Raanjhana , Apna Rachaya Shani!!!!

Strong character detailing,incidents played to perfection by all,actors chosen tailor made, Lead actor chosen such that he could tomorrow probably come to deliver fresh cow's milk at your door,and you wouldn't blink an eye,though Dhanush's silky hair that wave around like a head and shoulders advertisement in the air may pause me for a second, but only a second (not withstanding his southern acting pedigree) Screenplay written probably by the local 'panwari '( small adhoc shopkeeper selling a betel leaf delicacy),ensconces us in Benaras making it a reality, then transports us to Delhi and ties us all up with the thread of love.I also experienced a minor love haze when Abhay Deol dimples his way into the movie.Contempt For Sonam and a constant feeling of laughter in my stomach whenever the best friends came bickering on screen.Basically I lived with Romeo(Raanjhana) in his hours of Love and throes of deathly Pain.

Not undermining my ability to loose focus when faced with Abhay, What apart from him, is in the movie that makes me and you forget wrist slashing is generally not recommended for a long and prosperous life?not to mention glorifying it maybe in the hopes of leaving behind a 'khoon bhari maang'.
What is that makes us sympathize with a serial stalker,who just cannot take No as a gentle rebuff  and needs it to be redefined by 16 slaps.the 17th not receiving a recipient cheek as the owner is rudely shot directly to the hospital ICU.all for the want of a simple understanding that we don't always get what we want.

What is is that makes me and you  forget all logic and  cry for him????(okay just me maybe not you)

I should probably have walked out disdainfully muttering about the silliness of it all,been more pragmatic and practical, but in my defense,and the only conclusion is I am an easily captured bird ,you spin me a tale and i will build a castle and golden cage myself.I run on instinct,and have a tendency to take casual leave from logic,quite frequently.

You throw in three friends who cross boundaries of loyalty and you kill it with love ,and I will probably be at the end of the hook, wiping off my tears ,falling into an abyss of sadness.Short lived I admit,but still,questionable is my mingling into the screenplay as if I was related to the characters.

so let me take you through how I saw it.

*Fictional depiction of characters to animals is no representation of their personal traits;)*

Once upon a time there was a boy and a little girl who lived in a town upon river Ganges,or a snake,played by Sonam Kapoor and a dog played by Dhanush who lived around the same time.

Dog sees snake,dog loves the snake, the snake being ever-changing in it’s a form and resplendent in its glorious beauty, is a creature completely devoid of guilt at sucking the life out of the dog that loves it deeply and with adoration that obliterates his social skills to the point that blinded by the hooded dance and drama that surrounds the snake’s family, the dog forgets to attend a wedding in which he is the groom.

To give the snake credit,it did try and slap the dog away,but the dog being a dog,was always happy to see its master no matter what and her touch was felt lovingly by his own paws even after the palm had vacated the cheeks leaving only a resounding crack,the joy that coursed through him set him into the motions of movements ,which should only be reserved for stances danced with fluidic grace,borrowed from alcoholic stupor in front of a groom on his way on the auspicious marriage horse.The dog was drunk,drunk on love.Maybe he needs a lesson in violence never broods love.

Doggedly he espouses the local U.P. customs of wooing a girl,Complete in the knowledge that he is not the Bull dog(Shahrukh Khan of dogs I guess) he decides to work on entrapment by following her slither daily to school, staring mooney eyed from afar,holding onto the boundary fence, as she practices her Nagin dance, ,while his friends egg him on. By following her, he marks his territory , makes a manly pass at the girl’s affections, stealing her away from her locality boys,who come ingrained with a moral territorial right over their street girls.(that is small town wooing for you)

The film does have humor but not the hissing Nagin played by Sonam Kapoor,trying to emulate joy and coming up just spluttering unconvincingly ,the only thing human in her, being the exaggerated sway of her hips in a slim fitting suit,or even a ninth grade dress,I guess they start learning hypnotism really soon.Ensnaring the puppy to the level of tears,one would hardly forget a person let alone a loyal lovable dog if they slit their wrists in front of you,however Nagin being ever selfish and in love with the Nag of the century ,the dimpled bull dog of a prestigious college she currently holes in,conveniently overwrites on all her other childhood  memories with ease.

