Broosli on a Laamburrtta

It is raining in Leicester.
As I drag my feet to work on a wet, gloomy morning I suddenly remember my green rain coat. When I was five, I had this green plastic rain coat complete with a detachable hood (attached to the collar at the back with a button that only my mother could fasten or undo - I used to spend hours fiddling with the damn thing!). I had to wear it to school every day during the rainy season (who was the bright spark who came up with a school re-opening day smack in the middle of the monsoons?). Looking back, I must have looked a sorry sight with my raincoat, my umbrella (yes, my mother insisted on both, the umbrella to keep out the rain drops that fell tangentially!), my corpulent schoolbag and my water bottle. I guess it helps the imagination a little if I say that at that time I was almost as wide as I was tall (or short, more to the point).
And then there were other times when I used to wear my raincoat.
At night, before my brother was born, and probably for a couple of years afterwards, my father and I used to go out for movies on his slate grey Lambretta (I used to call it 'Laamburrtta' in typical Malayalee fashion). I did not know it was an Italian company till about 15 years later.Anyway, we used to go for the 'first show' (starting at 6:30 PM). My mother never used to come with us - she did not like English movies. So my father would start up his Laamburrtta and I would tell my mother: ' Amme, going to see Broosli'
I did not know that Bruce Lee was Chinese or that his movies were quite violent or that his name was Bruce Lee and not Broosli.
So we would go and see Enter the Dragon and Fist of Fury and all the other Broosli movies. The cinema was called Crown, near the centre of my home city, Calicut (Kozhikode for puritans). The ageless, diminutive usher who knew my father from his college days would say something silly to make me laugh as he tore our tickets in half and pointed the way with his 'Yevereddy' flashlight. I would sit through the movie with my jaw hanging loose amazed by Broosli's dazzling 'nunchaku' (I had to look up the spelling on Google) stunts and his trademark feminine howl that punctuated his kicks and jabs. During the intermisssion my father would buy 'masala kadala' (peanuts smeared in masala) from the vendor near the toilets and then give me a taste of his 'Gholspot' which would make my nose run, but make me laugh nonetheless.
After the movie we would dive straight into the madness in the car park where about 12 cars and 200 two wheelers are squeezed into 25 square metres. Amidst honking horns and glaring headlamps, before we start off for home, he would ask me two things:
1. am I sleepy (for I have to stand on the footpad of the scooter in the circle formed by his arms and the handlebar for the 20 minute trip home)
2. am I cold (well, cold in Calicut is anything less than 21 degrees and that is after adding the wind chill factor)
I would say no to both and get on the scooter giving him a reassuring nod.
As we drove home with Broosli still fresh in my mind, my father would sing his favourite Hindi song, with the words 'Aanewale...something something'. (I found out 20 years later that it was the only song he knew and that he certainly, most definitely cannot sing!)
I would pretend that the speedometer was the control panel of a jumbo jet with all the various knobs and switches and the bright green light that came on intermittently (when he switched to high beam, as I found out later) and then one of two things would happen:
1. I would fall asleep and lean against his arms.
2. I would tell him that I am cold.
My father would then have to stop the scooter and open the storage compartment (which is just below the handlebars in the Lambretta, not to one side over the rear wheel - as in the Bajaj). Nestling amongst the paperwork would be my neatly folded raincoat, bright green in the fluorescent street lamps.
He would help me into my green raincoat and insist that I wear the hood, provided it was attached (if not, I would just wear the coat, for he could not attach the stupid hood to the raincoat either - like I said, only my mother could do that).

Then we would be off again:
the hum of the scooter in perfect harmony with my father's Hindi song while the flapping raincoat provided the percussion as I looked at the bright green light in my cockpit thinking about the flashing nunchakus and the commotion around my school desk the next day as I tell my friends about how I went to see ...
... Broosli on a Laamburrtta