Gift for a Gift

When starting to write this, I had thought of writing an article about mothers, the most important woman in our lives. But I later realized that this topic was too vast for the greatest of literary geniuses in the world, so how could an unimportant blogger like me summarize it in the form of one post.

To give myself a head start to writing this I even looked up the meaning of the word mother in an online dictionary. I know it sounds weird given the fact that we always seem assume that we know the meaning of this word right from the time we were born. I found close to 15 definitions of the word, all in technical sense of course, but even that didn’t satisfy my personal definition of Mothers. I believe that the dictionary or the Web is too small a place to actually wholly describe what a wonderful creation of God, Women and Mothers are.

A few days ago I was trying to think of a suitable gift for my Mami (maternal aunt) as her Birthday was approaching. She has been more than a mother to me at times, and I wanted to make sure I can make her Birthday as special, as she makes each of my days, when I am with her.

I zeroed in on the idea of giving her a personalized Coffee Mug with her picture on it. So I was scrambling around the whole house trying to find all family albums. I had to do it in a very short amount of time so she could not come to know what I had in mind for her. I was very proud of myself for finding out all the albums I could, in record time. What I didn’t know was after an hour of browsing through them I did not find a single picture of her alone, but only pictures with Mama and her son or the whole of the family. It was after a long time of scanning and rescanning the pictures that I realized it was a vain effort to try and look for her picture.

That is when it hit me; a woman is not defined by what she is. The real definition of a woman is to be found only by looking at her family. A mother is only born after her child; till then she remains a woman. No matter how successful a woman is in her career, the most important stages of her life are when she becomes a Wife, a Daughter-in Law, a Mother, a Grandmother. She might be the CEO of a multinational company, with thousands of employees working under her, but she only feels safe with the warm cozy atmosphere of her family around her. She might be a political leader, a Lawyer fighting for giving punishment to a murderer, but when it comes to her own child she forgives him for all the mistakes he might have done. She even tends to ignore all her problems, when she is in her territory, and that is her home.

At the end of a day a woman is only satisfied if her family has eaten well, and her children are safely tucked into bed, even if she has to remain hungry, or be awake the whole night if someone is sick. That is when it dawned upon me that my Mami would be the happiest person if I gave her a gift which portrays her real image; her image as a wife and a mother. So I picked up the best family photo that I could find and decided to give her a glimpse of her own self in the Coffee Mug.

Reality Shows, Do We Really Need Them?

I happen to be one of the many people who watch television as a hobby, and I have been noticing the percentage of rise in reality shows on Indian Channels

My question would be do we really gain anything from these shows??

It all started off with Indian Idol, and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and the likes, where the junta had to vote for a particular contestant. So the basic idea is send in hundreds of text messages at “Special rates” for the contestant you like and make him/her win. But what do you get? Certainly not the prize money.

Then there is this dance fever kinda shows where again you make a celebrity couple win. But don’t they make enough moolah out of Saas Bahu Saga’s that we have to help them make more of it??

Laughter Challenge was a comparatively good idea, but it got boring with its sequels 2 and now 3, with Shatrughan Sinha. So the contestants at least have a common joke to crack where they can say “KHAMOSH” a zillion times, and yes no one will ever know why Navjot Singh Sidhhu has huge fits of laughter at such lame effort of a joke.

Coming to the vast range of Game Shows, promising big money for a very small number of “Simple” or should I say Aasaan Sawaal. The questions sure are simple as promised but what I usually wonder is why don’t the contestans know these answers?? I mean if you area B.E or a 12th class student wouldn’t you know the colour of ruby?? Or else you are really not Smarter that a Panchhvi Pass.

Kaun Banega Karodpati had a class till Mr. Amitabh Bachhan was hosting it, but as if it was a race of some sort the whole of the Film industry started rushing into television with the most stupid game Shows ever. The latest one being “Dus ka Dum”.

The Younger crowd is usually busy watching some serious crap on channels like Mtv and Channel V.  According to me I guess all the contestants of shows like Mtv Roadies or Get Gorgeous or Splitsvilla, get paid to curse and swear as much as they can. Is this the only aim left for 17 -18 year old girls to show how apt they are for a particular guy, or to be precise how amazing their figure is?

Media barons may often argue that this is what sells, but is this the level that they have to stoop down to, in pursuit of higher TRP’s? 

Dilemma

“You have to make a choice priya….. today, here now!!!!”, he said. She was trying to fight back her tears, for it might be a zillion times that he had told her…. I just hate it when you cry,

It’s like all you girls have this last and final and the most lethal weapon to have your way in all arguments”.

How she hated it that this is what he thought about the way she expressed her sadness… it was so unfair.

 

And it was all coming back to her in the middle of her dilemma… how it had all started.

