Problem's (favorite) child

From Time immemorial, from the times when giants ruled earth, when titans waged war with gods, when pangaea was world map, when stone formed and sand was yet to (kal thondri mann thondraa time u see )gils and kodumais have an ongoing tussle, across generations, rebirths and locations. Especially with the concept of transport and any mode associated with it. My chronicles of kodumai at airports across the globe has been polambified and documented to the extent possible in this space. Recent addition is road transport.

Akin to the relation between transfer and honest IAS officers, I get shunted to all buildings across Chennai to Pondicherry in the name of Project ODC’s. This time it’s the turn of Perumbakkam which is right in the middle of all long traffic signals and bottleneck junction capital of the world. Since I am pretty much new to any place outside of my doorstep, I took googlaandavar’s advice and boarded the bus, which was one of the many I need to take, in the break journey suggested, as the quickest, of all the 2 routes. The very first day I managed to board the right bus at the first attempt itself, which in itself called for a kedavetti pongal keeping level of celebration. There were about a hundred bus stops, each having literally no remarkable landmark associated and every single one of them had their name board plastered with some veena pona political parties poster, that too half torn, strategically hiding the first part of the location name. If the place is karapakkam, you would only see the “pakkam” portion and kara would be as clearly hidden as Supergirl in her reporter routine. For a place which is never near any place worth living or going, surprisingly every single one of the stops/places have been named as “pakkam”!!! Pakkam for pakkathu oor may be, but definitely long thoooram for guileless gullible gils. After crossing countably finite number of such bus stops I was kind of confused whether my stopping has crossed or yet to come. Asked one saga passenger who was wearing name tag of my company. He gave me that “yaamirukka bayamen” pose and asked me to get down along with him as he is also going to same company. Thanking my lucky star (angeye yosichiruka venaam..bulbu nu..hmmm) I got down and asked him

“neenga epolenthu ELCOT la working?”

“Naan ELCOT enga working Torapakkam boss”

“ada pakki appo ithu ELCOT stopping ilia”

“Illa boss..neenga angayaa ponum? Naan intha office nenachen”

“Un nenapula theeya vaika..innum evlo thooram ponum?”

“Don’t worry..the bus from which u got down is lot frequent..wait for same one..its just another 4 to 5 stops away”

“Four a Five a?”

“Five nenakren..ketukonga”

Oru vazhia managed to reach office, exactly 1.5 hrs later. Namma neram..seekram kelambinaalum ipdi aaguthay nu, next day was pretty convinced and took the second route which was from my place direct to my destination. Was hyper alert like gabtun chasing baakistan theeviravathi and was watching the route all along with google maps turned on. Just in case the bus had break down or probably more to see if driver knew the route. It went via VGP, MGM and only place I didn’t see was kishkinta and maayajaal. Finally he reached shozhinganallur where the guy who got ticket for ELCOT suddenly got down from the bus in the turning and asked me as well. He said there was no proper bus stop for that place and we both got down in signal. He started walking in what I felt was opposite direction and asked him

“ELCOT back entrance routea ithu? Differenta irukkay intha road”

“neenga angaya ponum?”

“adapaavi..apo idhu entha area?”

“Naan en company aalu neenga nenachen..enga office perum elcot thaan..ingenthu ELCOT 2.5 km aachay epdi poveenga?”

“ada naadhari payalay..naan paatuka sivanay nu thaanada vanthen..eraki vittutu ipo kelvi veraya” nu manasaara vazhthittu again podi nadaiya nadai kattified.

Naaliku enna aagapogutho. Ipovay kanna katutthay. Onnu uruthi..entha oor entha jilla ku ponaalum..intha kodumai nammala vidaatha karuppa thodaruthu..avvvvvvvv.