Nirma !! Duhh ..

In a way, it DID work. It did get noticed.

These days, advertisements are getting more sophisticated, more chic. So much so, that even the normally slick advertising is going past without being talked about much.

Thats why the new NIRMA ad seems to work. Belonging to the Dumb and Dumber category of ads, a splash of a muddy puddle is about to fall on a lady, when she strictlys points her finger at it and says "NIRMA !", and voila ! the puddle stops in the mid-air, like a sequence out of Matrix series.

She proceeds to recite the full Nirma Jingle (Doodh see safedi..blah blah), with the finger aloft in a strict schoolteacher fashion, and when she walks away, she says "Nirma!" again, and the mud comes splashing down.

Seemed like a thorough waste of good money and technology, but when I was relating it to everyone as a joke, most of the people were already talking about it.

Looks like the ad-men got it right, after all.

How I got drunk as a five year old

Right as a kid, I had this spirit of adventure and mountaineering. I used to climb kitchen shelves, bedroom almirahs, as I knew the most interesting items were kept out of my reach. My parents didn't know about my climbing skills then yet - they still were under the blissful belief that keeping things out of my reach - on my two feet -  was enough. I usually used to conduct my climbing adventures when they were NOT around.

An apparently less active but equally guilty partner in these activities was my younger brother. He had only recently began to speak fluently, and was content sitting on the floor, watching me climb and goading me in his own crooked manner -
"Hey, whats that green bottle on that shelf above you?"
"What's that package up there? It wasn't there last week. Pity its so high."
"That one over there has an interesting smell, but I don't know, you may check it if you like, upto you..."

My amma took me out with her only once, when she was visiting her friend. While they were busy gossiping, I crept into the lady's room, ransacked the make-up shelf and came out covered with layers of Pond's Cold Cream, Fair and Lovely, and Zandu Balm.
I was less than 5 years old then, and my brother had just turned 3.

Since then, my parents used to lock us at home whenever they used to go out visiting friends. They thought my quiet younger brother would be a civilizing influence on me. They couldn't have been more mistaken.

One fateful evening, I decided that I got bored of climbing shelves and almirahs, and set my sights on the sofas in the hall. Behind and above the sofas were the drawing room showcases, where all sorts of interesting showpieces were kept. In fact, my father had then recently been to US and had brought back several interesting souvenirs, which he put in the showcase. Those were the targets of my next adventure.

My brother sat as usual on the floor, pretending to play with his toys but actually looking at the showcase and me alternatively.
The fish took the bait - I clambered over the sofas, stood up and slid the showcase glass cover sideways.

In front of me were several delicate looking bottles with amber-coloured liquid. Actually these were the peg-sized liquor bottles served on US flights during winters. Instead of drinking them, my dad brought them home for the show case.

"Hey, what is that ?" my brother piped up from the floor, in his innocent tones.

I reached for the bottles, gave them a perfunctory sniff, and gulped the contents down. And the next. And half emptied the third one too . All neat. Even Devdas couldn't have downed them like that.
Then I slid down on the sofa, and went off to a fitful drunkard's sleep.

My brother then stood up and prodded me, then shook me harder, calling my name loudly. No response. He went back to playing his toys. After a while, he heard the key turning to the lock, and with that joyous welcome small kids give their parents, he waddled to the door with a big smile on his face and the welcoming words -

"I think Suri is dead !"

In the hall, they found me soundly sleeping (for a change). I suppose I must have kept back the bottles neatly, they didn't notice anything amiss. My brother was content having issued his judgement on me and didn't supply any further details. Amma was happy that I was sleeping soundly instead of being upto mischief (too late !), and put me to bed. In fact I slept so soundly I didn't even wake up for dinner, and woke up only the next morning. My parents were still blissfully ignorant

A week passed.

Then my father's friends dropped by. One casually glanced into the showcase, and joked "Kya yaar, you're not sparing even the showcase booze, eh ?". My parents laughed along with them while they were there, and after they left, they did some 'chintan baithak', and remembered my sound sleep of the previous week. Putting two and two together wasn't difficult.