‘It’s so “filmy” and romantic’ was what her friends had said to her when they had come to know about this tall dark handsome guy that she had fallen in love with.

It was her cousin sister’s wedding reception and he was one of the groom’s friends.

All her friends had told her she was looking stunning in her red and black saari, and he spoilt it.

“Cant you see where you’re going, you spoilt my saari, are you out of your mind…..” and she went on and on not even once looking up from all the mess that the ice cream had created on the garment, cursing him under her breath and worrying what her mom will say about this, until the moment he spoke, “I’m extremely sorry, I didn’t mean to spoil your saari, and to be honest I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going. You see all my attention was on a really ho….. ahem beautiful girl standing in that corner.”

Although she knew she shouldn’t have but she did turn around to see what girl he was talking about, and the moment she did she felt extremely stupid.

Was this guy a nut or just another typical guy trying to flirt with all the girls possible in one night? But one thing was for sure. He was HANDSOME!!!!!.

‘Oh stop thinking about all that, priya’ a voice from somewhere told her, and she just turned around without acknowledging his presence and went away.

 

For the rest of the evening she somehow couldn’t help noticing him for reasons she herself didn’t know, and each time she looked at him, she saw him looking at her from d corner of his eye. How she hated herself to be indulged in such an activity, but then even girls were allowed to flirt once in a while weren’t they? If guys could do it 24 X 7 why couldn’t she???  after all he was good looking.

His name was Raj she found that out from her friends, but she hoped she would never see him again… or was it the other way round????

 

Perhaps destiny had some different plans for them. Raj couldn’t stop thinking about her from the moment he had seen that pretty face and those beautiful brown eyes. Finding her phone number was not such a difficult thing, but calling her was. What would he say to her, ‘Hi Priya this is Raj, I’m the stupid guy who spilled ice cream on you that evening of your sister’s wedding’ or ‘Hey I’m calling to ask whether all the stains have been removed from you dress’….. ahhhh that was insane.

But finally he mustered enough courage to call her and thankfully she picked up on the third ring, he immediately recognized that sweey voice.

“Hi Priya, this is Raj, I guess you don’t quiet remember me???”

“As a matter of fact I do, you r d one who made my evening by spilling ice cream all over me isn’t it???”

“Ohh, well… yes… I’m the one and I’m really…….” And she interrupted before he could finish,

“So what have you called for now???” Wow she was playing hard to get, she knew exactly why he had called, and she was happy about it in a way.

“I was wondering if you would like to have a cup of coffee with me if you are free, so that I can make up for my stupid mistake that day”

“What makes you think I will accept an invitation for coffee from a stranger, who’s known to lose his attention once he spots a good looking female???”

“Well…. one thing is for sure, I wont spill it this time, so that should make you accept my invitation…”

She laughed despite thinking it was a rather silly joke. He sounded so good on the phone.

‘There you go again Priya’, that voice again.

“Ok I’m free today, so where do you want to go??” she heard herself saying.

“How about CCD at 5pm, should I pick you up?”

“I can take a rik, see you at 5, don’t be late.. Bye”

“Bye”

How did he know where she lived??? She thought after hanging up.

‘Oh! Whatever…. What harm can one coffee cause?’

 

But the truth was they were almost inseparable after that first coffee date.

He thought she was intelligent, smart, and level headed. She thought he was witty, charming, and caring. How he loved the way her eyes sparkled when she laughed.

Looking at both of them one could say cupid had done his job well.

 

It was 3 months after they had met that they had their first fight. It was such a petty issue, she didn’t even remember the real reason. It was just another disagreement they had about some interesting topic they were discussing about and it had turned into a messy fight. They promised never to fight with each other again.

 

But as they say promises are meant to be broken, this one was no exception. Gradually the fights became more frequent. The very things that they had found interesting in each other had now turned into irritating habits, and there was no day which would pass by without them arguing over something.

 

She was surprised as to how their relationship could change so much in such a short period of time. His friends told him that this is what happens to every relationship after a few months. He didn’t listen to them, and thought everything will be alright eventually, so he immediately called her, to let her know how much he loved her and wanted to make things right. But her phone was giving a busy signal.

‘She must be talking to someone’, he thought. He tried again after 15 minutes, busy again.

‘Who is she talking to for so long? Must be her mother.’

But when he tried the third time and the phone was still busy, he started to get impatient and angry. Finally when the phone connected he had lost his temper, ‘Who the hell were you talking to for so long Priya?’

‘Why are you getting so angry, I was talking to Vineet’

“For so long? What was so important?”

“Cant I talk to my best friend once in a while? What’s the matter Raj, did you want to talk to me about anything important?”

“Oh no no what would be so important, and anyways you don’t have time for me do you?

Why don’t you go and talk to Vineet”, and he hung up.

