Clap Clap!

Have you ever hated someone so much that you just got up and started applauding as soon as she got done with her act?
(No no, I'm not particularly talking to you, oh nominee-for-the-best-actress-award-who-just-sat-there-clapping-for-the-winner.) I know how you feel, but I'm referring to a whole other gamut of emotions here.

I never thought I could have so much hatred. So much animosity. So much anger for the female form.
But when you get up everyday at 3:30am, and start applauding aimlessly in the dark, you know you can't feel very appreciative. And when two mosquitoes decide to play join-the-dots on your body, you know you want to show feminism the finger.

I'm just this close to wishing that there was someone who'd gas those bitches in one big mosquito genocide!

Mosquitoes! Those vicious, ruthless, blood-sucking monsters that leave itchy red mounds of ugliness on skin, are ALL FEMALE!!

Apparently, they look for a smooth surface on bare (freshly waxed?) skin and meditate on landing quietly hoping that you're either asleep, numb, dead or too thick skinned to care. They whisk out their proboscis and stick it into you (erm...this surely doesn't sound very lady-like now). And while you're too busy focusing on sleep, they burp on your blood and hi-five to the other bitches on the number of Bloody Mary(s) they just consumed.

And for what purpose? Erm... for the noble cause of being a Mother.

Waiddaminute! They need MY red blood corpuscles, to nurse and raise a new swarm of pests who can come back and bite me on the bum? Again?

I'm telling you. One way or the other, children are EVIL!

Bollywood Revisited

Remember the good ol' times? The times post the black-and-white era and the reels that graduated from Eastman Colour? The times beyond sepia prints, 70s winged-eyeliners, conical bras and bird-nest hairdo's?

I'm talking about the times that have made an impression on every 80's child in India. It's called surviving a time warp that's now referred to as B.C. (or Before Cable). An age when Bollywood wasn't just fancy coinage for a film industry - But a way of life.

A time when movies made their way to dinnertime discussions on a daily basis. The epic era of bad hindi films (while some might argue that the said era hasn't ended yet), with movies so bizarre, that their connection to reality is purely unintended!

Films that shamelessly followed a set formula. Where lanky heroes with long side-burns were the norm. When being beefed-up and owning a 6-pack meant you had a promising career as a villain or a visible part of his posse. (Someone please throw Uday Chopra into that decade, NOW!) In fact, despite eating right and hitting the gym everyday, you'd have been tossed around like a toothpick in the hands of Mr. Scrawny BigStar himself.

I'm talking about a decade when Mithun's pelvic thrust was the epitome of all things macho, and an Anil Kapoor roamed topless, revealing his welcro-like back without having to bother about sex appeal (what's that?).

When heroes danced in 2-inch heels, wore their hair to the nape, put on horrendously mercurial Aviator shades, and strut around in costumes that would give Lady Gaga some competition. 

When 'stylists' were still called 'tailors', when a 'wardrobe' mean't double doors that open up to a clown's closet, and when 'heroine's outfit' implied a quick-fix from the previous movie's curtains.

Biker gloves, blue pantyhose, red socks and yellow pump shoes.
That's the way, aha aha, I like it, aha aha.

Bibs are not meant to be worn there, Ms. Kapoor!

Note 1: Curtains can be replaced by anything colourful or unusual. Even birthday streamers will do, so long as she looks like she's emerging out of Draupadi's forgotten costume, or a 7-tiered wedding cake.

When all-natural and voluptuous was considered beautiful. When women like Amrita Singh played lead roles (up until the point where she started resembling the hero's younger brother.)

When hotness quotients were defined by Rekha in her avatar as a cool vengeful fauxhawk-wearing  momma with a face-lift... and a tummy-tuck (erm, but the darn crocodile only bit your cheek, lady!). 

When skinny little Sonu Walias could fall off the stage (or the villain's life, or the face of the earth) if Ms. Ample Hips obliged.

When villains were put on a different kind of pedestal.

Firstly, the bad guy = bad GUY. (If you were a woman and a bad one at that, you were either Bindu, Aruna Irani, Shashikala or a slut. No grey shades there.)

Coming back to our typical villains, they came in different sizes of obviousness, cause subtlety is for wimps!
They either had a physical handicap (movies with Prem Chopra, Shakti Kapoor, Gulshan Grover, Danny Denzongpa and their ilk), were subject to some unexplained abnormality on the face (hairy moles, scar across eyelids) or were just downright ugly (Cause if you're ugly, you're going to be pissed with mankind, right?).

