Its a normal summer day in the city of Chennai.

The temperature is 20 degrees at 6am, 30 at 10 and 40 at 2 in the afternoon. At 6 in the morning, the temples are bustling with the sari-clad mamis offering their morning prayers. Yet each chime of the prayer bell is punctuated by a sharp blast of the horn of the water lorry that thunders by to deliver water to neighbourhood. I wake up in a rage, my first thought being that I would love to slit the throat of that damn nuisance of a lorry driver.

I overcome this bloodlust and sit down for coffee. And I wait. And wait. And wait some more. At last at 7, the milkman turns up, drops the milk packets in front of the door and vanishes mysteriously almost instantly before I can admonish him for his tardiness. It is a further half and hour before the newspaper delivery boy makes an appearance, and true to form, he too disappears as if spirited away to avoid confronting me. I actually caught up to this tyro last week. He said his grandmother passed away so he was late. I remember giving this very same excuse for missing school when I was younger. I will wait for his arrival some day this week too. I hope he doesn't kill off some other relative of his.

And so I read the newspaper while eating breakfast. Apparently, I am not destined to eat in peace either, because right in the middle of my repast, the bell rings. I have trained myself not to throw my spoon at the door when this happens, so with great restraint I open the door to a salesman who is hawking umbrellas. He sees the look on my face and beats a quick retreat. I go back to my now cold rice and resignedly poke at it with my spoon.

At 8 I am ready to leave for college when the *!#$@% doorbell rings again. This time, I do not even attempt to hitch a smile on my face. I fancy I must look like a saber-tooth tiger with a toothache. My heart turns cold when I see a familiar face at the door. Aunty.

Now in most western countries, Aunt is a very specific term used to refer to one's parents sister. In India, any middle aged woman is Aunty. Well this particular Aunty is not even related to me. She is the occupant of the apartment opposite to mine. And this woman has a queer habit of not budging until she is offered coffee. I curse the so called "Indian Culture" which explicitly states that the guest is god so treat him/her like one. I pull off my shoes and socks, and hurriedly mix up a packet of Nescafe. She looks at me and says with a queer expression on her face, "instant a?"

It takes almost all the restrain I have to hold myself back from beating her smug face in as I wait, standing, mind you, until the woman leaves. It goes without saying that she takes her time with the "instant" coffee. Finally she leaves. It is 8:30. I might be just ten minutes late for college if I hurry, so I jump into the car and after a quick prayer for free roads, gun it into gear.

By 8:45 I am seething. Tamilians have a peculiar tradition of parading their dead on the streets in a grotesque chariot of sorts, and employing a procession to dance and make merry while they pull the cart along the streets. There is no need to mention that I got stuck in one such procession. It strikes me again how inconsiderate we Indians are to the problems of others. I mean, no disrespect to the dead intended, but I don't think they mind having their procession on a road other than the most crowded of highways. I resign myself to my fate and wait until the ruckus clears. By the time I reach my college I am 20 minutes late, so I miss the first lecture.

At 12 I go for lunch at the mess. The operating words here are "go for lunch". By no means do I eat any of it. Sorry, I don't wanna die of soda poisoning. Kumbhipakam** to you all, rot in hell.

2 hours of lectures later, I head back home. I stop for refueling on the way. While I wait for getting my tank filled, I perceive someone sneaking towards the opening of an underground fuel tank holding something suspiciously akin to a bucket in his. He covertly approaches the open tank and in an instant, dumps the contents inside. I call him to me and ask him what he just did. The &^*#$^ has the nerve to ignore me and proceed to the next customer. Head throbbing and dangerously close to breaking point, I storm out of the bunk and reach home after a thankfully uneventful journey back.

I try to shut myself in my room and get some sleep. Unhappily, the roads near my place serve as some sort of racetrack for the delinquents of my area. What with their abominable horns adding to the cacophony of their engines, I am not able to get a wink of sleep. I spend a whole three hours tossing and turning in my bed with a pillow over my head trying to block the noise in vain.

I go out at seven to my usual hangout at the beach. Its lively and pleasant, usually. Yet today when I reach there, it reeks of stale booze. I see a group of drunk teenagers causing a ruckus on the pavement. One spirited young lad is in the process of defacing an expensive-looking car, while the others are egging him on. I feel the familiar throbbing in my head and head straight back home. On the way back, I see that a lecture is going on in a local hall on "Tamil heritage". Having nothing else to do, I decide to take a look. And as I enter, the speaker says that Tamil people are known throughout the world for having great consideration and respect for others' privileges.

I throw my head back and laugh. Laugh heartily. The speaker pauses and the audience shoots me annoyed looks. I don't care. After all, I am Tamilian.






** If you don't follow, just Wiki it. I cant be bothered to explain.