Machi.. Open The Bottle!

:A Soup Boy Story:

Those flowers never bloomed

   Hand la Glass-u..Glass la Scothch-u..Eyes full aah Tear-u..!!

Heard it somewhere? Yeah! Verses from “Kolaveri – A Soup Boy’s song”

This is an orthodox soup boy story. He’s Sudalai Muthu a.k.a Muthu, my school friend. Now, he is an engineering student. The blanks of his school days were all filled up only by a girl, Jennifer a.k.a Jenny.

This is a typical love story, the Indian cinema usually portrays. Like those heroes. Our hero also followed few things as routine in life.

His daily routines were as follows :

Ante Meridian (A.M.)

• 6 : 00 – Wakes up from bed

• 6 : 30 – Washes his bicycle

• 6 : 45 – Stands at her street corner

• 6 : 55 – Gets the newspaper from the newspaper boy and delivers it at her house

• 7 : 00 – Again street corner

• 7 : 30 – Carefully dodges, without being caught by her brother who leaves for                          college

• 8 : 00 – Three laps of ride from this end of the street to the other and back to this end, just to check whether she’s out. Amidst that, dodging from her father, who then leaves to his office

• 8 : 30 – The girl wakes up and comes out to the verandah. Our hero’s target achieved. He goes back home to get dressed up

• 9 : 00 – Standing on the way to their school, so to see her coming in her bicycle

• 9 : 25 – She comes with that green ribbon, pink bag, red nail polish, riding on her Ladybird. Our hero smiles as if he’d been given Four Oscars, two in each hand

• 9 : 30 – Rushes to the cycle stand, parks his bicycle and runs to his classroom, however after the long bell

• 11 : 00 – Short Break. Walks in front of her class atleast 10 X 2 times in that 5 minutes

• 11 : 10 – Rushes back to his class, remembering that he hasn’t completed his homework that has to be submitted after the break

• 11 : 15 – Getting caught by his teacher and stands outside the class as a punishment (Even during which, he tries damn hard to get a view of her silhouette from her class that is quarter a mile away from his’

Prime Meridian (P.M.)

• 12 : 30 – Lunch break. Offering his lunch to his classmates and utilizing that time to stand or walk in front of her class besides writing that left out homework and getting it corrected from the same teacher, who is now in Madhu’s classroom

• 3 : 50 – After the long evening bell, running out from the class as the first one, picking up his bicycle and standing in front of school gate (All in Godspeed)

• 4 : 15 – She comes that way with her bicycle and those three regular friends, after all that girly gossips and chats

• 4 : 30 – Riding faster than Lance Armstrong (7 times Tour de’ France champ) and reaching that same street corner before she arrives

• 4 : 35 – She crosses him with a weird look on her face, as if he’s some chain snatcher

• 5 : 30 – Standing in front of a shop that is adjacent to her tuition center

• 5 : 35 – She crosses him again with that weird look

• 8 : 00 – Standing at the same shop front to see her leaving from tuition

• 9 : 00 – Goes back home. Quenches his hunger with those dried idlies that were made 2 hours back. Goes to bed, hearing latest love songs, especially the sad ones

So, this was becoming a routine for two years. After those two long years of wait and desperation, one fine day he gained all courage to go, stand in front of her with all the guts in the world and utter those three words to her. He was rehearsing the proposal, like an insane on road. Oh wait! She’s coming..

He went before her, adjusting his shirt buttons and his well done hair style.

Muthu : Jenny! Haai! This is S.K. Sudalai Muthu. Your school boy. I think you know me.

Jenny : What Muthu? (laughing) Ok. Temme. What?

Muthu : I tell you one thing. Two years waiting. Fearing. Don’t know how telling. Now courage came. So, I came. (Unfortunately, Our hero is ultimately poor in English. Even these words, he learnt from that old Anglo-Indian aunty in his next compound, by paying 225 rubees)

Jenny : Hello. Can you please make it quick? I have lots of work. (Looking him down with contempt)

Muthu : I see you in 6^th std E section. You was so very beautiful. I start to see you there. Daily came to your street, house and tuition. Daily you come in my dreams. When I see you, Ilaiyaraja music going in heart and A R Rahman music running in ears. I don’t know how telling you.. (He stammers)

Jenny : So?                                               

Muthu : I……………. Love You. (Atlast, he said)

Jenny : Huh! What? What do you think of yourself? A hero? You can’t even propose properly. You are a waste. You think I’ll love you? Just get lost. Okay? (She just blasted him out. Thank God, he never understood anything)

Muthu : Sorrynga! Thamizh la solreengala? (Sorry. Can you please say that in Tamil?

Jenny : Get lost. (Saying this she started walking away from him)

Her phone rang. She attended the call and spoke “Machi. Sorry dee. Inga oru loosu en time ah waste panniruchi. Iru vandhudaren” (Buddy. Sorry. Here, a nut wasted my time. Wait for me)

Muthu : (Mindvoice) Adipaavi! Nalla dhaana Tamizh pesaraa?! (Holy! She’s speaking well in Tamil!)

From then, our hero waited desperately in her way many times but she never turned towards him at all. Our hero didn’t have the courage to again approach her too. School also got over. She joined IIT – A. He joined some local engineering college in Chennai. He never saw her again. But even now, he remembers her and often speaks about her. He became a part time poet too. The subject of his poems is always the same. You-know-who!

She’ll be living somewhere, eating Pani Puri or Chukka Roti and dating some nerd with power-glasses like goggles, hairstyle like noodles and a rolling tongue that spits only English. That nerd can never match this idiot, who loved her deep from every organ of his’. She’s really unlucky to have missed him. Now, she will be living just as yet another girl in town. But he’d have taken care of her like a princess.

You know? Every year, on her birthday, he buys SARAKKU for old school friends. Today’s also her birthday. We all came to Pondicherry – Sarakku City. Evening party was ultimate. This divine sarakku only made me remember those days, feel for him and narrate this love story in detail.

Every soup boy's story is divine. Every soup boy is Godly. The heroine is always a Loser (of true love) .

P.S : Sarakku was extraordinary. 2 bottle Beer and 1 Half Whisky. Side-dish : Potato chips and Ravi’s Garlic Ooruga (pickle). Epic.