She got so confused, why did he have to get so angry, he knew Vineet was her childhood friend. She just didn’t understand why he was behaving so weirdly from the last few weeks.

 

From the moment he had hung up he realized he had gone too far. Probably she was crying. ‘Oh no!! What do I do now? I guess I’ll just call her and say sorry’, and he did although half heartedly. But there were numerous questions going through his head.

‘Why was she talking to Vineet for so long?’

‘What must she be talking about?’

Instead of asking her all this he just made his own judgments about her loyalty.

 

Vineet and Priya were friends since the time they were 5. Whenever she needed some advice she would turn to Vineet to help her out. Since she was so depressed about the way her relationship was going with Raj it only seemed obvious to call Vineet and ask him for advice. What was wrong with that, did Raj doubt her loyalty?

 

With time this issue became worse than it should have. He had started to think she didn’t love him anymore, and that was making her extremely sad, and that in turn gave rise to more interaction between her and Vineet, which Raj anyways didn’t like. It was a vicious circle and there was no way out.

 

Finally on the 7^th of April, 5 months after their first encounter he could not take it anymore, and told her “You have to make a choice Priya…. It’s either me or him”.

“How can I choose between love and friendship Raj ? This is not fair.”

“I don’t care Priya, I love you and I can’t tolerate you talking or even looking at someone else”.

That was the moment she realized that Raj was not the right person for her. People who are in love never ask for anything and never ever put any conditions on their loved ones.

If he couldn’t trust her, there was no point in taking the relationship any further.

 

“Its all about trust Raj” was all she said before she got up and left, with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was over and for good.

 

“Its all about trust”, the words still keep ringing in his ears after 20 years, it was as if all this had happened yesterday. Only if he had trusted her she would be his wife now, but a year after their last meeting he came to know that she got married to a very rich businessman’s son.

 

How he wished he could relive all that again and change it, but time tide and trust wait for no one, and it all about trust…………….

 

Just In Time

“Oh no!! Its already 8.40pm, I’m gonna miss the bus today. If only I had left 5 minutes early”, I thought to myself as I was standing in the payment queue of the supermarket.

 

I regretted my decision of quickly buying some tomatoes and curd, from the supermarket which was right opposite to my workplace so that when I would reach home I could make a nice salad for myself.

The queue seemed to be never ending and was in not in any way moving forward.

 

8.42 pm: “Damn !!!!” I was certainly not in the mood to take a rickshaw all the way to Karve Nagar, which would cost me Rs.120, and the riskshaw wallah  would want half return for being so kind and taking me to Karve Nagar in his “esteemed” auto.

 

I silently cursed all the riskshaw wallahs of Pune who would not leave even one opportunity to squeeze out extra money from any customer, and as it was almost the end of the month I was obviously short of cash, so spending so much on and auto and also arguing with the driver was really uncalled for at that moment.

 

8.44 pm: “God please let the bus be late”, I prayed , although if I would have been standing with all the people just on the other side of the road, waiting for it, I would have been the first one to start complaining about the bad state of the bus service, and bad company policy. It seemed so amazing as to how we change our wishes and demands according to the situation.

 

“I have been standing here for the last Half Hour cant you see”, I heard some lady saying loudly to  the woman behind her. She certainly had the attention of all the people in the store. It seemed that the woman behind her who just had 2 or 3 things to buy had requested the lady to let her buy the stuff first as she was getting late to go home to her kids who were awaiting her, as she had just a few things to buy comparing with two cart full of groceries that the woman in front of her had.

 

“I have requested you very politely Maam, that I just have 3 things so you could let me buy them first, so even you could tell me politely”, the 2^nd woman said, not once losing her calm.

“Don’t you teach Me how to talk young woman, what do you think of yourself?” the 1^st lady had now gained the attention of people waiting outside the door of the store, and she was going overboard with such a petty issue.

 

Just a minute back I was thinking of requesting a man standing in front of me in the queue to let me go ahead of him as I just had two things. But there were four more people in front of him and there was no way I could have dodged all four. After listening to the row in the adjacent queue it was now out of the question to ask even one person to let me pass. I was happy at least I wasn’t the one on the receiving end of that loud lady.

 

8.47 pm: Oh great!! The bus was late today, and almost magically the line stated moving forward, although not more than a snail’s pace, but at least it was moving. There was still a slight chance of catching the bus. Just as I was praying that the line move faster I saw a bus on the other side of the road, and the words “Tech Mahindra” written across it. I hoped this would be some other bus, and not the one I wanted to get into.

 

Looking at my impatience the person standing in front of me asked, “Are you in a hurry?”

“Yes, I am actually”, I said with a bit of apprehension in my voice, “that’s my bus standing across the road and I really don’t wanna miss it”

“Oh then you can go first anyways you just have 2 things to buy” he said.