On the rare occasion  that life had chosen to be less mean to them, they'd sit on a skull throne all dressed up in alien clothing and a bad haircut (e.g. Mogambo, Shakaal, Dong) expecting the audience to cringe in horror!

Mogambo, khush hua!

Note 2: The villain's plans could involve hijacking a 2nd-hand cycle in a busy market area, but even such a seemingly irrelevant plan would've been strategized sitting in a helicopter that can land anywhere unannounced [air regulations not applicable].

Note 3: Our man, Scrawny BigStar, might have never set eyes on a dumbell in his life. However, when thrown into the fighting arena, he can take down 5 WWE wrestlers at one go. He's not called 'Jay' 'Veer' or 'Winner' for nothing! (Hint. Hint.)

Note 4: The hero might be a chauffeur or a vada-pav stall owner, but he (almost always) has the supreme wisdom to outwit the villain who has been planning to release weapons of mass destruction around the world since he was born!

I'm talking about that time frame in Bollywood when actors of today, like Emran Hashmi and Mallika Sherawat, would've been jobless for years! When everything around was symbolically suggestive.

Lip-locking and making-out was inferred when flowers (out of no where) would rub against each other. If flowers were out of stock, they'd replace the frame with oranges falling off the actress' body.

[Disclaimer: The video below is more than suggestive symbolism. 
Yikesss @ Jeetendra! You just killed 'sweet-limes' for me, forever!]

Flower on flower mean't happy times, but bee on flower mean't rape. Other symbols for 'rape' in that era include over-boiled milk (talk about corny imagery!), a goat staring at a butcher (again in the middle of no where), or an old creaking ceiling fan (erm, I'm still trying to figure that one out!) that continues to whirr till the end of what seems like eternity.

A time when animals seemed to have meatier roles in the film (pun unintended). Movies that brought 'ichaadaari nagins' into our collective consciousness such that you'd anxiously wait for every girl with light eyes to transform into a snake.

In fact snake movies broke lose a new genre of creativity to include plots that were as original as having Aruna Irani breast-feed a snake for reasons so bizarre, I'd rather you go and watch it for yourself!

If that's not all, we have Amitabh Bachchan calling a dolphin his mother; a pet pigeon who helps Anil Kapoor in robbery; and a pomeranian who behaves like the 11th incarnation of lord Krishna by saving Madhuri Dixit from marrying Mohnish Behl in Bollywood's longest marriage movie (Ok, so the last one was in the 1990's but they don't change overnight now, do they?)

With all their antics in place, these bad movies have made their mark in the most unexpected recesses of our minds. While some of us might pretend we hate that stuff, there's no denying how we automatically parrot dialogues and songs from movies long forgotten.

I just hope and pray that this disgusting Jeetendra-Meenakshi song was NOT a part of my earliest childhood memories!

WTF

You have kids all over the place.
One stuck in tuitions. One practicing lawn tennis. One playing with the neighbour’s Rottweiler. And one threatening to walk out of your womb any moment.

You’ve had a long day.

You clean, do the laundry, fold clothes, talk over the phone, play counselor to your husband’s sister, call the neighbor, shop, wash and clean some more on repeat mode.

You enter the kitchen and get started on making a complicated recipe. 

You toil and toil from gas burner to gas burner with 4 not-so-perfect batches of Navratna Korma.

The husband comes home and the aromas seem to be an effective mood-lifter. 

You're relieved that the 5^th batch wont see the insides of the trash can.

He takes a spoonful. Pauses. Smiles. You’ve nailed his mom’s recipe (Epic moment! After years of marriage and the 4th child on its way, you finally got him to agree to that one?!)

…And you give credit to the mirchi powder you used?

Bollocks!

Sometimes, I hate advertisements.

Rickshaw Ride

When your motor skills are slightly challenged and you have trouble with hand-eye coordination, you should instantly understand that - Driving is not for you.

But people sometimes behave like I love being called an imbecile or something. "Come on, now! How hard can that be? Driving is the easiest thing on the planet."

That's as good as yelling at a dyslexic kid about the difference between bar and bra. (He's probably too young for both in any case!)

Besides, if you have an internal GPS as warped as Moses in the desert, there's absolutely no incentive in overcoming this handicap of being a wuss behind the wheel. With a stroke of luck, if you've figured how to change gears while you foxtrot on the accelerator and clutch, you've probably forgotten where you wanted to get to in the first place.

