav some fotos... ore funny ah irukum... namaku mokai writings nala varuthu... i heard from kuchi... CTS ah.. chennai na we will meet sure!! cyu around... ethachi mokai comment ezhathunum.. yu 2 !

nishi said...

the invite is really funny... thot it only happened in e-mail fwds. :D n cute pics!!

Insignia said...

These are the things you do when you are bored..Old memories..reminiscence...you were a cute kid.

And the marriage invite..what humor your dad possessed!! Awesome

Sachita said...

err... kids these days..the sentence structure has undergone some drastic changes:)

nice post soin.. i luved this, my dad had a similar backgrnd in terms of family and responsibilities but not the pj and camera part. Those pictures are extremely cute.

Vishnu said...

shabba.. tht pipe was sema comedy.. i've seen my dad photos.. my dad had subramaniyapuram tation hairstyle.. sema comedy it was.. i'll scan it n put it one day or show it to u the next time u come to ma house..

Anjana R said...

killer invite, dude! lovely pics. :)

Soin said...

@srishti..that because we sent all the perfect punctual life killing ones out of tn..but yes northies are more laid back.free

@hary..btw neenga endha company?

@nishi..nope loads of IT pl give out such invites these days.free

@insignia..free and btw what
company you work for?

@sachita..kid these days? pati neenga yena 60 ah?

@kuchi..my country da.i know.free

@anjana..no issues lady,but dont call me dude.thank you hai.free

Insignia said...

soin,

Email me and I shall share my organization's name :-)

Spaz Kumari said...

i will be in mylapore in two weeks.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Soin said...

@insignia..over scene.seri nenga cts kadayadhu la?i have come to see this is a small world.i already know more than 10 in cts.thats why.free

@spaz..oh neengalum mylapore ah?nice.three weeks and am back to mylapore.for good.yay

mentalie said...

i'd kill for the kind of friends that wrote your father's wedding invitation :D loved the pix.

Soin said...

@mentalie..oh yeah that group is really nice.free

Anonymous said...

oo arvindh is cute. remember we used to hang him up side down when he was a baby? we dropped him once and he fainted. so you still have a steady female readership. my point is still valid
-ro

Saya said...

now we know why you take lovely photos. it is in your genes :P

Saya said...

loved the last pic with the paati.

Soin said...

@ro..oh dont remind me of that. he was like lifeless for a minute.

@saya..appa got full marks in math in his 10th and 12th.i kept back in college math paper.what was that about genes again?but yes he kindled the interest yes.free