Last evening, I was finishing up a long pending grocery shopping with KT. Our last stop was a road side vegetable stall. This guy has the freshest vegetables compared to the supermarkets in our neighborhood. Anyways, I picked some veggies and was loading those in the car. It was past eight in the night and although the sky was dark, I could see rain clouds all hurled up together. The breeze was getting cooler and I could perceive a good shower was not too far.

I was telling KT that it could soon rain and I love it when it rains. Asked her if she loves rains, if she could see the rain clouds and keep her eyes open for some lightening. All of sudden she screamed, “Amma, fire, fire!” She sounded quite panicked. For a couple of moments, I was confused – did she see fire in the sky (it’s not possible, unless it’s the end of days!) or was anything close to the car on fire, do I get alarmed?

Now a little anxious, I asked her again, “Where’s the fire, Chellam?”

She says, “Amma, fire in anna’s* mouth!”

WHAT??? I definitely could not spot anyone fire breathing!

Moments later I figured what she meant! A few feet in front of our car was a young man smoking a cigarette!

KT asked me, feeling very sorry for that chap, “Amma, why fire in anna’s* mouth?”

I had no answers =(

* ‘Anna’ means elder boy in Tamil. In this case it was a young man in his 20s!