To add to the mix, if your direction sense sucks, the last person you want clarifications from is someone from Mumbai city. My people are cool and all, but if there's one thing that I just don't understand, it's the fact that when it comes to directions, they can NEVER get themselves to saying "I don't know."

In fact, I think when Christopher Columbus was asking people to guide him to India, it probably was that lone Mumbaikar on his boat who jumped to the occasion and grabbed the role of playing navigator. ("Let's go straight," I believe were his last words.)

But I don't blame that guy alone. Clearly he's been raised in a city where official signposts beam at you with the profound confidence of a broken compass. Imagine my horror when I spot a bottle-green signboard in Khar West that reads Go Straight for Mantralay with no distance indicators. That's as good as telling me, keep going straight and you'll reach Bangalore... well, eventually.

Let's see, so here I am with all the permutations and combinations of reaching WhereTheFuckAmI land.

I promise to meet this friend for rehearsals on a Wednesday afternoon. "It's the second bungalow on Chapel Road, Bandra West. 2:00 pm. Don't be late!" she warns, knowingly.

I hop into a rickshaw and mumble the necessary keywords to get me to my destination, and continue to multitask with a sandwich, the cellphone and a book in tow.

We maze through millions of cars, buses, 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, and dodge over the little hindrances in our obstacle race including THE divider, a bicyclist (who are they anyway?) and a cow's oblivious tail.

Through this chaos, I sit there beaming, cause it's 1:45pm, and for the first time in a very long time, I'm going to be there, On Time. Phew!

We reach Hill Road and I'm mean't to direct the driver behind the Indian 3-seater from there.
"Bhaiyya Chapel Road likha hai." He looks like he's going to call my bluff, and presumes I'm not from the city. He's lived in Khar-Danda all his life apparently and is convinced that I've got the address all wrong.

He defies me into asking someone on the street.
"Chapel Road?" "Chap-pill Road" I scream from the other side of the street, when a soft-drink stall owner points straight ahead towards a forked path.

A couple rights, lefts, u-turns, lefts, straights and zig-zags around the corner, someone suggests that I'm not even in the right part of the city. "It's probably in Malad," a passerby assures, again pointing straight ahead, towards Mantralay. Grah!

I look at the rickshaw guy through the rear-view mirror and charade my way by saying:
"Arre bhaiya, wahaan par sab bungley hai. Address mein Bungla #2 likha hai"

He parks the rick on the side and asks me to show him the address with the air of a veteran detective. Something dawns on him, and he looks mightily pissed with me. Grumbling through the traffic he takes me via a by-lane and points at a dilapidated signboard with 'Chapel Road' in clear letters.

"Kya Madam. Kaayko shtyle maarta hai? Chappal Gali bolneka na, seedha seedha," he says, waving his slipper in his hand.

I wasn't quite sure if he was still in the mood for playing charades there.

And I didn't wait long enough to find out.





Photo Credit: CNN

Soap Saga

This one isn't so much about telling a short/shot story as much as it is about commenting on one. 

And so I digress...

Indian television serials make for mass devolution (which is actually putting it very lightly. When, in fact, what I actually want to say is that making, acting or watching any of these shows is the quickest way of becoming a neanderthal). 

Agreed, this isn't a 'eureka' moment of sorts. Even a monkey with half a brain and no patience would know that it would be worth his while to count the grains of sand trickling down an hour glass instead of trying to follow a non-existent plot on prime-time. 

But then again, I confess, I fell for the old-boy charm of a popular yester-years baddy, MB. So going against my grain, I decided to watch the show. (I mean, how bad can it get, right? Worst case scenario, I could just drivel all over tall-dark-and-handsome and then wipe off the spittle).

Neanderthal Alert!! 

Fancy-pants-80's-bad-guy-who-shot-white-pigeons-for-a-hobby now plays a shy 45 year old virgin doctor who, I'm guessing, doesn't even strip while in the shower. 

And to make a predictable antithesis on 'opposites attract,' is a hyperactive, size 10, glossy haired, I-never-wanted-to-go-to-med-school-cause-I'm-so-cool twenty-something intern whose main purpose on the show is to make the virgin slash voyeur realize that he also needs to jerk off every once in a while!

The pace of the plot is a whole other thing. In the time that it takes the impatient, half-brained, Indian-soap-watching monkeys to evolve into human beings; our virgin doctor might have mustered enough courage to tell his lady love that he is now ready to see her lady parts from afar.

