Freebies and a kiss

Narayanan is a fun-loving guy, going by this story he recounted. Once, his sister-in-law came to New Delhi. Her Hindi wasn’t very good. In those days, even in posh government colonies, vegetable sellers used to wheel their carts. On a cold winter morning, when the vegetable seller came, she bought a whole lot of greens and expected he would throw in a few sprigs of coriander for free, as is the practice in South India. As her Hindi was exhausted, she had to resort to some Tamil: “Arey, dey do” she said, “Chumma dey do”. Chumma in Tamil means ‘free’, but in Hindi it refers to a ‘kiss’. So, there she was, pleading: “Bas ek chumma dey do”. The vegetable seller looked at her, then at the sky, then at the ground, and quickly began rearranging his vegetables as she kept asking for “ek chumma”. It was at the intervention of a neighbour that she was dragged back inside — without the coriander.