The humour tickles you from the directions of the dogs best friends, loyal he dog ,Murali(Muhammed Ayub) and she dog,Bindiya(Swara Bhaskar.)

Timeless is the tradition of putting your arms around your guy friend’s and staring companionably at the lady love of your childhood friend,walk to school and walk back from school,(keeping an eye out for her, literally,because what are friends for!!!), The 'brotherhood friendly staring fraternity' apart,in their minds ,the lady love being already wedded to their mate, becoming  ‘bhabhi ji’(brother's wife) for janam janmantar (child marriage not being a discretionary or valid grounds for logical dismissal)

In our tale of Romeo Juliet gone horribly wrong at the word Love, this shoulder hugging group staring role is played by’ Murali’ ,the musical rhetoric pronounced and enunciated by both him, and Bindiya ( Loud and floral language made her the abusive but compliant to all schemes, yet always jilted love bard),in combination and alternately they held my jaws to ransom.

Murali is tearingly rustic in his appeal,who fumbles when he meets his Bhabhi or bhobha or zoya ,as her correct name eventually finds his voice. Point to note also are his superior scooter riding skills while all the time having a chunni tied Kundan on his back,balancing around the roads of Varansi to find a hospital,for our local par amour,with a penchant for wrist slitting,in the face of rejection,a skill that so impressed the leading nagin that she flicked the blade onto her wrists in the face of  a plot she singly wrote to deceive everyone, being foiled. Pity in her case it was not shown as being an effective way of kissing goodbye to mother earth.

Swara’s character is marked by undying faith in the cow’s cupidic skills,her  love being jealous, from deprivation, a constantly swinging carrot. Her instant joy at bread crumbs dropped by an oblivious Kundan(dhanush) , leads to her gratitude filled feet pattering around all the temples in town.The sting from her bite is muted by purity in her emotions.However her constant showering of abuses and curses, her openness in her dislike of the leading ‘she snake’ of her life, throughout the rolling reel gets us used to her constant raucous wails. This made her sad head tilting and jewellery clinking, unheaded on a dishevelled yet still veiled wedding lehenga,on seeing Kundan, post being jilted on her wedding night,feel silently deafening, and her pain in that averted glance feel like a boulder shifting in me..

These were the best friends.

The leading dog with all his endearing lovable stalking capabilities faulted majorly and showed no appreciation for any kind of locomotive,he got on normally but usually just left the cycle going on its natural path to leap after slithering lady love,not believing in brakes he preferred being stopped by stationary buggies at railway stations Uncaring for his safety as he lands at railway station floors or river beds, into which he drives when he grows a little older on a scooter,apparently may have been a busy time to avoid the station,or probably preferred the river, just for a cheap wash.

Needless to say my distress at this kind of treatment to hero cycles, was repeatedly seismically felt by the front seaters, who progressively gave me nastier stares(I would love to think I was riveting enough,but I think it was the legs again)moving swiftly on.

The whole movie is apna rachaya shani (a self written course to destruction)as Murali so lovingly liked to remind anyone who cared to listen in to why was the groom was crying in his garish brocade sherwani,(probably heights of haute couture for benaras city),sparkling in orange finery,maybe he didn't like it,otherwise why would a groom cry? why would he slit his wrists?the answer to everything was apna rachaya shani, according to Murali,a devout Shani Bhakt throughout the movie.

Had the love been wavering like the next man that walks past me,had a gap of eight years dulled the memories of a girl in white hi jab doing namaz, had the snake’s slaps churned slow poison into his system instead of permanently ensnaring,then the character would not have been ‘Kundan’.

What kind of love doesn't evaluate the damage done by the object of desire?Kundan’s.

Kundan was rustic,simplistic,and his love was so.

When he is lying on that hospital bed at first I didn't think he would actually close his eyes.And not once in the movie after all his persistence I thought he would say he is tired,tired of trying,for her.Tired of it all.