MB, we actually liked you in your bad-boy roles. Not because you were like the guy my mom warned me about. But more cause back in the day, you came up with the most memorable one-liners that set it in stone that a guy and girl could never be 'just friends.'

Now you're just old and creepy, and trying too hard. If you want to justify being a virgin at 45, you've got to take acting lessons from Steve Carell. 

Note to MB: This has been the toughest half-celebrity picture search EVER!!. I have an impression to maintain here. It's not easy when I call you drool-worthy and find every other image that looks like you'd fit well under the 'beware of absconding rapist' tag. Please Google yourself and see!  

The Voiceover

From washing gravity-challenged curls in cold water and stepping out in the blazing sun, to applying curds on the scalp and sitting under the air conditioner. From eating unbranded hand packed sickeningly sweet fluorescent candy, to gorging on 4 germ laden ice shaved golas on Juhu beach. I'd done it all!

This wasn't an I-will-test-my-immunity (or stupidity??) contest that I was trying to win, or a suicide diet to look pretty at death. Nor was I getting paid to conduct research on popular ways of contracting pneumonia.

In my defense this was, in all earnestness, an attempt to retain a 'husky' voice.

As retarded as it sounds, do you have any idea what it means to get complimented on a borrowed voice tone? Especially when 'normal' means that the inherited vocal chords vibrate only within the soprano range, and being 'excited' means emitting ultrasonic sounds that can only be appreciated by cats, dogs, and screeching bats?!

Thanks to common cold, phlegm, and the entire army of waterworks, there was hope. Let alone the fact that I now looked like Rudolf on Prozac, carried three packs of Kleenex in my bag, and couldn’t tell the difference between nutri-wheat-crackers and cardboard - I sounded perfect!

The cell-phone was ringing. The hottie-with-the-long-sideburns had his name flashing across the touchscreen. Dashing for another Kleenex I went through a quick round of the sniff-snort-cough-cough routine. Stomach tucked in, chest pushed out, I looked like someone in dire need of the Heimlich maneuver.
But the hottie couldn't see all of that now, could he?

The phone was answered in under five seconds.

'Huh lo-oh...' I teased. The femme fatale had just walked into the voice box.

I breathed out a wry smile, and continued to look like death. But it didn't matter.

Cause Jessica Rabbit had finally agreed to do a little dubbing for Ms. Swan.

Age Rage

If there's one thing that has triggered the mass fuck-up of the human race, it has to be the day when one klutz woke up on a Tuesday morning and decided to bracket people by the number of candles on their birthday cake.

Can someone please explain what would caution for age-appropriateness in behaviour?

So let's get this straight. You plonked out of your mother's womb - You did what you had to (or just slept for the most part) - 364 days rolled over, and then wham, everyone and their uncle stared at you like they were waiting for you to deliver on a magic trick. Well if it was one trick and they'd get over it, I'd even bother trying to ace it. But year after year, the expectations just get crazier!

This is where I realized that attempting to grow an extra organ might seem to be a lot more easy, but matching up to age-appropriate expectations is a whole other ordeal.

"Oh he's one already, and he isn't walking just yet!"
Why bother? Even if he prepares in record time, he won't be able to run the marathon next year.
Seriously, STOP obsessing over youtube videos of one-year-olds who can bob their head, waist and leg to Shakira. They're NOT normal.

"She's thirteen and we're praying that she gets her first 'period' in time."
In time? For what?
Be sure what you pray for. If she's ready to get her period, it's her body's way of also telling you that she's ready to have sex. This one can potentially fast forward you to grandparenthood, if you will.

"I can't wait to turn 18!"
Aah... cause NOW you're an adult. You can drive without your fake licence. You can also vote, elope and get married. Be careful on the outlaw side of things though. No more juvenile courts to save your sorry ass!

"21, woohoo!"
Clearly, you've just developed the skills to handle and hold your alcohol overnight. Now if you could cooperate a little, I'm trying to get you to vomit outside the car.

"Sullen times, babe! It's the 25th. Quarter-life-crisis just decided to bite me on the bum!"
True, presuming you're going to live to be a 100-year-old hag. If you're not meant to live a day over 60, then you're just 5 short of reaching your mid-life. Need more vodka?

"Three-Oh! You'll need Jeetendra's tabs to keep you going through the day!"
Jeetendra's been 30 for the past 30 years. It just dawned on me that they were trying to target my dad and grand-dad with the same pill!

