D IS ALWAYS RIGHT.:-/
And to add to that misery, M is always right as well. I hate that. I hate the fact that D and M are always, ALWAYS right. How could they not be? They’re all there (wherever that place is) because they’ve gone past where I’m stranded ( whatever this place is). Of course he’s right. What is wrong with my generation? O. K I’ll speak for myself. What is wrong with me? Why isn’t there a crazy guy throwing love letters written over Gandhi-ji’s face on a 5 rupee note, at me? Is it my fault? Whose fault is it? I don’t know. All I know, is dad is right. HE made a valid point; WE proved it ( come on… we’re in this together)
Which is why, when I saw Love Aaj Kal, I knew exactly what Imtiyaz Ali was trying to say. He struck a chord with me when he compared yesterdays simplicity to todays complexity.
When I think about D and M, I can easily come up with close to about fifteen adjectives that describes their relationship: Lets see- unpretentious, self-mocking, flawed, accepting, unconditional, devoted, loyal, simple, imperfect, compatible, passionate, understanding, everlasting, soulful and of course timeless. And if I can use at least three of these adjectives to describe my relationship with someone, say, six years from now.. I’d consider myself worthy of being called D and M’s daughter. I really do.
Believe me guys, I’ve seen, not just heard, all kinds out there. I’ve seen best friends live through mutual deception elicited through common liking for a man. I’ve seen two people meant to be together, brought together by the universe itself- and Ive watched them tear it apart, allowing their ego’s to curb that feeling they gave birth to and immediately basterded without owning up to it. I’ve seen two people in love screw it all up because happiness bores them!! I’ve seen people whose real life stories have inspired movies such as Mungaaru Male and the latest Tamil flick called Vinnathaandi Varuvaaya. Art imitates Life. True. But the converse of that famous saying which is often quoted together, is proved to be false over and over again. For some reason, Serendipity has not happened in real life. There is no Sleepless in Seattle for me! What happened to Harry when he met Sally? I’ll never know ;cos I’ve never met a Harry or a Sally!
Why doesn’t life imitate art? No, I’ll re-phrase that. Why doesn’t Life imitate art when it comes to L-O-V-E? There have been perfectly acceptable imitations of every other elements or subject art employs- we’ve seen buildings fall like in the movies, we’ve seen people die like in the movies, we’ve seen people dance, hug, kiss, make-love, fight, run, talk,walk EVERYTHING like we see in the movies. Why don’t people fall in love like they do in the movies? Lets forget mimicking movies for a while if that sounds delirious on many levels. Lets try mimicking reality. WHY DON’T WE FALL IN LOVE LIKE OUR PARENTS DID? If movies sounds unattainable, there’s something closer to reality in our kith that still raises this question and makes it valid. Why don’t we fall in love like them? Why have the times changed? Why have we changed? Why do we let go of something owing to practicality and realism? What does “be practical” mean? What does ” don’t let emotions rule you” translate to?
I asked D.
D can be colorful with his language. So excuse him. He doesn’t care what he says as long as his point is made lucid,loud and clear.
He said ” why? what do you mean why? Its simple. You all are a bunch of brainy pricks who’ve forgotten there’s something that resides midway to your HEAD and your *YOU KNOW WHAT*. And it is called a heart. There is a reason god put it there. The day you realize that you’ll know what’s wrong with all of you.”
I did not know what to say. And I still don’t entirely understand that statement and hence not able to fully appreciate his irked yet honest outburst. Nonetheless, It gave me an incentive to look forward to something. The next time someone drops a 5 rupee note in my lap, I will not punch him in the face.
This one’s for you D, for everything you’ve shown me, both intellectually and practically. And for you M, just for being you- accepting, unconditional and unpretentious.