This ball of energy that persistently churned out Chai like a machine,in the cold delhi winters and followed lady love like earth does the sun.To watch it ebb and wane,flicker,That was the point when I closed my eyes.  It was when I saw his friend Murali(muhammed)stare in agony from outside the hospital room window, Helpless in the face that even his fast driving scooter skills will not save his childhood friend, the feeling to cry went a little lower in my system.

When I saw a Proud Pandit father ,die of agony inside while eating his rice,knowing  his son was dying in the neighboring state, The feeling edged lower still.But when I saw Bindiya breaking her bangles of hope, finding her life long death curses transferred, to her Kundan instead,made the feeling hit rock bottom, just as the lights came on BRIGHT.

 The rolling credits reflected in my (sigh!!)wet face. Looking down I kept telling my self, this is just a film; just a film and maybe it worked a little.

Maybe it didn’t ,Even after just two drops, my eyes are red.:(( just so no one can catch a glimpse of the blood shot red eyes, I keep searching for imaginary things on the floor. but I have to constantly work at wiping the tears, that need repeated telling of the truth that it was a fictional portrayal and he hadn’t actually died. Everyone is standing waiting for me to move and so are our lovely front benchers, and according to a very conscious me, all boring holes staring at me and my downcast search for fictional items.

The red eyes came to my rescue , I would love to say it’s a genetic disorder,blame it on someone, but then vampire eyes is all me(I wonder if eyes are actually the mirror into your thoughts)whichever it was the two angry armed men got wordlessly disarmed.PHEW!!!! (girl power)

I should seriously control my legs next time, though my next movie is super man, maybe I should control my arms.

 I should even thank the she snake in all this,Her vindictive sleeper role in the film, hinted at in small instances of selfish love sacrifices she took from our little love puppy Kundan,Turned the film into a gripping saga of love and betrayal.

Also had she not graced her hooded presence in the city ,Kundan would have married Bindiya and she would have been Murali’s bhabhi and all this rachaya hua shani would have been managal then this Friday we would all have been watching Grey's Anatomy on TV at home as no one makes a film when its all kushal mangal. That's how I  saw it.

Should I pray not to cry in movies???not all make me tear up.last one was in college,and I am a fat liar,but how would you ever know to the contrary?

As I am an all inclusive fool,on CL from logic for two and a half hours, I think I will not pray, because its my  belief(justification to self more like it),that its better to be touched to the levels that shake you in your pallid apna rachaya shani life rather than not feel at all  and sail past life rather than dive in and get a little wet.....Jai Shani dev!!!!

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

 'Zdravstvuite….or that’s how they say it in Russian.Do not pronounce the first v..otherwise even the Russians would con-volute the pronunciation.

 Repetition in this case does not translate to retention I still  kept walking muttering Zdravstvuite…Zdravstvuite ,under my breath.After a break of fifteen minutes of lack of rendition I had to take a re-course in the words pronunciation,I am obviously not a natural Russian.

Definitely Indian though, I may be half way across the hemisphere but I know the local viral travels with me. I have this self realization of being infected because when you start learning Russian by attaching punju connotations to it, you have been in Delhi for a long time, so this is how I memorized the Russian ‘HI’…

Breaking it into two parts ZDRAST—VICHE…I allotted the second part to the Punjabi aithey uthey ithey ‘vich’..after that I just needed to focus on remembering the first part.

It is a fluctuating luminescence but the bright light in my head came on,on my last evening in Moscow,strolling down the artistic Arbat street,the idea to enhance my Russian local experience struck.

It occurred, rather untimely I must confess, that spending a week in Russia and not even knowing how to say Hi to my handsome portrait painter….unthinkable….considering my timing, the only Russian I could practice it on was the crusty immigration's officer at departures, who was not mighty pleased with the fact that the immigration slip from arrivals had gone walking, and probably lining the bin along with my nephews diapers back home.