To this day I don't know why I didn't get thrashed for that. All I remember was that later Amma took me aside and asked me whether I had anything to do with the Black Dog whisky bottles in the showcase.

"Who, me ?" I asked, with wide-eyed innocence.

She looked at me for a while, then left it. She'd probably decided it wasn't worth letting me understand what had happened. In case I happened to like the stuff.

Lunchtime Horrors

This one ain't autobiographical. It's actually Vishy's story.
Vishy ki kahaani, meri zabaani. Dedicated to him, of course :)

**
A usual day of school, when lunchtimes were forced on kids at times when  they were not so hungry.
I was nibbling at my box, with my other friends, then restricted to male membership. Then they all declared theirs finished, and went on to more entertaining activities such as lunchtime cricket or tadpoles in mud.They had seen me reach for my lunchbox late, and my slow progress, and correctly estimated that I would take more time, and left the class leaving me alone, with that comfortable lack of guilt that characterizes kids.

Then the day-mare started.
Within a minute, a girl occupied a the chair to the left of me. Another came and sat opposite to me and started chatting to the girl on the left. Two more girls came and joined them, and driving the final nail in the coffin,  a girl came and sat on my right, completing the box hemming me in from all sides.

Before one starts to get 'ideas' , let me explain -  my place happened to be one of the most sought after locations in the classroom. Beside a window, overlooking the playground ( ideal for looking elsewhere while the teacher was droning on), with its welcome gusts of breeze. My gang had bullied away the other contenders for that place.

But during lunchtime, as I had just discovered, it was the favourite gossiping place of the girls in my class.

I waited, dreading the worst to begin.
And it began.

"You remember my dress ??.. the cotton one, which i wored last year.. yes the light maroon one... it got a stain when i wored it yesterday...Really !! that looked so good on you!!...What happened???..haan re...it was my fave, I liked it soo much I wored it very occasionally haan !"

I wanted to shout "If I like a dress, I'd have 'wored' it even more. And hey, its only a dress, don't make a post-mortem funereal discussion of it. And could you be slightly less animated and look a bit more real ?
That look of shock and dismay looks way over the top"

But I couldn't be so rude. So I tried to deaden my anguish by gobbling my lunch faster.
They still went on - "You know what, try Vanish. When I tried on my peach salwar, the one that got spoiled on your old schoolmates' birthday...what re you forgot  .. the one we bought that day for 60% off... yes
which Somesh said looks good... haan that ... the mark dint go when the maid washed..so I had to, but it is clean now. You know the maids !!!! And my amma said they charge so much.. I am having hard time and no one else is ready to do even when I pay them double." "Arre my bai is too good re .. you know she comes.."

But I had no interest in the virtues of Gomti's bai. I gulped down the last morsel, slammed my box shut, stuffed it back into my bag, pushedthe chair back and strode away from the scene.

Later in the day, Amma was very happy. "Why don't you eat like this everyday", she asked, noticing my cleanly empty tiffin box. "Maybe Ishould sit more with girls", I replied.  She looked puzzled. But I refrained from explaining further. Too painful.

At last !

It was like a torrent of rains after a long, dry drought.

Not a dialogue from "Raaz", but about Hindi movies in Madurai.

For weeks, every Saturday I was driving in front of theatres in Madurai in the hope of seeing some Hindi movie playing there. Every time, I was disappointed.

Then last week I saw the posters of "Blue". Because I saw them on a monday, I thought by friday it would vanish.

Surprise surprise. Not only did it stay the following friday, ANOTHER hindi movie started playing too - "All the Best". Suddenly, I was spoilt for choice.

Now I was looking forward to Blue. Underwater action sequences, groovy music by Rahman, and an exciting star-cast. But critics panned the movie. REALLY panned it. After the Kambakkt Ishq experience, I didn't
want to burn my fingers again.

