Friday, March 05, 2010

Maami Calling Maami

I was witness to this episode.
The context: R's Paati is 96 yrs old and was admitted in the hospital. Maami's discussing the events

Maami 1 (on phone with Maami 2) - R aathulendu phone vanduda?
Did you receive a call from R's house?
Maami 2 - Illaye....ayyayo...enna aachu?
Oh no! What happened?

Me thinking: This is absurd. There's no reason for this 'aiyyayo' reaction! Its like wailing at the mention of 'telegram' in olden movies!

M 1 - Illa, avathu vaasalla ambulance vandadu...adanaala ketten
I saw an ambulance in front of their gate..that's why I asked
M 2 - Appadiya ... enakku onnum news varallaye...
Oh really! I didn't get any news

M 2 calling M 3 - R aathu paati poyitta polerukku... ambulance vandadaam... M1 sonna
R's grandmom passed away it seems... M1 told me
M 3 - Ooohhh... paavam... nallavela romba paduthukkama poyittale...
Ooohh...poor thing... good she passed away without suffering too much
M 2 - Avaa onnum sollale... news vanda poyi paathuttu vandu kulikkalamennu wait pannaren...
They haven't conveyed the news yet... I thought I'll offer my condolences and then have bath (it is a custom to have a bath after offering condolences).

So after waiting near the phone for a while and passing this news to couple of more random maamis and discussing bath plans in detail (if they are yet to have their bath, they might as well wait till they offer condolences), M 2 along with other Ms decide to go ahead with their bath. They will go tomorrow to offer condolences.

Later in the evening we see R's paati sitting on their verandah chatting with her concerned neighbours and assuring them that she is hale and healthy!

The Ms would have thought - 'Thank god we didn't delay our bath!'

9 comments:

Jayashree said...

ROFL.....typical mami behaviour.

Lavanya Sriram said...

hahaha.. :)
brilliant !

Pixie said...

LOL!!!
They seemed more worried about taking bath than offering the said condolences!!! :D :D

Good to know that R's paati is hale and hearty and doing good! :)

LIFE_REFACTORED said...

Charge all the maaamis with bloody murder.
They say that when someone is verbally murdered, their life is actually blessed to last longer :) (Clue.. C.M.)
so, god bless the 96 year old patti!

Swaram said...

Communication[mis- rather ;)]at its best :P

catching bubbles said...

I think this is something particular to the old retired folks who have nothing much to look forward to in their daily routine lives. So a small untoward incident( garnished with a lot of exaggeration ) helps spice up their lives for a little while.

Hema said...

The poor Paati!

Anonymous said...

OMG !! This post just cracked me up. How typical of these mamis. Long live the 96 year old patti.

Uma said...

All - Some of the Ms that we know quite well got their legs royally pulled after this episode. LOL! Comedy of errors at its best!