THE AFTERMATH
They’ve been married for twenty five years now. D and M are happy and most importantly they are peaceful(amen and knock that wood for me if you can). My dad hoped of having a boy first and then a little girl to pamper and spoil. He wanted to name his first born Abhishek. But he had to make do with Shwetha. Yes. He was/is a huge fan of Amitabh Bachchan. You see, the love we have for the Bachchan family is also something I’ve genetically inherited. Although the nature of it differs hugely :).
Throughout these years, Dad has consciously made it a point to stay connected with me. And as far as I can gauge, I’ve made a sincere attempt in response and to a large extent been successful. I can never stay disconnected from D. D sees a lot of him in me ( I am so dead if my sister reads this). And I see a lot of me in him. Over the years I have had life-altering conversations with D, but the one conversation that really made and everlasting impact on me is the one that happened on November 27th, 2009.
My internship had just ended at this huge PR firm in New York City and I had just graduated with a diploma in screenwriting at New York Film Academy. Two major chapters of my life were coming to an end and I was not happy at all. I had nothng to look forward to and everything to lose. At least that’s what it felt like. Add to that misery, M had started to frantically look for a perfect boy to get me hitched. Over the last few years, M and I hardly agreed on anything. I was a daddy’s girl all along. Not that she minded it, she just wished I’d see things from her POV once in a while. That’s all. So, that Friday morning, I woke up to a lifeless, depressed face and I did not like it one bit so I plunged back into bed.
The next minute, D called.
“How’s it going?!!!” he routinely enquired in an insanely cheerful voice, like he always does.
“Hi”, I said meekly.
“Put your mom on the phone she wants to have a word with you” he said. D’s recent obsession, following T20 and real estate, was “conferencing”. He had fallen in love with it since two years ago when I got my first iPhone and had made conference calls between him, M and myself in attempt to show off my tech-savvyness. He thought it was 21st century’s greatest invention. Not the iPhone; I mean the facility to make conference calls. So as always, he strongly insisted I call M and put us all on conference. I did.
“Did you see that boy’s picture?” M asked with considerable amount of excitement in her voice . “No” I said as insouciant as I could possibly sound. And then I yawned. “Go get yourself some coffee” D said. And rightly so. Nothing pissed off M more than an inattentive daughter on the other side of the phone (thank god I was on the other side of the phone)
So as I set out at 11 in the morning on the noisy streets of NYC to kick in some caffeine in my system, D and M began talking simultaneously. I put them both on ear-phones and started walking. I had absolutely no energy to ask them to stop talking at the same time. They were both upset at the fact that I wouldn’t take my marriage proposals seriously. So after ranting for a good fifteen minutes, both hung up and five minutes later D called back.
“Tell me something” he said. “Do you plan to elope with someone?”
“No. I wish there was a ‘someone’ !.. But there isn’t!!”
“I wish too. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with all of you?”
What is he talking about? All of who?
“Your generation is a mess”
Here we go…
“Why can’t you find someone by yourself? Why isn’t there a crazy fellow dropping 5 rupee notes on your lap in a KSRTC bus”
Well 1. I don’t use the bus and 2. If someone offended me by dropping a 5 ruppe not on my lap I’d punch him in his face.
“See that’s the problem. Your generation is all faulty”
Hey! We are YOUR products!
“You guys over think everything. You don’t understand the beauty of life lies in its unpredictability. You want all the answers instantly. You all are afraid to take risks and make the right mistakes( I inwardly laughed at the way he said “right mistakes”, D is very picky and careful with his words). You all want to be too sure of everything. How can you be too right in love? It can’t be. It’s a spontaneous phenomenon. You are all immensely flawed with your theories. What is wrong with all of you?”
O.K Firstly, the generalization did not abate the offense I took for me and my generation (we’re in this together) and secondly, did he have a point?
