chromium fest

It's all about bananas it seems. Trucks careening with six to eight foot banana stem propped up on their sides; little boys riding bicycles with two foot banana leaves balanced on their handle bar; shop fronts adorned with ugly purple banana flowers.
It's Ayudha puja. I wake up and walk out on to the road. Every year, it's the same scene. Exactly the same. Every vehicle in every house will be out on the road, from huge weekend getaway car to tricycle of a three-year-old's imaginary friend. They'd be showered and scrubbed, dusted and buffed. I remember even picking at tyre grooves to scrape out dried dung and unknowingly crushed bugs. Foot mats, seat covers, engine rags… all washed (till at least half the grease transfers into your nails) and hung out to dry.
One kid per house is appointed to run to the flower market to buy garlands. The younger you were, the cuter your wide-eyes would look as you stumbled through "Uncle, vondhu haara kodi. Mummy kaas kottidhaare." (Uncle, gimme one garland. Mummy has given money). It always worked. We always got some extra flowers and a festive grin for our cuteness. It's an art I had perfected. Sigh. But age caught up with me. '
Now some smart-alecky boys strut confidently to the old flower man (now with more grey chest hair peeping out of his vest and more irate about the inflation), and haggle for half the price. Who will tell these "street smart" boys that those cynical assumptions about the world being out to swindle the innocents does NOT include this toothless smiler?
Another bygone pleasure was this neighbour aunty, who for years, had brought out her TVS Champ and walked around it, thoughtfully rubbing her imaginary stubble, as if figuring out where to begin cleaning. The bike ALWAYS looked like it had been through every mori (drain), thorny shrub, kuppathotti (garbage bin) and stagnant-lake-with-stinky-green-film-on-it (moss?).
After the preliminary up-down, aunty would go find rags, buckets, polishing creams, hose-pipes, brooms (to sweep away the sand dunes that would keep forming magically under the bike), toothbrushes (for those hard to reach places), drumsticks, detergent and used tea bags (donno why).
For the mega clean-up, she'd lift up her sari, Rajnikanth style. To egg her on, we'd cleverly give zhup-zhup sound effects. Then yell, "Cleaniiiiiiiing…. auntyyyyyyyy!!!" while excitedly jumping all over the place. Thinking of it now, I don't know why she laughed merrily at us. Cleaning aunty?! Oh god! I wouldn't be flattered.
But a good 4-5 hours and loyal cheerleading later, it would be like the heaven shone upon goodness. Chromium spangled us to blindness. And the vanilla milkshake after a long day's work (we cleaned our cycles and gave our tonsils to cleaning aunty, didn't we?) ensured that we remained, forever, cleaning aunty's little helpers. But aunty's gone abroad to her sons now. Wonder who screams their lungs out for her there.
Until some years ago, I hated only one thing about the day. That my bicycle could never crush the lemons-under-the-tyres in one powerful go. So in 8th std., I cheated. I cut the lemon a little. Just enough for it to give under the cycle-wheel. Now... I'm old enough to own a bike that can crush an elephant. Ahem. Ok fine. Can crush a melon? FINE! Can crush a lemon without kitchen aid.
I know these things seem exciting only in hindsight. On Friday, when I'll have to handle three dirty bikes all on my own, I won't enjoy it... Dad's impeccable logic: The one car I clean is equivalent to three bikes…. (Last year it was two bikes. I never liked progressive math). I will crib and whine about cuts and bruises on my hands as I try to reach never-touched-before motor parts. But I'm going to make redeeming vanilla milkshake this time. (resolute head shake) For the whole street.
Ok for my family.