next segment...

5.  Suspect love ishtories: It was never very clear WHY the hero and heroine fell in love in those days. It could all start with just one look at assorted body parts....err, I meant the face (like moon), arm (like "vazhaithandu), foot (like lotus flower...yeah, I did not get that one either), hair (like kaale baadal), eyes (like water in the jheel) or even at a the sound of jhankar of payal worn by heroine and seemed like the (il)logical conclusion, considering psychopathic tendencies demonstrated by hero.


Scenario:


After monologue in the last segment, our dear tapori goes about the business of apnaaoing the babe. He will stalk her to her college, her home, her typewriting/shorthand institute (southie touch) and even to the neighborhood dukaan/maligai kadai with very suspect lusty looks. Babe is not impressed. He accosts her and says Tum aur mein pichle janam ke saathi hain. Babe walks past him with a hmph. She still has books on chest even though it is probably 5 am and she is going to buy bread aur andey  from chachaji ke dukaan. 


Tapori: Jao.....kahaan chali jaaogi? Mein tumhe apnaake hi rahoonga, haan! (With swagger of a man having scaled Mount Everest).
Babe walks back irritated and says Dude, I am really NOT interested. I cannot make this clear enough. Mein tumse behad nafrat karti hoon, and marches back home, bread and andey forgotten.


(Poor, unsuspecting school girls in the audience think how wonderful it would be to be loved thus and pimply adolescent boys think, Yeah baby! That's the way you stalk a girl...and its legal? This is my lucky day!)


This does not deter the tapori and he continues stalking the poor babe. Many, many, many, many, many, many lovely songs later, there appears to be some progress. Babe's expression changes from loathing to tolerant. The deal is sealed by ruffians who are either real or fake.....let me explain this. Tapori sends gundas to mock molest babe, quite conveniently forgetting that his behavior towards her could be best described as inappropriate. The idea is that tapori will beat up fake gundas to impress babe. Sometimes, the fake ones arrive as expected, but sometimes, real gundas appear at the designated spot by sheer coincidence. So, now the tapori fights the real ones and impresses himself along with babe.


To make a long story short (no really, the stories were that long), the couple unites in the end. There were a few fun elements thrown in like advice given by worldly wise friends, cut wrists, Bapu and Mayi with many apoplectic fits, bloody family feuds, lusty uncles who want to marry the babe or childhood fiance who appears from nowhere and even terminal illness. There will even be a second hero/heroine thrown in to supposedly hoodwink the audience into believing that the hero/heroine might end up with the spare. Really? With a hand-me-down wardrobe, terrible make-up and hair, no songs and that moping expression, they never stood a chance!


These days, the hero/heroine have the attention span of a housefly.
Hero: Hey, how you doin'?
Heroine: Great, if fact, I am seeing someone. So thanks and goodbye!


Hero: Slides over to next barstool and says Hey! How you doin"? to the next girl.


Many confusing turns later (all the spares are well-dressed and equally unknown wanna-be's/starlets, so we never know who is going to end up with whom in the end), two random people from the group "hook-up". What? Did they not say that they were brother and sister? No, that was him and the other spare. I have this to say, however suspect the yesteryear stories were, there was NEVER a confusion who the hero and heroine were!


More later......

continued..

3. The absence of manly heroes a.k.a Hairy Tapori Heroes (You thought of Anil Kapoor as soon as you read this, right? No? Liar!)


Scenario: (Group of suspect college-going lads sit outside girl's college/hostel. The reason I say "suspect" is that most lads (including hero) look old enough to be at least 30. Also, at their best dressed, they look like scruffy pedophiles (think Chunky Pandey...... Nizhalgal Ravi/Chandrasekhar for the southies...just have to substitute tight pants for dirty lungies...both equally unattractive, if I may add)


HTH: (Twirling suspect college book nonchalantly on fingers.....suspect because the title reads "A Stone for Danny Fisher" by Harold Robbins. Wait, I think Harold Robbins was required reading at college in those days)
Mein pyaar shabd se nafrat karta hoon. 


4. Absence of heavily made-up ladies with hair teased and permed to hairspray heaven a.k.a Hot Heroines....incidentally, wasn't this the time when we first heard the words Ozone and Layer together?


HH: (Coming out of hostel/college with groupies, holding books sedately to chest and fake laughing) Hut Sheela (wordly-wise fraand)


HTH: (Stops in mid-sentence and stares dumbstruck at would-be jaaneman, most likely thinking....is it possible to have so much hairspray on and not combust in this heat?)


