The tiffen bag goof up!

Tirupur is a small town located about 50 kms from Coimbatore. It is the knitwear capital of India and one of the major textile hub in Asia. Major International brands including Tommy Hilfiger,FILA, Switcher and Reebok import textile and clothing from Tirupur.

I worked at Tirupur for a some time. I used to travel by train from North Coimbatore junction. Ours was a big gang and we had a blast while travelling. We had singing sessions, debates on current topics, gossips, games, poetry reading sessions, making the tedious journey more like a joy ride! Generally we take the morning 7 am passenger and return by the same train by 6.15 pm. We had wonderful breakfast sessions in the mornings and awesome snack times in the evenings!

Our group was an interesting one; we had doctors, civil engineers, lots of workers from the textile units, hologram specialists, post office workers, telephone exchange workers, Govt employees, bank employees and private concern workers like me. It was a time when mobile phones were becoming inevitable and every single day there would be some dumb joke percolated amongst friends. Infact there would be a small competition among us as to who shared the dumbest joke today!

One December 6th, I hung my tiffen bag on one of the posts at the station and forgot to take it while boarding the train! Not finding it, I thought I left it back at home..I dint care much for it as I got a lovely breakfast buffet from my friends. Later I remembered hanging it up on the railway post. The city was on high alert that day and due to security reasons we were given a half-day holiday. I returned around 3 pm and was surprised to see many policemen in the railway station. I remembered the date and convinced myself that it was routine protection check.

I went to the railway station office to check if they had my tiffen-bag. Guess what happened there? The moment I said I missed my lunch bag, I was swarmed by so many uniformed cops and they started bombarding me with so many questions. I was not sure, why these people were so much interested in my lost bag! At one corner, I could see a huge commotion going on. I was taken to the corner table and there was my tiffen bag - the reason behind all the clamor! Although it was surrounded by wires and detectors, I could easily identify it..

 It was only then I realized that my innocent lunch bag was the prime reason behind the bomb threat stimulated high-alert and the subsequent declaration of half-day holiday for the entire city!!!

Actually, December 6th is an important day in Indian history. It was the same day in 1992 when the (in)famous karsevaks (Hindu volunteers) destroyed the 16th century Babri Masjid (mosque) to capture Ramjanmabhoomi. This incident was the reason behind 2000 deaths that year and a minimum of 10 in the following years. In a nutshell it was the anniversary of one of the important communal riots of our country!

In retrospect, this incident is hilarious, but the amount of tension, I went through till the time I opened the bag and showed them that it had nothing but a few tortillas and some vegetable curry could not be put into words. One of them took a bite to test if it was poison; finding it tasty, they started munching the whole thing and finished the entire box! Only then all of us were relieved.

Finally they sent me home with a stern warning not to be careless with my things! I was the topmost joke amidst my friends for the next few months.. :)

Origin of the phrase - Play it by the ear..

Here is one of the interesting origin of phrases..

“Play it by the ear”

Meaning

To do something by feel and instinct rather than with a plan.

Initially, this referred to the playing of music without reference to printed notation. More recently it is also used figuratively to mean 'handle a situation in an impromptu manner', without reference to pre-determined rules or guidelines.

There are occasions when we do not plan too far ahead; in such cases, our response to a situation depends on how the event unfolds. Usually, we improvise. Our responses are not thought out before hand; we do whatever we think is the right thing to do in that particular situation. This manner of dealing with something is called ‘playing it by ear'.

Origin

The origin of this phrase is rather straight forward and comes from the musician’s world. Originally, it refers to playing compositions without the benefit of sheet music. Instead, the musician would simply use his/her ear to feel out the composition and follow the musical progressions.

Trichy in TVS 50!

Exploring a city is fun, to be escorted by your husband makes it even more exhilarating! Trichy, a small city in the state of Tamilnadu is my hubby's hometown. During my first week of marriage, I had to stay there as a part of traditional hindu wedding formalities. My husband had settled in Chennai and had been out of his hometown for the last 5-6 years. His enthusiasm to roam the city and get nostalgic was a new experience for me and got me also excited about it!

So, we began our city tour (!) in a TVS 50 (practically a cycle with a small motor!) (actually it is the most commonly used two wheeler in the state!) Needless to mention the road conditions were pathetic, just like any other small town - bumpy and full of potholes. The ride was like riding a camel's back! But hubby was ecstatic about it!

He went around the city showing every single street of the city including side lanes, open patches (where he used to play cricket!), even his favorite 'hiding' spots! I was surprised to see all of them intact in just the same condition he had described earlier! We also went to some of his favorite road side shops and even tasted the delicacies (egg bonda, masala dosa, sambhar vada, noodles) there! This time he was surprised that the taste of all his favorite dishes remained just the same as it was about 10-15 years ago. For a very brief moment I could see his eyes were turning moist and his voice breaking!

Like a kid, he explained how he used to sneak out of his house and come running to eat these snacks! He also showed me where he got caught by his dad and how he had to dodge his fathers thrashings all the way back home! He used to play cricket in every open space available and the match would continue till every member of the group could not identify the ball (due to darkness!) or till every member got thrashed by their respective mothers asking them to get back home!

Next day we went to some of his friend's house. The visit brought back waves of lovely memories to him and to his cheerfulness stuck to me also! As we were newlyweds, it was tradition to offer cut bananas in milk and we had to have this everywhere we went! I felt happy to get blessings from many elders and it gave me a new hope to a new beginning.

My first outing in Trichy was my husband's revisit to his childhood and it gave us both immense happiness. Today after so many years the numerous holiday destinations we went could match this simple and humble Trichy visit! It was special to me in my own way as it was my first outing with my husband and I got to know a lot more of him! Every time we visit Trichy after that, we get around in our TVS 50 and explore mada veedthi (s) (mada streets), NSC Bose road, Rockfort, Akilandeshwari temple, Sri rangam ... The happiness is always multifold at Trichy!