you feel even your uncles can be movie stars. The heroes are fat, balding, have
thick moustaches and the heroine next to them is a ravishing beauty. Maybe my
mother had a point in saying that Tamil women have a thing for North Indian men.
‘Hey, that’s IIT?’ the auto driver said a word which would have led to trouble if
he had spoken it in Delhi.
I looked at the campus wall that lasted for over a kilometre. The driver recited
the names of neighbourhoods as we passed them – Adyat, Saidapet, Mambalam
and other unpronounceable names so long they wouldn’t fit on an entire row of
Scrabble. I felt bad for residents of these areas as they’d waste so much of their
time filling the address columns in forms.
We passed a giant, fifty-feet-tall poster as we entered Nungambakkam. The
driver stopped the auto. He craned his neck out of the auto and folded his hands.
‘What?’ I gestured.
‘Thalaivar,’ he said, pointing to the poster.
I looked out. The poster was for a movie called Padayappa. I saw the actors and
recognised only one. ‘Rajnikant?’
The auto driver broke into a huge grin. I had recognised at least on landmark
in the city.
He drove into the leafy lanes of Nungambakkam till we reached Loyola
College. I asked a few local residents for Chinappa Towers and they pointed us to
the right building.
I stepped out of the auto and gave the driver a hundred-rupee note. I wondered
if I should give him a ten-rupee tip for his friendliness.
‘Anju,’ the driver said and opened his palm again.
I remained puzzled and realised it when he gestured three times.
‘You want five hundred? Are you mad?’
‘Illa mad,’ the driver said, blocking the auto to prevent me from taking out the
luggage.
I looked at the desolate street. It was only nine but felt like two in the morning
in the quiet lane. Two autos passed us by. My driver stopped them. One of the
autos had two drivers, both sitting in front. The four of them spoke to each other
in Tamil, their voices turning louder.
nora
(Nora)
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