THE PROPOSAL
It happened inside a bus. A full-fledged KSRTC bus. Yes. The same bus that reminds you all of how catastrophically mortifying can it be to inhale the pungent aura of castor-oil mixed with human sweat. Or that unnamed feeling every girl gets when she knows she’s surrounded by unrelenting, horny, perverts trying to ambush you from all over- and just the fact that your daily commute in a city as small as Mysore can be a total disaster in the making, not to mention thoroughly horrifying. Ah! That red color KSRTC bus.
Anyway, so legend has it that D threw a 5 rupee not on M’s lap with the words “I LOVE YOU” penned on it while they were both inside this KSRTC bus. Apparently it wasn’t all that crowded that day. My question to D was, besides the fact that you were saving this world one-sea monkey at a time, how exactly did you know she would say yes? ”She always sat in that seat where she knew I’d be able to see her”.
So aankho hi aankho mein indeed! By god! those were the times.
Anyhow, what happened after that is something we’ve all seen, heard and talked about. D and M started to chup-chup ke milna and all that. D realized M wasn’t an easy piece-of-cake, but like I said he needed her in his life and he would do anything- even if it involved bunking classes or casually skipping his 7th semester Civil Engineering exams to get to spend more time with her. Not that M demanded any of these out of him. In fact, it was quite contrary- she never approved indiscipline. But if only D let anyone, even the love of his life interfere with his will and ways- the free spirit that he was let nobody influence his thoughts. So when I asked him if he flunked that sem, his unctuously pragmatist answer was “I gave my papers the following semesters. I had 2 carry-on’s anyway” ( Inheritance! Inheritance! hey deja-vu! where have I heard this before? )
After a brief six-weeks of romance, D decided to get married. So he suggested they tell their respective parents. But M being M, suggested they go watch a movie instead. So D took her to watch this movie titled “Dulhan wohi jo piya something something”. Really Dad? You take her to watch a sad movie of separation and lambi-judai and all that jazz after asking the love of your life to marry you? (You see those days I LOVE YOU meant> I love you> I will marry you> We shall have kids and a home and live happily ever after. As opposed to love aaj kal, which is “I love you> so i will date you> which means I need all the perks that comes with it> and if you don’t know what i’m talking about then we’re just not meant to be!)
So anyhow owing to his lady love’s pressure, D takes her to the movie and the next thing they know is they’ve been SPOTTED - and the people who spotted them were M’s nosey, gossip-monger, heavy-headed aunt’s. BUSTED!
Anyway, in that small crowded, stinky, dingy KSRTC bus, D had built a life of his own with M in his head. And I wish I could say “lucky for them, it all worked out” because luck is something D never believed in. He made it happen because he needed to. It is as simple as that. There were oppositions on many grounds from either side’s parents. M literally made a statement that she would kill herself if she was forced to act against her will. And D, LOL… D told his dad that he would break every piece of the newly purchased Fiat car and threatened to bring the roof down. I always laugh at this difference ‘cos mom’s way of getting things done has always been through candid display of self-destrutive threats and dad has always been a believer of social-service. It’s quite a match.
To Be Continued…
EVENTS THAT MADE ME WHAT I AM- SLICE OF LIFE STORIES
I must admit, my idea of writing a blog culminates with the dream of being able to watch millions of hits on my posts from millions of strangers around the globe - not hundreds, not thousands, but millions. I want everyone to read my blog; and no offense to my beautiful buddies but I’d like to think my readership expands to a global audience- I mean you’re all important but…. I mean—- I love you all; you know that; and in return I expect all you f***ers to love me and accept me for who I am and make it a point to visit my blog regularly. I mean it guys! And just because I’m quite ambitious if not quixotic, doesn’t mean I excuse your complete lack of involvement as my loyal readers. So, with all due respects, just.. JUST READ MY BLOG, O. K? (Barney Stinson style)
I put a lot of thought ( a lot!)into this. What should I write about? Movies? Music? Love? Relationships? Travel?
