Ride on Time

Chapter 9

"Eh, what movie is this lah?!" Shruti exclaimed when a Japanese cereal advertisement replaced the movie they were watching. "So funny!"
"Check," Shridhar said, pressing a button on the remote to see the programme's details. "See lah, what the movie's name?"
They whole family groaned when they saw that the movie's name was written in Japanese, with a mixture of kanji and hiragana.
"Aiya, what lah..." Shruti groaned the loudest. She then poked her brother, much to his dismay. "Oi! What does it say?"
"You asking me as if I know how to read Japanese," Shri frowned, rolling his eyes. "You read lah."
Shruti frowned and got an idea. She ran off somewhere and returned with a notepad and pencil, handing them to Shri.
"Nah, write the name down, we try to translate later," Shruti said as she plopped down next to him.
"What?" Shri uttered.
"Just write lah," Shruti smirked, pushing the notebook into his hands.
"Correct, what she saying," Suganthi added. "Write lah, Mohan."
Shri sighed and tried to copy the tittle of the movie, rather painstakingly. The ad finished, but he wasn't.
"Faster lah, I wanna watch the movie!" Shruti complained.
"Can you just shut up and wait?" Shri growled. "Hard lah!"
He was finally done and groaned when he saw how ugly his Japanese handwriting looked.
Shruti took a peek and burst into laughter. "Aiyo, what is this lah?! So ugly!"
Shri frowned and handed the paper and pencil to her. "If ugly means you write lah."
Shruti just closed the notepad and put it on the coffee table. "Never mind. Tomorrow we ask your girlfriend to decipher it."
"Girlfriend ah?" Shridhar piped up. "This one when happened?!"
Shri glared at his sister before turning to his father. "Pa, that one all nothing lah. I where got girlfriend?"
"Pa, he got girlfriend lah!" Shruti smirked. "Her name Misau. Geisha girl. The girl that play the uduku thingy that day."
"Shri..."
"Pa..."
"Who is this Misau? Why like Risau only her name? Or Pisau?"
"No, like Misai," Suganthi smirked.
Shri rolled his eyes. "Her name is Misa-o lah. And she is not my girlfriend, Pa. This Shruti only telling all kinds of things. You know about her, right? For one thing, she tell ten."
"Seriously, who's this Maisa?" Shridhar persisted.
"Pa, she just my friend lah," Shri insisted. "She's the one that took us to goldsmith to repair the Om all. And it's Misao. Misa-o."
"She's the one who found it and gave it to him in the first place," Shruti chimed in. "Remember during the meeting that day, Pa? In the geisha restaurant? She's the one that play the uduku thing."
"It's called tsuzumi," Shri frowned before turning back to his father. "Pa. I don't have girlfriend all lah, Pa."
Suganthi smirked. "For what you denying? Good what, you got Japanese girlfriend. Your dream come true! Right or not?" She nudged her husband.
"Correct correct," Shridhar nodded, much to Shri's surprise. "Mohan, this one all we know long time already. You only panicking like don't know what."
Shri shook his head. "Eh... no lah! She's not my girlfriend! We only saw each other once or twice, where can become girlfriend so fast?"
Shruti smirked. "Pa, Shri one scaredy cat, you know... I call him to the restaurant, he didn't wanna come. I had to pull him."
Turns out, it was a big plan made by his family to make Shri see Misao more often. And Shruti was in on it.
"So in the end, I'm the only one that's buta lah?" Shri sighed, realising that he was the only lost one. "So bad lah, you all."
So they continued watching the movie, which was a really funny romance comedy. In the end, the couple succeeded and got married with each other.
"Nice lah, this movie," Shridhar said when the credits played.
"The song also nice," Shri remarked. "Don't know who the singer..."
"Just give your girlfriend the name tomorrow and ask her lah," Suganthi suggested. "Easy, right?"
"Correct, Ma," Shruti grinned. "Shri, come. Now itself we go out and I'll tell you, she will be lepaking outside. For sure one!"
Shri just sighed and turned to his father, who just sat there and grinned at him, his moustache straightening into a line. Shri just sighed and took the notepad, tearing off the page where he had messily written the name of the movie. He folded it and tucked it under they notepad so that it wouldn't fly away.
"I'll get changed..." Shri muttered, making his way to his room. Shruti grinned and rushed to hers to get changed too.
He came back out and saw his parents grinning at him with the paper in Shridhar's hand. "Nah, don't forget this. For sure that Miso girl know the movie."
Shri groaned. "Pa, it's Misa-o, not Miso. Miso is soup lah, Pa!"
"Either way, just take this," Shridhar tucked the paper into his son's hand. "Show it to her and ask her what movie it is. Okay?"
Shri frowned. "Can't I go in the morning ah? See the time?"
"It's nine only what," Shridhar said, looking at his watch on the table.
"Did you adjust that after coming to Japan?"
"No?"
"Pa, it's ten o'clock lah. You think she'll go running around at this hour? It's late lah!"
"Oh... ten o'clock already ah? I forgot that Japan and Malaysia one hour different..."
"What only you know?" Shri muttered under his breath as he went back to his room to change.
Shruti barged out of her room and stared in shock when seeing her brother enter his room. "Oi, not yet change ah?"
"Nope, we're not going now," Shri inwardly grinned. "Too late. It's ten."
"Oh yeah..." Shruti just realised. "La..."
Shri snorted and entered his room to change back to the clothes he just took off. He frowned at note with his badly written Japanese and sighed, stuffing it into his wallet so that he wouldn't forget.
They continued watching whatever that was on tv and eventually went to sleep late at night.

Translations!
-risau means worry
-pisau means knife lol
-misai means moustache. This is both in Malay and Tamil lol. The two languages share a lot of words.
-buta means blind actually. But it's also used in a funny way, like when you didn't know something happening behind your back, much like Shri's situation here, or when you're the only one who didn't get your way or when something backfires in an amusing way. I don't really know how else to explain it but trust me, I know exactly what it means lol. Also, upon further research, I found that this expression was widely used among Malaysia regardless of race. But now, it's mostly common only around Indians. I'm not really sure about this, but I still see this in Malaysian Tamil tv shows and among Indian friends. I've asked my Malay friends about this and they have no clue what this even is. But my family tells me that it was widely used among everyone in the 80s and 90s.
-lepaking means loiter around or just hanging around. Actually, it comes from the Malay word lepak which means the same thing, but the ing at the back is just an English touch to it. The correct word would be melepak. Also, I'm surprised. This is found in the Oxford dictionary under Southeast Asian English🤣🤣
-la is something we use when we don't get our way. Kinda like darn or nuts, but not in a cursing way. It's almost like aww man or shucks when something doesn't happen the way we want.