HH: (Steals a glance at the lads and picks the hairiest best of the lot to focus fake-laugh-with-covered-mouth at)


A flutter of duppattas later, she is gone, leaving HTH with mouth still open and drool collecting. He turns to his fraands and says
Mein ab pyaar mein vishwas karta hoon. Agar maine ise kisi bhi tarah nahin apnaaya to naam badal loonga. (Sounds like obsessive lust to me at best, not to mention a very abrupt change from nafrat to vishwas, don't you think? Very suspect!)


Anyway, the love-ishtory pans out in the next segment......

Movie Blues

Here's what is wrong with Hindi movies these days.....


1. There is no hypertensive dad, a.k.a "Ghussat Baapu":


Mock scenario in days of yore.....
Daughter wants to brush her teeth in the morning and announces the same to her parents.


GB: HARGIZ NAHIN! Hamare khaandaan ki izzat ko mitti mein mila rahi ho! Arrey, log kya kahenge? Hum to baahar muh dikhaane laayak bhi nahin rahenge. 


Beti: Err, I just want to brush my teeth!


GB: Lakshmi, Isse kuch samjhao.....


2. There is no overreactive mom, a.k.a "Philmy Maa" (last word to be said in a nostril flaring, nasal tone....think Dharmendar)


PM: Kya keh rahe ho, beti ke babuji, yeh kaise ho sakta hai? Yeh kalmuyi khud bhi badnaam hogi aur hame bhi badnam karegi. Hamari kismat hi phooti hai!


B: You know what, I'm just going to brush while you finish up with your nervous breakdown.....


GB's chest starts heaving and eyes rolling and PM rushes to his side while a "Beti ke babuji" shrilly rents  the air. Beti runs towards GB and PM teary-eyed, the toothbrush forgotten.


These days you have movie parents who are such pushovers, it is quite sad.....


Beti: Hey Yashraj, Lakshmi! How goes it?


Pushover Parents: Hey beta!, with fist bump.


B Guess what, boyfraand and I are leaving today for the mosquito infested Congo Basin Forest for six months on an expedition. When we return, we plan to announce our engagement.


PP: But, beta, you are just six years old!


B: Oh, grow up folks! We kids start young these days...did you not get the memo?


PP, with fake laugh: OK beta, I hope you got the necessary immunizations. Have a good trip and send us a postcard!


Fist Bump!




to be continued......

Toldja!

Evidence number 1


Evidence number 2


and this of course was begging to be shared.


Also highly recommended is typing "missing socks" on YouTube search.......we are certainly NOT alone!

The case of the missing socks

Folks who do the laundry know that there are at least fifteen lonely socks at the end of every single load. If you are like me, you keep them in a basket until you finish all the loads and try to match the one hundred singletons at the end of every laundry cycle. You will match most of them. That will leave you with about five that don't match. These are the ones that haunt me...they are the ones that keep me up at night with the burning question, "What happened to their pairs?"


I have a few theories, the most popular one being that the dryer hides them inside the vent and spits some out as lint. The dryer has an interesting way of doing this.....it hides selected singles in the dryer vent. Then, when you are wondering about the missing socks, it regurgitates the old pairs from the vent and hides a fresh set of singles from the latest load. This is sheer genius because this way, you are forever looking for pairs. Also, when you clean the dryer filter, there is always some lint sticking to it, so you overlook the massive collection inside the vent itself.


The second theory is the "sock monster" who flicks them when you are not looking and puts them back in another load to mess with you. For folks who are rolling their eyes at this, if there can be "underthebed monster", "basement monster", "furnace monster" and "Lochness monster", there can be "sock monster". You disagree? Well, they feel mighty real at 2 a.m along with my good friend Di's poltergeist/ghost theories (yes, the same ones that I laugh at in broad daylight).


Theory number three is that there exists an alternate dimension for single socks to which they are drawn inexorably. There they lie in stupor, floating without a care while you are left baffled. Alternatively, comet dust, asteroid particles, cosmic dust, circumplanetary dust, you know things more commonly known as space junk could all be just lonely socks from all our homes floating around. Suddenly the rings of Saturn lose their ethereal mystery....telescopic imaging aside, I am pretty sure that they are clean socks, is all I have to say!

Rain

I can sit for hours watching and listening to rainfall. I personally think that it is the most versatile sound on the planet, ranging from pitter patter to downpour to everything in between. It is also visually very appealing and when you put the audio and visual together, it is nature's answer to Broadway.