 “Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it”, I said with a big smile on my face and trying hard to hide my surprise.

 

But he as if reading my mind said to me, “I know you are surprised, because there are really very few courteous people left in this world”, and bringing his voice down to a whisper, he murmured,

“And let me tell you a secret…. That loud woman standing there….” I looked at her, “She’s my Mother-in-Law.”

 

My jaw was just about to drop when the guy at the cash counter said, “Fifteen rupees Maam.”

 

I paid him and rushed to the door, my bus was still there, Thank God!!!

 

As I turned to look back at that man, he winked at me and shouted “Best of Luck!!!!!”

 

I gave him a big smile not knowing what to say and ran to catch my bus just in time…….

 

KID – NAP Zzzzzz!!

Yesterday morning I was in a very Jolly mood. I wanted to watch “A Wednesday” (The movie of course!) from a long time and me and my friends had finally agreed on a common time to watch it.

But finding out the time for the show in Wednesday’s newspaper was the biggest blunder I could ever make.

 

Why was it a blunder, because I didn’t realize that two new movies were releasing the next day and the show timing would be changed. We reached I Max half an hour before the show start time (that’s quite an achievement, and we were considering submitting it to the Limca Book of Records) and realized that there was no show for A Wednesday at 1.40pm instead there were N number of shows for Kidnap and Drona.

 

We didn’t want another Indian Superhero Saga, so we reluctantly settled on Kidnap (Another Blunder) as we didn’t wanna go home without watching a movie on a Holiday.

 

Okay enough of my misfortunes, let’s get to the point. I personally never write or read reviews of movies for they give away Half of the story and leave the viewer with nothing to guess. But this time I made an exception to my Golden Rule to save everybody from this 3 hour torture.

 

The movie starts with a song ( I should have walked out right at that time !!) with Minisha Lamba praising herself about how cool she is which she is not at all (No offence to the guys who like her, but she cannot carry the image of a sexy rich 18 year old girl).

 

The story line goes something like this: Separated Parents, 18 year old girl living with her super rich and super arrogant Mom (Vidya Malvade), and the father (Sanjay Dutt) very ultra rich himself has not seen his daughter since she was 12. The wife absolutely detests the husband saying he is a mean and selfish guy.

 

Minissha Lamba we’ll call her Sonia(S for Sonia the first song Remember??) from now on, goes for a swim in the sea after an argument with her mom and wakes up at in the evening at a weird place with Imran Khan making tea and informing her in a very informal tone that “This is a Kidnapping” (How sweet). Now she’s a very intelligent(Pun Intended) girl so she does not believe it and thinks it’s a prank , but later realizes that she is actually Kidnapped( Wow what reflexes). 

 

What happens later is one of the worst kidnapping examples in the history of Bollywood. Kabir (Imran Khan) is a highly troubled soul because Vikrant Raina (Sanjay Dutt) had gotten him put into jail after he tried to borrow his car to save the life of one of his friends from the orphanage that he lives in, and Sonia also somehow gets into that car and they meet with an accident (Both are not more than 12 years old at that time). So Kabir wants to get back at Vikrant Raina by kidnapping his daughter. So he calls up Vikrant from a different number each time and leaves him clues to get to his daughter.

 

The clues are so simple that even a five year old kid can solve them, but they ponder over it like it’s a Science Puzzle. I will not go into more details of the so called Stunts that Sanjay Dutt performs to get to those clues (it’s not worth it).

 

Now there is one thing I seriously don’t understand is why is Kabir such a sweet and considerate Kidnapper? Sonia gets a change of cloths twice a day, and mind you they are the most skimpiest and

transparent outfits you could imagine. If I were a kidnapper I would certainly not take the pains to buy clothes for my victim( and yes how in the world would I know the sizes lolz). He also takes her to have a bath in a waterfall( Foreign Location of course) knowing very well that she could try and escape, which she thankfully does but cant succeed. She gets one more bright chance later in the movie when Kabir is unconscious due to a bullet but returns back to apparently “End it all in a Good way” ( Wow Sati Savitri suddenly).

 

The only good scene in the movie is when Sanjay Dutt is supposed to find a Rs 1000 note from his business rivals’ Tijori, (which also brags about the clarity of Nokia camera phones) but looks stolen from some Hollywood movie.

 

There is no point in going further into the story as it would only make you lose faith in Bollywood Thrillers. One last relief was that Kabir and Sonia DO NOT FALL IN LOVE in the end (Pheww, Thank Heavens!!)

 

So all in all a movie where there are unnecessary songs, characters can’t carry their images, change clothes faster than lightening, act badly and cant hold the movie together. I hope Drona is not as big a disappointment.