Topic started by mmc (@ 203.122.42.221) on Sat Oct 12 12:45:11 .
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I remember the words of vairamuthu:
" MUthal muthathaiyum Muthal Kadhalaiyum Marakka mudiyathu Kanney "
We may fall in love sevearal times, but the first love and the first kiss will always reside deep within the heart for ever.....
Usually it all happened to us almost the same time...all our friends fell in love at the same time, one by one.
And almost none of the 'love's came through as we were too young even to understand as to what is it to be in love.
But that 'first love' always remain special.The rainy season, the Sembaruthi poo chedi which remained near when the first kiss was attempted... the blue coloured 'thavani' with flower designs on it..... the smell of the loved one....
it will remain etched in memory forever...
We had some 'professional helpers from both the genders who were more than willing to help us fall in love when we were at the twilight years..like this friend of mine who gave a 'love poem' to help another friend who fell in love instantly mistaking a 'stare ' from a common friend as mark of 'love'.
These blunders were quiet common those days:
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//Friendship is a wonderful relationship but I am not sure how many Indians really know how to keep the relationship and maintain it especially the other person is opposite sex!!!!
I believe very are yet to grow up as far as this issue is concerned!!!//
When I think back, as to how far we were matured at handling the friendship across the genders, our performance record is poor.We have done some blunders , the guilt feeling of which will never leave our lives.
I dont know if our segragation made us do these blunders.
When we passed 10th standard, myself and venki went and brought chocolate from the nearby shop and went on distributing that to all friends and known persons.
We saw VS , she was a class mate from the elementary school , but for the past five years we were seperated and studied in our respective schools.We havent spoken all these days.We didnt know what to do.But gave the sweets to next door saval(actually his name was Shahul, but in our village we all called him 'savalu').
It seems Saval met venki the next day and said that v.santhi asked him, "Enna unga firendu engalukkellam sweet thara mattara?".
After Saval told this to venki, venki's head started rolling.He somehow went and gave a chocolate to VS and spoke to her.
After a week or so,i saw venki in cycle in VS's street.I thought he has gone to meet Saval.But,he never met saval and was all the time driving his cycle around VS's house.
Slowly, it emerged that Venki was afflicted with the 'love disease'.Venki found out VS's house phone number and gave ring also which was picked by VS's elder sister who informed this to her mother.
VS had a terrible time with her family explaining that she has no part in this 'love affair'.Saval called me and told all this (till that time, even though i somewhat guessed Venki's state of 'kirukku'..i didnt know the full picture and the gravity of the situation.).When he mentioned that VS cried to him stating that she repents that she asked for sweet from this guy made me also feel guilty.
This happened in 11th standard.Now VS is teaching in a nearby school.Venki again fell in love after some four years with a family friend and that too got into lot of complication , the family shifted out.I dont know what ordails this girl went as Venki used to get annoyed and angry if i bring in this topic or try to reason out with him not to make calls or send greetings(he used to patiently make the greetings with hand as he is a good artist too... but alas , he has chosen a job totally unconnected with his artistic talents due to family pressure and now has entered into Agarbathi business.When i went home last time, i saw the agarbathis smelling nice, slowly evaporating like his talents).
He was a good person, excepting his firm beleifs in the love affairs and his rejecting any suggestion that the girl concerned seems to be not in love with him.
This once happened in kuzhali's case also.The one who fell in love was my friend who was in the opposite house.
Kuzhali attained age ( attaining age , is a recent english word discovered by my people who merely did a verbatim traslation into English of the Tamil word 'vayasukku varathu' meaning the girl attained 'Puberty') and as its a big event in our village, the family wanted to take photo.
Usually, there is a family photo shop for every family in our village.Some preferring to go to the neighbouring town for this purpose and some refusing to change the photo-shop which was catering to the needs of their grandparents.My friend happened to be not only a neighbour, but also the son of the photo-shop owner.
This guy went along with his brother to the event(which was celeberated with much fan-fare , with music systems on, serial lamps and lot of relatives of kuzhali coming from neighbouring places etc) and took photos.
Then we had a detailed discussion on the mottai madi of his house on what exactly is this 'vayasukku varathu'....he couldnt understand the phenomenon.I somehow understood that it is something to do with sex( about sex also, as to how we found out as to what exactly is the act of sex making is another detailed story!), but couldnt explain to him as inspite of some idea, even i was confused as to why it is being celeberated with such a fan-fare.
Lateron, we were passing through her house in cycle when kuzhalis mother stopped him and started talking about when the photos will be available , how many copies are required etc.
I noticed that kuzhali was sitting in the 'thinnai'(an elevated place outside the house where we sit and chat..nowadays , its considered as old fashion and even in our house we have removed that !!) and was chewing something and was staring at MN (my friend, the photo-shop owner's son)..it was what we call,"Vachakannu vangama parkurathu".
After this, i started teasing him on this...MN was perplexed and happy .He gave me a suspicious look, and asked ,"nejamava sollura?".I promised him by mentioning the God of their family(val muneeswaran....actually now only i realise, its not 'val'(tail) but 'Vaal(sword)"...).
Again now , MN was afflicted with the 'love virus'!! and was adamant that he wants to give 'love letter' to her and handed me the job of preparing that as i was considered to be a studious boy.
Even i was confused, somehow i had a hunch that if i am found out as the one who wrote the letter, my family would beat me blue(in my younger days, the beatings used to be common....once i was beaten with a 'viragu kattai'(fire wood) which was there on the thinnai for doing some mischievous thing...the wounds took months to heal)....
at the same time, i somehow was curious to know as to what will happen.I was not knowing as to what they write in such 'love letters' also.So finally i went to a class mate of mine who was considered to be a romantic fellow and who was knowledgeable in such things.
I admitted to him openly that this seems to be a matter of my 'beatings' and at the same time MN was pressurising me to prepare and give him the letter to MN by monday so that he can give it to kuzhali when she goes to school by a next lane(which at that time was somewhat deserted..it took two days for us to decide as to where to hand over the letter to her.I suggested that we give it at a point near our house..but MN shivered and said that she will come directly to his house and show the letter to his parents).
This 'romantic' fellow gave much thought to the matter and finally said that we can give some 'kavithai'.This will express MN's love as well as MN can escape saying that he hasnt written any 'love' things in it( somehow it looked as a great logic at that time..i admired RF's wisdom and magnanimity in giving a kavithai from his records...he fell in love with atleast 13 girls and one day his mother found out all the love letters written by his girl friends and admirers and gave it to his father.RF till date never forgives his dad for calling all the girls' fathers and showing them the letters written by their daughters to his son.).
A great calamity(?!) wouldve occured had MN proceeded with his intention and handed over the 'love poem' to kuzhali , but somehow he met an astrologer in his photo-shop and who while waiting there saw his hand and predicted that he is going to be in deep trouble because of a girl shortly.I was anxiously waiting for monday's morining when MN came and declared that the plan is cancelled due to the astrologer's warnings.
I was disappointed and at the same time got releived.
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At that time 'love ' used to be an enchanting monster...we were afraid of that at the same time were attracted towards that....
The impact of Tamil Cinemas was the biggest one, making us write love letters, making us compare our situation to some movie and the feeling that 'we are in love' made us feel as on par with the heroes on the silver screen.
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