Happy B'day, Papa..:-)

                             

Dear Papa,

  Wish you many more happy returns of this day, and may all those days see you in the pink of health, encircled by boundless love, a peaceful n happy heart… blissfully content with all that you ever wished for and more...

Love you sooooo much you know? I am not buttering you! I’ve been thinking all these days on how I’d surprise you on your birthday.

Initially, I thought of writing you a poem. That’s when it dawned on me about the very creative poem I wrote about Mummy when I was in third standard, which, to my fate, you found and treasured for future blackmail. That you publicized it and marked the beginning of an era of sarcastic recitals of my poem, coupled with finger pointing and laughing made me drop that idea.

Then I decided to post a nostalgic photo from the 1980’s with you cutting your birthday cake. I got tens of photos of my sister’s and my birthday, but I couldn’t find any of yours. I then painfully realized how Mummy and you ensured that our birthday moments were captured every year. Selflessly. The sacrifices you both made. How you forgot yourselves, for us.

Then I ran through the photo albums of the 1990’s in which there are photos of your birthday party, but you posed with Mummy in all of them! I’m not even in the frame! Later I realized that I had taken those photos. Anyway, I dropped that idea too.

Then I thought I would dedicate an entire article for you, remembering good old times. But I wasn’t sure whether I could do it better than last year’s. I wanted to do something cute this time. So I dropped that idea as well.

Then I thought I’ll get a cute big bouquet delivered at 7.00 a.m right at your doorstep. But how you hate wasting money on flowers and perishable 'useless' stuff, made me drop that idea. I dint even think of buying a shirt and you know why! (The lecture u gave me on why I shouldn’t shop for shirts at least for another decade and a glimpse of your wardrobe having some shirts still with the tags on, was remembered and complied with)

So I am left with some ‘priceless’  love, hugs and kisses which will be delivered in person when you visit me here…then I will wish you a belated birthday and we’ll take lots of snaps and cut a cake too!

People are many but true ones are few,

Years have passed, with experiences new,

But all I have is a great Dad that’s you…

Love you more than you think I do!

Happy 61st B'day, Papa!!!

Lots of Love,

Anu.

First (worst) Impressions..

Making first impressions was not destined to happen in all my life. I can sharply remember one incident wherein my sister greeted a teacher ‘good morning’ after the morning assembly in school and she got greeted back with a smile…but when I passed the same corridor and greeted the same teacher, she scanned me closely, up and down, sporting raised eyebrows. This incident is a superhit among all my relatives and friends, as papa performs it in the form of  a solo skit which lasts about 20 seconds at family get-togethers, as he hyper-actively enacts the expression of the teacher, who was greeted by my sister first, and then by me.

Those were the days when there weren’t too many channels to fight over the remote. ‘Superhit Muqabla’ used to be the favorite and the only program my sister and me were allowed to watch. We enjoyed our favorite songs of those times… ‘Ruk ruk ruk’… ‘neela dupatta peela suit’ … etc and smile at each other with glee as that was the single entertainment hour in all week. However we dreaded the airing of the fiercely romantic songs ‘Tum mile…dil khile’ from the movie ‘Criminal’ and the rangeela songs (which when compared to today’s movies looks like children’s movies), as parents would still be hanging around the TV room. All the Ruk ruk and neela dupattas  happens when Papa is carefully reading the newspaper…however when he comes to the TV room for some reason or the other, “Tum Mile” comes up from nowhere and me and my sister would look like criminals ourselves. I guess this has something to do with the name of the movie.

There was this chocolate called ‘Kismi’ during my school days. I was a very loud person those days and was once casually talking to my friend about 'Kismi bar' to which a teacher who sat behind us nodded her head sarcastically. After a subsequent amount of time (which is required for me and my friend to enlighten) , I realized that 'Kismi' can also have a pessimistic alternative, ‘kiss me’ and how the teacher must have coupled that with 'bar''. Wow quite a picture :( I was in fifth standard then.

Now it was Googl’es turn. I am a programmer and often I search some sample codes and syntaxes from google. Once I had to do some very specific stuff, for which I wanted a reference. One of the many people I was reporting to was standing right behind me and staring at my monitor. Then I typed in the search string, ‘find…’ and google gave me the first option...’

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‘find single girls in Oman’.

My Sins against Gender-Stereotypes :-D

Reflections has tagged me with ‘My Sins against Gender-Stereotypes’.

This tag is to list at least ten things I’ve wanted or done, which my gender is not supposed to. Sounds like a catchy tag…and Nancy has done it interestingly well!

 So here goes a humble attempt.

I wanted to start with an oath ...the one which they say at court…just to make this funny, but all I can think of is ‘India is my country, all Indians..”  so I’d better stop over doing these futile attempts at being humorous and get practical.