Imagine this....lush green vegetation and air so thick with moisture that you can barely breathe, dark clouds angrily gathering troops, a sky suddenly dark, looms closer to the earth and the surroundings hushed, setting the stage for the show to begin. The first rain falls and immediately the smell of rain and moist soil fills the nostrils (Tamil has the perfect word to describe this smell...."Mannvaasanai"). The downpour continues as mists of moisture rise through the canopy of vegetation. Thunder rumbles and lightning crashes all around as the rain reaches a crescendo. Visibility is negligible but brilliant flashes of lightning illuminate occasionally. In this lighting, everything looks sinister and hair stands up on the nape of the neck. Just as suddenly as the downpour started, the rain winds down to drops and finally stops. The earth is sated and plumped with moisture, so much that the trees drip the excess from their extremities. The clouds move on to saturate elsewhere and sunshine peeks through their retreat, as though seeking permission to come out. The slanted rays stream through the canopy and bathe the scene in their light, diffused by the residual mist.....everything is languorous as if after a satisfying meal followed by a long siesta.


I recently attended a chorus presentation at my kid's school where there was a simple, yet effective demonstration following a song about rain (forget what the song was). Imagine about fifty kids doing the following: first they randomly snap their finger, first slowly and then increase the intensity and speed (to show the first drops), then they rub their palms together rapidly (to show steady rain coming down in sheets), then they pat both palms rapidly and loudly on their thighs (for the downpour), then back to rubbing palms together, followed by the finger snaps, this time decreasing to silence. It was the most beautiful thing that I have heard in a while.


Beauty abounds in nature....be it in the sound of raindrops or in the purity of children reproducing the same at the school gym for an audience of proud parents. We just have to still our minds enough to enjoy  it.

The morning chronicle

Whoever said that time flies when you are having fun is a big fat liar and does not know a thing about getting kids ready for school in the morning. Don't believe me? Let me tell you what happens in my house from 6:30 a.m to 9:00 a.m every single working day. It is a short period of time that flies too quickly even though I am most definitely NOT having fun.

You would think that something that needs to be done every day, like waking up to go to school will  come naturally, but no it doesn't. Whoever said that it takes two weeks for any habit to form is also a big fat liar. Incidentally, who are these people and why are they saying random things that unnecessarily increase expectations in the minds of unsuspecting mothers? Its just not right!

So, every morning, I try to wake offspring....I have tried:

• Turning lights on and turning fan/humidifier drone off. Absolutely no change...if anything, I can hear the snores more clearly......forgot to spray allergy medication at night, you see.
• Pulling sheets/comforter off of them.....they just move to my freshly made bed and proceed to continue where they left off.
• Calling out in normal frequencies, above normal frequencies, ear-splitting frequencies and even in frequencies that I am told can only be heard by bats. Fat lot of good that did!
• Wetting tissue and running it over offspring's face. Older offspring merely giggles and turns over in his sleep.
• Singing to them.....both in key and off. I managed to get a furrow of the brow with the off-key singing....musically inclined my offspring is.
• Playing M.S's Venkatesa Suprabhatam......... it is the sound that most of south India wakes up to, including a certain Yezhumalayaan sitting in the town of Tirupathi. No such luck in Northeastern U.S.A.....time zone problems maybe?

After all this, even if I do manage to get them off their bed, they seem to have a problem remembering which direction the bathroom is. Older just looks at me blankly and younger happily goes to the play room and proceeds to play an elaborate game of Monopoly all by himself. A few friendly (?) reminders later, they find the bathroom. After several more friendly reminders, they are brushed, showered and dressed and I am ready for my daily anxiety attack since it is now 8:15 a.m and kids have to leave the house at 8:30. 

Breakfast is yet another ordeal since both offspring never EVER want the same thing to eat. I have to play this carefully because if I say that there will be one choice and the other will just have to eat it, I am accused of favoritism. So, in the interest of political correctness, I make two different breakfasts every day. Between making two breakfasts, packing two different lunches and two different snacks, I am seeing double everywhere. No wonder, it takes them double the time to eat a meal now, compared to when we are not rushed. 

Finally, food gets eaten, mouth washed, back-packs packed, jackets, hat, mittens and shoes worn and we are in the car.....it is now 8:35 and we are already stretching our time cushion. Younger chooses this very auspicious moment to announce that he needs to go potty. Seriously, God chooses this time to explain to me that what goes in must come out? So, off comes the jacket, the hat, the mittens, the shoes and the clothes and offspring proceeds to sing very leisurely at the potty while I wait, multiple veins throbbing and ready to explode. After getting done and getting dressed all over again, we are back in the car. 

At the end of the car ride, where I battle short traffic lights and other crazed moms and dads, I reach the kids to school. It is now 9:02 and when I drive out of the parking lot, I feel as though the weight of the world has lifted off my shoulders. I make it back home with absolutely no energy for I have had no time to eat breakfast and there on the kitchen counter sit two packed lunch boxes............................




Addendum: Offspring wakes up at 5:30 a.m on a snow day. Really now!