Aaji Aiya!

I now publicly disprove the theory that it takes hours or days of company, to make a good friend. Today we made a friend and I doubt I'd ever meet somebody more genuine. Aaji aiya, the happy-go-lucky, tuk tuk driver. I'd rather not call him a tuk tuk driver cause that would marginalize him to a different class of people. A rather uncanny class. But to us he was in a class of his own. Psycho to the maximum, chases girls (wearing the fardha) and not money, and ready for anything. This is my one lined description of him after just 1 or 2 hours of company. So how did we bump into Aaji?

Simple. We needed a papare band to bring the spirit up at ISAC 2011. First, Second or Last it doesn't matter, we always keep up the spirit. Kasun, Chetha and I set out in search of a trumpet player, and enter 'Aaji'. The first tuk tuk we stopped. First impression to us was that he's a chronic, and the typical crack pot but that impression soon changed. The guy got us to a place and asked us to follow him. I'll never forget that experience, walking through the narrowest of alleys, past towels hang on cloth lines, through block houses that merely had more than one room. We were in the slums of Colombo. Little known to us Aaji took us to the heart of it. Every word spoken on this turf was tamil, neither me, Chetha nor Kasun knew anything expect how to swear in tamil. And the bit we knew, if used there, could have got us killed. Lol.

We came to a brightly colored house and two tamil women came out, we talked over a deal for drums at 2000 bucks O_o... Out of the tiniest slit in that house I saw a pretty face. It's strange how even in the musk of this livelihoods, the most charming of flowers can bloom. A pretty young girl shyly laughing at our broken tamil. I was taken back for a second, my heart melted naively. Beauty has no Background. Got the drums. But I had to leave my ID card, my sole identity with them. A risk I took back there.

Drums ok. But trumpet. Aaji the man, who we met merely 10 minutes before, took us around Colombo. The guy knew each and every one on the road, the brotherhood within this community was striking. It's beyond par to the brotherhood we have inculcated amongst ourselves. It's something we can learn from. All along the way Aaji was going on about how he knew the president and his prospects in politics. Hehe. Apparently he's a father of four, yet still has no burden in life. The fun we had. Cracking jokes at literally everything on the road. It's like we've known him for ages, but he was a complete stranger.

We came to the trumpet place. And the earlier setting seemed way better (solely) in comparison. This place was like a thug hideout.

Aaji: "Malliya ekkenata thama yanna puluwan"

Kasun: "Ehema bae ban"

Me: "Monada ban, api denna bokka ne, dennek yamu?"

Well to this place only one person was allowed, but we talked over for both Me and Kasun to go leaving Chetha behind for a while. We were dealing the prices when we were taken to the Don. A burly, tamil guy, with his breasts hanging below his bellybutton came out quarreling about the prices. A real movie scene. We settled for another 2000 bucks and set out. Well the trumpeter also needed a shot of arrack to play properly. Hehe. We bid goodbye to Aaji and set off.

Looking back, the trouble we had to go through, the 4000 bucks (and 200 for the arrack. lol) was worth every penny. We lifted the spirits up and cheered Gateway on. Yeah we came Second in the meet, but First at heart. The emotions fused with the papare music was inexplicable. It was almost 8 o'clock and we needed to return the drums, get my ID returned and dump the drunk trumpeter. We came out and was surprised to be greeted by Aaji! The guy had come back for us. We all got in his tuk and raced into the night. Cracking his jokes all the way. I got my ID back.

A friend we made that night, who taught us that there's always more to life. These people life lives with little worry and more smiles. Cherishing even the simplest moments in their lives. This carefree tuk tuk driver cum father, showed us that happiness lies within us. It's up to us to reach for it. We may think that we have achieved the summits of our schooling careers, and hold big positions, but are we really happy? True they may not be educated. But is life only about education? Life is about being genuine at heart. To them, life is joy ride. I learned that it's pointless blindly chasing dreams hoping that one day I'll be at peace, because peace is already within me. Aaji was the perfect reality check that I needed, realizing that I have to step on the earth to feel the earth. A day where I realized that Three Sinhala boys, hitched a Muslim tuk tuk man, and negotitated with Tamil band players, over here race and religion doesn't matter.

Thanks to Aaji we pulled it off. I'll never forget this human, for he showed us how to live free, and live life.