Yaar andha nilavu

The sand piled up in front a stranger’s house for construction feels cold as you sit on it. You’ve bought two sticks of cigarettes, one for your friend who soon joins you after buying some ‘supari’ to mask the smell of cigarettes when you go back home. You can stay out late now, you have a job. How things change in 6 months of finishing college, you wonder as you light up. The shop is not far, but far enough for the tobacco smell to fade. The street is quiet. Not much traffic in residential area which is good. You talk of movies, songs, other friends, the one who has gone to a bigger city. Life was at a stage where none of you had to worry about family or kids. It was all … light. You stub out the cigarette (even though you different brands every day, they all end up tasting the same), and walk back home slowly. As you near the laundry man who uses the front of his house to press clothes for the neighbourhood (his wife or son will drop them off, usually at night),. You stop by to check on your clothes, watching him expertly move the big old-fashioned iron box. The smell of steam and hot coal from the iron spreads on you like a mild heat wave. As you leave, this song comes on his radio. You know the song, you’ve heard it, and it’s not too loud now as the radio is inside the house.