Now I wasn't very impressed with the promos of "All the Best". Insipid music, corny jokes, and most of all the title sounded very stupid. I mean, what sort of a name is "All the Best" for a hindi movie ?
But reports on the Telly as well as the papers said it was doing well. Plus we really HAD to see a movie after all this time. The last Hindi movie we saw in a theatre was in July. So I went with a "let's see
whatever is playing" attitude..

Surprises again ! The movie was ACTUALLY good. Not an all-time-classic, but it was one of the relatively cleaner comedies, with some genuinely funny situations and characters. No great acting, but none was required anyway. The heroines were glam enough, the actors hammed and "dishum"ed, cars blew into pieces, and everyone in the theatre enjoyed the laugh riot. Perhaps all of them were
starved of a Bollywood movie theatre experience too.


Later ,a lot of my friends were surprised that I liked this movie. "Ab aise din bhi aa gaye" commented one.
Maybe, staying in Madurai has made me appreciate whatever hindi movie plays here.

Gurcharan's latest : Yugaanta retold ?

I'm probably making the same mistake as the notorious "Chintan Baithak" meeting of the BJP head honchos earlier this year : condemning Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah without even reading it.

In this case, I'm talking about Gurcharan Das's new book "The Difficulty of Being Good: The Subtle Art of Dharma", where he's compared the characters of the Mahabharata with current day business dilemmas.

This sounds to me like a lift off from the 1986 Sahitya Academy award-winning book Yuganta, by Irawati  Karve,  a brilliant collection of essays on character analysis on almost the same figures Gurcharan Das is using in his book : Bhishma, Drona, Aswatthama, Draupadi, Yudhisthira.

Some teasers about each of the chapters from Yuganta.

On Bhishma : Described as a just,strong warrior, upholder of Dharma. In contrast are his silence during Draupadi's humiliation in the court and his abduction of Amba. And why, in his old age, did he accept the Generalship of the Kaurava army ??

On Draupadi : How this tempestous heroine of the Mahabharata is so, so different from the  heroine of Ramayana. Was she the cause of the Mahabharata war ? And which one of the Pandavas did she love the most ? And who among them in turn loved her the most ??

On Karna : One of the most contradictory characters in the epic.Generous to a fault, ruthless, loyal, yet he failed to deliver when it mattered - everytime. Was his illegitimate birth the only reason for his landing up on the other side ?

On Drona & Aswatthama : Born brahmins, teachers and mendicants, they were one of the most bloodthirsty warriors in the Mahabharata war. Why this paradigm change in their vocation ?

On Krishna : The astute, the wise, the consummate politican, diplomat and strategist. How Arjuna had won the war for the Pandavas the day he chose Krishna over his famed army.

On Yudhisthira & Vidura : Even the allegedly most mono-dimensional prime characters of the Mahabharata have layers to their personalities. Why was Yudhisthira Vidura's favourite ? How was Vidura privy to Kunti's secret about Karna ? How the best of men succumb to greed, desires, and how some still remain pure, selfless, and at peace.

Needless to add, a must read for anyone who loves the Mahabharata. One of my all time favourite books. Irawati Karwe has done a brilliant job (it was originally in Marathi, it got translated in English later).

Apart from just the character analyses, one gets a clear picture about the social customs and conditions prevalent then, and why the Mahabharata war actually signalled an end to an era.

Literally, the Yugaanta.

Pav Bhaji in Madurai

I was very happy to see a hotel that said it served Pav-Bhaji in Madurai.
I was even happier when I found out they made it right.

But when I ordered for an extra Pav, I was given an extra Bhaji. Even the cook who made Pav-Bhaji did not know which one was Pav and which was Bhaji !

Luckily I was able to vent my feelings when my gang called me up just then. I ranted about how the junta here takes absolutely no interest in any other language, how narrowminded it is, etc etc.

It's rather tempting to blame the Tamil Nadu politicians for the mono-linguistic state of affairs, but if we observe the other smaller towns in India, the same situation persists. The interiors of ANY state would yield the same result.

