R.A Puram

For those who have lived far away from home, trying to make a life out in another city, there is always the very first time you've ever done so. Getting used to the town, the people, what they speak, the names of various places, etc are all part of the package of being young, & 'lost' in another town. And thats how my first few months in Allsec went about.

I heard of a place called R.A Puram for the first time, when I was in training in Allsec. They have another branch in R.A Puram. Sometimes a new batch of trainees go there to attend training. There were a couple of mallu folks I was friends with. Most of the then were comfortable speaking & understanding Tamil and had been in Chennai more than I have. But as the evaluation day just got over, some of them didn't have enough scores to make it through. Some people I know left the job because of better opportunities else where. The others went to re-training to R.A Puram.

So one in that small group (of people I knew) was trying to keep in touch one day. That person was not in Allsec at the time. He was enquiring about another friend who was in re-training. I texted him something in the lines of: yeah he is in R.A Puram for retraining.

But what I actually typed was:

yeah he is in aaraepuram for retraining

The friend I was texting to never bothered to correct me. I am guessing he figured out where exactly that place was, or he must have thought it was a new town in Chennai.

And I later learn about this mistake, in the most astonishing fashion ever. I was probably on a 21L bus heading to Guindy/Velachery (don't remember). I was probably travelling through Adayar. I just took my nokia 6021 out of my pocket, just to know which locality I was in, and read:

R.A PURAM