Oh and then we have the un-missable (if that's even a word) classics that everyone's subjected to in one way, shape or form.

"You've reached marriageable age..."
"At your age, you should be changing diapers, not jobs!"

Really? So hang on a second there.

How come we never hear:
"You've reached the age of wanting to kill all your children?"
"It's okay, you're in the age of falling out of love."
"You'll be a nymphomaniac between 33 and 35. It's the age, they say."

See, if everyone could just accept that some of these anomalies are age-appropriate too, we'd stop freaking ourselves out so often!

But as people get older they like to skip over some of these specifics...

So that you can tie the knot, share a bed and bank balance with someone (how can you be so selfish and have the whole bed to yourself?!?!), become fat and have babies, just so that they can come back to you and ask,

"Oh, she's turned one!?! Has she started walking just yet?"

Sadists!

A little dash of Amreeka

You know what it feels like to give that usual smile to your paani-puri waala down the road, right!? Of course you do! Didn't we like totally like accommodate like this-is-what-the-next-gen-should-know kinda jazz from Family Guy and South Park? Aren't we in the world of Simi selecting and simpering over pubescent celebrity men in true cougar town shows? Haven't we often felt like Central Park was just a couple blocks down our street?
So then you know what I'm talk about, right? NO?!?

See, I thought we were doing everything the American way - where it's perfectly normal for a bus driver to greet you with a chirpy 'good morning', and for you to wave back without ever stopping to wonder if he's going to hijack the bus to molest-station.

"That happened in the late nineties, early two thousands...!!" I tchah-tchah'ed to myself all along the way. India's changed a lot since. What with FB, Twitter and the whole gamut of worldwide people on the computer screen, we sure have adapted well now, haven't we?

And so I went to the same old paani-puri waala who I'd visit regularly on my yearly sojourns to Mumbai.

With a mouthful of spicy gol guppas, an almost runny nose, and a sentence punctuated with appropriately slurp-ish sounds, he seemed pleased to have found my appreciation for his culinary skills.

"Hellooo Maydumji. Kaise ho aap? Aajkal aap dikhte hi nahi ho" he managed to mutter through his permanent smile in one uninterrupted breath.

I exchanged the usual pleasantries and made small talk, until I touched upon a seemingly personal question.
"Waise, aapka naam kya hai?" I asked, wondering if his name would reveal a little about his roots.

The habitual smile dimmed behind his glorious moustache. He focused on cracking the epicenter of the next puri with absolute concentration, and coyly revealed "Prem." 

I almost choked on the gol guppa in my mouth, and the spicy paani felt like a shot of wasabi streaming down those nostrils.
"Prem Dayal" "Prem Dayal Shukla," was repeated in quick succession which, if said with a little more panache, would've passed off as a good local impersonation of the classic 007.

Beaming ear-to-ear his annoyingly white, symmetrically toothed smile had returned to his oily face. Putting two extra puris on my plate, he casually asked me the same question.

Oops! Spurted it out in a matter-of-fact manner. How often does one go to their favourite street chaat corner with an alias identity in mind? Okay, I said it! The local paani-puri waala knows my name.

So what? It's not like he can do much with it. It is the American way. It's cool to know people on a first name basis.

So what if I now have a creepy looking picture of a 'Shukla' requesting to befriend me on Facebook!

Teenage Woes

I really don't know what happened.
Munching on new foliage of mulberry,
I fell asleep on the tattoo artist's chair.
And awakened to a rude change.
I've lost those curves and all my pretty feet.
My appetite's not the same.
I can't stand to chat with those sissy coloured flowers,
With so many annoying boys flitting around.
They say I've transformed into art on wings,
But I just want to go back to my cocoon.
Metamorphosis, my ass! It's the tattoo guy's fault.
I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for a blue Jesus on my lower back.

Ready for the Kiln

Your fingers.
Those long artistic feminine reins
With flesh, bone and supple skin
Met mine
Manly, unpretentious and calloused.

Your little palms
Were lost in mine
Finding comfort in the gaps.

Emotions cemented skin on skin
Contours and crevices well-fused.
We held our fate lines
In one firm squeeze
With the head and heart in place.

Giddied by your touch
My thick stubby hands
Transformed
Into dancing dervishes
That whirled and swooned,
Pivoting slowly
Around the wheel
Of your assertive palms.

Those small stern hands
Were indeed your own.
But in yours alone
Mine were clay.