Of course, Madurai isn't really that much of an 'interior', its after all the 2nd biggest city in TN ! The Tamil politicians aren't blameless - almost all Tamils grapple with problems once they come out of their state to work, and readily admit that learning Hindi is more of a help.

Obviously, all my whining here is mainly due to the fact that there are no theatres screening Hindi movies in this town.
And no Pizza Hut.

End of the day, though, looking at the restaurant bills here makes me smile. I even SMSed the rates to my friends in Hyd, trying to tell them I'm really happy here.

They replied asking me to parcel them the cheap Pav Bhajis from here.

Kanjoos fellows.

Upbeat about Raashee

Why do some people believe Hollywood movies are better than Bollywood's ?

Pat comes the reply - Better technique, better direction, better content

But in at least 2 of these counts,we're FAST catching up. We have our share of remarkable directors. Even Hollywood's directors aren't consistent, so consistently good isn't a criterion here. (If I name my favourite directors, this would become a slugfest as there is a huge variation of opinions.)

Technique too ... in terms of visual effects we're doing well ( almost all movies feature Matrix style stunts)

Actually, it was one video from the movie "What's your Raashee ?" that triggered this post. The video is a promotional one, featuring Harman Baweja and the 12 Priyankas of the 12 signs of Zodiac. The song is "Chehre Jo Dekhein Hain" and has the chorus "What's your Raashee..ye to bata do na", with Harman and the 12 Priyankas doing the steps.The guy flirts while the different girls flit in and out of the screen. 

Technically, Indian cinema has long ago come of age.

Provided Harman doesn't mess it up, and Gowariker doesn't take it too easy, movie should be a treat to watch. I'm watching it for the 12 Priyankas anyways. And the songs ! they are excellent.

The content of the movie is by no means new : there was this telly serial on Doordarshan ages ago -  "Mr. Yogi", featuring Mohan Gokhale as the groom searching for his to-be bride.

Suketu Mehta, the writer of the acclaimed book about Bombay "Maximum City", had also dabbled in Bollywood script-writing (he was the co-author for Mission Kashmir). He made this observation that the directors and the script writers aren't as idiotic as their films tend to be.

It's only that with huge amounts of money invested and the fickleness of the Great Indian Moviegoing Public, they're scared to venture beyond set formulas.

So it's really upto us how we want our movies to be.

Floating Stones, and sceptism

I'd always considered the Mahabharata a more real story, as compared to the Ramayana. It is a more human story, for one, and some events in Ramayana were too far-fetched.
So I thought.

On my recent trip to Rameshwaram, I came across a temple that housed these Floating Stones. Apparently, they were of the same rocks that were used to build the famous bridge to Sri Lanka. I held them and felt their weight - they were indeed heavy. I then kept them back into water - and they floated !

Things like these take out the sceptism of out me at times. What if the Pushpak Vimanams and the Lakshman Rekhas were in reality too ? I'd long since accepted that some of the 'astras' like Agni-astra or Varun-astra really worked. And that the terrible Brahma-astra might actually be the atom bomb.

Fact or fiction ? The argument continues.

Milk-o-phobics

You find them everywhere.

My wife is a milk hater. My brother is a milk hater. So are plenty of my old classmates and colleagues.

A milk hater is defined as a person who hates milk and most of milk products, namely cream, butter, cheese, lassi etc.

You'll find them screaming if they find a speck of cream floating around in their tea/coffee/buttermilk, or gagging over the smell of cream / butter being clarified into ghee. They strain their milk/tea/coffee around a dozen times to ensure no 'yucky' cream gets in. My friend Kamal told me, only after his mother started adding tea and coffee to his milk did he stop bawling. It deadened the milk's taste, I suppose.

A funny paradox is, these very milk haters end up liking one certain food item which happens to be milky, but they certainly overlook the fact.

Ice-creams top the list, obviously. My wife hates curd but lovescurd-curries ( like Kadi, Madjiga Pulusu, Dahi-wada etc). My brother hates the smell of cheese but devours pizzas with gusto.

Each to their own, finally.