My first choice was obviously music. I sat with a pen and paper on my bed and began collecting thoughts and ideas and even penned down a few. Then I thought about structuring and content. While thinking about content it was completely impossible for me to write about music without involving love and travel. And if i’m writing about Love, I have to write about movies. It’s all way too symbiotic-how do I exclude one from another? Which is why I am finally taking my good friend Sambhav’s advise and just write about nothing specific. I will try to be as erratic as I can be- which shouldn’t be a great deal of trouble for me because - well— it’s me!
One other thing I like to mention here, is that I do not like the idea of keeping a blog as a diary; The need of regularity does not please me or motivate me in any manner. So, I decided I would write a chapter for every occasional mood swing that triggers my creative side and compels me to pour down my verbal montage on to the cyber-journal of sorts. With that in mind, let me tell you guys ( read:WARN you guys) a little bit about the content- Briefly put, my blog will be a collective thread of chapters resulting from an overloaded capricious mind that is anything but in-sync; the same mind where chaos, inquisitiveness, and the will to find a balance between the two resides in the very nature of it’s being; the heaviness of it clearly needs a healthy outlet to unload all the untended anxiety until now. So my dear readers, if nothing in the last two sentences made any sense to you and you’re still reading this, you pretty much know what you’re getting into, I’m not going to prolong any longer- I’m just going to write that goddamned blog.
CHAPTER 1- EVENTS THAT HAVE MADE ME WHAT I AM- SLICE OF LIFE STORIES.
STORY1: WHEN D PROPOSED M.
When D proposed M, it was really hot outside. At least that’s what M told me. M exaggerates quite a bit- i’ve known her for 24 years now and she can be a drama-queen. [She once called a mid-july drizzle “god’s way of pouring his frustration onto us lesser mortals”] So anyhow, in M’s opinion, D picked a really bad-weather-day to blow the whistle. Now D, speaks in self-defense and implies that if he didn’t do it soon, his friend, some sad-romeo-type-dude-unfit-for-M would’ve done it and he would not tolerate such a thing. My question to D was, how did he know that this ‘sad-romeo-type-dude-unfit-for-M was indeed unfit for M? Quickly, D replies: “well If I had let that sad-romeo-type-dude marry your mom, you would look like a cross between a really cute monkey and a really fat and ugly gorilla. I could never let that happen!”. As expected, there’s a very brief silence-just for a few seconds. I remember M was listening to this conversation, brushing her hair in front of the mirror, looking surprisingly oblivious. But I was intently involved so I quickly glanced at her and opened my mouth to say something, but D spoke before I could- “Now you look like a cross between a really cute monkey and a handsome gorilla” he said reading my mind like always. I must admit I really don’t like it when he or M do that- decoding my every thought like some kinda psycho-freaks blessed with magic powers. But, Ten years ago, I didn’t mind it. Which is why I had laughed my heart out at his witty reply.Today, I think about it and I still laugh my heart out(but the mind-reading still bothers me). Anyway, now that i’ve grown up and watched way too many situational comedies on American television, I can’t help but belt out wise-cracks silently in my mind. Like “jee thanks dad! Im so glad you helped mom choose the right gorilla!” OR “ Wow! Thanks for saving ME from looking like a fat, hairy, sea-monkey dad!” OR “Thanks for doing it in my name dad! I really owe all my beauty to your life-changing decision” or something of that sort. Actually on a more serious note, no really, Thanks a lot Dad cos I cannot imagine anyone else in this life or in the next seven- now give my your Honda Civic! Buhaha
You know what else I cannot help? I CANNOT help building a whole fictionalized version of this slice of life moment in my head! And then, and then, day-dreaming about writing a whole adapted screenplay and sending it to the makers of ‘How I Met Your Mother’. Oh My God! I soo badly want to that. I can’t help it! All you HIMYM entusiasts . JUST Imagine! Ted is telling this story to his two children sitting on the couch just like they do and… Oh! Duh!Wait… I haven’t told you guys the story of how D proposed M… SO here it goes..
To Be Continued..
