unnai naan paarthadhu

Another tea kadai song, only this comes on the radio around 9 am, the last song on the 8-9 am slot. You are waiting for your bus that takes you halfway to school and you have to change to get to your school. You are looking vacantly, not thinking of anything in particular, looking at the crowd getting off a bus that just stopped to unload and pick up, at the people getting in, the dog that’s everyone’s friend. He is not sure what he will get today, a biscuit or hot water from the boiler of the stall. There are a couple of seniors from your school but they don’t talk to you, it’s a senior code. You try smiling but the bus comes, and as you step inside, you hear this song, zippy, fast paced beginning. You catch snatches of the song from different radios, the one at a laundry man who irons clothes, from a house outside which there’s stop, a hotel with Coca Cola sign on the sides of the counter … and you catch the last stanza as you get off to change bus. It stays with you till you get to school. Till you realise you haven’t brought the exercise book.