1.       As a teenager I used to be protective of my elder sister. I thought of her as a little girl ( and myself as a brother brat) and even man handled a typical ‘pervert kumaran’ in a private bus, using my school bag when he tried to lean on her.

2.       As a kid, I preferred to climb the wall at the back of my house to the neighborhood than take the regular route. Until last month at Bangalore, I climbed the gate of my apartment a few times after my shift.  I was too sweet to not disturb owner uncle, and pitied hubby for having cowardly friends who said that it is ‘dangerous’ and ‘risky’. ( That guy told him  that my leg might get stuck in the gate… he must’ve thought of me as an elephant or something)

3.       When my mom disgustingly says that I became a female in the minute just before birth, I took credit and nodded as if she is complimenting me.

4.       The first week of every month, Papa would go to the provision store and buy stuff for a whole month. This would consist of sacks of rice, coconuts and other heavy stuff. I have never missed this trip and would act like a male helper in carrying all the heavy stuff voluntarily. (even though sometimes I’d be biting my jaw in pain internally)

5.       I hate the color ‘Pink’ and secretly love ‘Blue’ even though I tell everyone that my favorite is Black. There are no pink, white, yellow dresses in my wardrobe. Instead there are black, navy blue and gray. I also prefer square checks and lines against floral designs.

6.       I love to drive in heavy traffic and follow my own road rules when people refuse to move out of the road seeing the female driver. If they are also driving I honk annoyingly until he moves out (like we do when there are cows/dogs in the middle of the road: D)   and if they are pedestrians I give them small pats on the shoulder with the rear view mirror. I then stop, stare and flee before they raise the finger.

7.       I hate TV soaps and Ranbir Kapoor. I cannot stand men who have pink lips and no moustache (although I know all girls fall for this category of feminine dudes).

8.       I am very friendly with sales guys/gals at the local grocery, fuel stations, roadside vegetable markets, pizza delivery, and the like.

9.       I think of saree as the most inconvenient attire ever. Also, I do not fancy nor have I felt the urge to check out the creams/lotions/mascara/ complexion compact/ perfume section of any store.

10.   I used to pay the phone/electricity/water bills at their respective offices, waiting in long queues. But I couldn’t make a single cup of tea without checking for sugar, like seventeen times after which half a cup of cold tea would be ready.

Phew! Just pondered over a reel of memories, dug into it and popped up ten points which I think might match the tag…

Hmm…so let me make myself a cup of tea. :D

Review Mania !

‘Director Ramesh Sippy has certainly lost it in ‘sholay’.. the villain cleanly gets on our nerves and  overshadows both the lead heroes. Gabbar Singh is as weird as his name and looks like he has come straight out of a childrens magazine, the awful make up and irritating dialogues. He succeeds in making the audience pull their hair out, while Hema and Jaya Bhaduri are female characters whose role still remains clueless throughout the script of Sholay…Had Sippy concentrated more on the script of…’

Before you roar at me, hear me out. This would be the review of the blockbuster of all times, the movie that made history, Sholay, if it were written by today’s film critics.

Gone are the times we used to watch movies for the entertainment value.:-(

Leave Sholay, and take some other blockbuster of those times and watch it again through the critics’ eye. You will laugh at it.

*Flashback*

During school days, Hindi movies were a passion to us (me and my friends at school)  , although a lot of dialogues were not interpreted to what it actually meant …as Hindi wasn’t the mother tongue to any of us...but Urmila and Madhuri were our style icons. There would be weekends we would get together at a friend’s place and watch movies back to back.  On Monday at school we’d  be narrating the experience of how sexy ‘Madhuri Dixit’ looked in ‘Hum Aapke Dil De Chuke Sanam’ !!

*Later* 

I started reading reviews and got judgmental about every movie. Was there a top losers match goin on?

Then I boarded the movie spree yet again, and kept reading reviews after watching the movie...because I realized that I was missing out on a lot of good stuff.

*Now*

The most recent one was Ravanan, a spectacular movie, which I enjoyed every bit of. It was a great experience watching Raavanan but the reviews... man! I’d been singing “Veera..” all the time for around a month...its a catchy song. Some dumbos said that the songs weren’t peppy enough…

Some cheapos ran out of logical shortcomings that they called it ‘predictable’. Raavanan is straight out of Ramayana…and Ramayana is thousands of years old. How can we expect Raavanan to be not predictable? :-D

So good criticism comes with logical understanding of the facts of entertainment …it is so much different from regular fault finding . And comparing Mani Ratnam’s movie with his previous work is also irrational…

Big B supporting his son in this matter sounded like a PTA meeting to me…’my son did well…but they edited it! give him more marks!’

Coming back to the point…do not read movie reviews and get biased…watch the movie and then decide yourself. Movies are for entertainment, they dint use your bank balance to make them. If you want, you watch!

Even otherwise, why do we need film critics?

By the way, I gotto say that ‘Kites’ was unbelievably silly and a huge let down. :D