Saying it,mumbling it, the first time didn't actually sound like anything a Russian would say,and asking me to repeat under pressure couldn't get a riveting performance from me,so the greeting that was sent forth again muttered was the universal hello.

The second person I uttered this to was back on my home turf, while regaling my friend with tales from ‘Russia with love’,this friend I greeted  with the an extremely loud version of the convoluted ZDRAVSTVUITE, the volume decibels increasing with the confidence in my knowledge that she would never correct me,having probably never heard the term before and all that would leave with her , was a lasting impression of my vast skills. Hence after the resounding success of the formal greeting I decided to chip in with the privet privet too…a slightly informal HI and pronounced exactly such….and thus I reveal 50% of my Russian skill with those two words.

Words covering the other half  being spasiba,meaning thank you.Now this is one word I mastered ,initially it came out as a shy almost apologetic sound to the hot Russian maid who came to clean up behind us very lazy Indians, starting with her, by the end of it I was brandishing it about town to everyone who bothered to bump into me.I must have been the most grateful person walking the streets of Moscow that week.

I did have genuine cause to use it though,because the real feel of a visceral thanks is only felt when you are lost in a strange country that refuses to acknowledge signs of any language that you have spoken or heard of since you were a foot long.

When you are surrounded by a river on one side and a park on the other but where you want to be is on a hill top,then asking for directions is the most probable course of action,the stumbling block comes when you approach a family that looks like they could speak English.

After the careful selection you are 99% staring into eyes that are all blue and 100%confused by your gesturing. The only other course of action is to get wilder in your gesticulation.hoping maybe one of your contortions will strike an old dumb charades memory between two linguistically alien people.Basically taking a cue from the super man movie with the raised hand flying sign and from two year old's at how to charade for a mountain, I managed a glimmer of recognition in the blue eyes, (some languages never change)eventually after  tonnes of grunting and English clues I was set along in the right direction.Leaving behind trails of spasiba echoing in my wake.

‘Spasiba’ flows and is ever gratefully churned out naturally, when you are in a  land that feels like its never been trodden on before, mud mulching under your feet in red riding hood's deep dark woods that are strangely standing in the center of the city ,part of a russian sad (park)and you have no idea whether to go left or right or straight ahead so that you can see a street,or maybe a cyclist or a passerby,or some indication that there is no wolf lurking around ready to pounce on you.I know the possibility of them stacking up woods where children feed squirrels and skate is highly unlikely but having grown up on a healthy diet of werewolf movies I could not subconsciously delete the options, could I?

Am I coming across as a likely candidate for the lost series??well navigating around a strange country when the bones in your body are made from safe cement,you basically want to fly and leap and ideally land on your feet,the other prospect is something which is at constant war with the adventurous spirits within.

So when I saw this group of people emerge  from my werewolf haze,I spaseebaaed god and profusely spaseebaaed the English speaking Russian breed of youngsters,and happily trotted along my way again,minus the mad gesticulation of last time.the footloose wanderer winning the battle against the ,' I should have stuck to the original path ‘ scolding strict alter ego.

The other word I learnt was in the confines of the house which my sister in law repeatedly used to fetch her ducklings to her…IDHI SUDHA…which basically means come here,now I couldn’t very well say that to half of Russia.It is one thing if you say that to a small child, you would excuse my self preservation skills in not shouting it to the Russian populace.I sufficed by going on repeat mode inside the house.

Learning how to sway your head gracefully and say DA!!if you want the man to keep pouring more wine into your glass is also a very important green signal,which incidentally would roll down very well with a Georgian KHACHAPURI,which in my dictionary is a stuffed pizza bread,(surprising to me was the fact that a country the size of a dot and population of three people was influencing a country that was hundred times bigger in gastronomic terms(though i can inhale just about anything),the country had the capability to conjure up a meal that stuffed me and left me wanting more, and for a word to get transformed in my mind from conjuring up Georgian architecture to hallucinating about pizza bread when any one would say Georgian from here on  i would say it was a lexically revolutionizing experience ) obviously continuing on from the viral it gets committed to memory by splitting it as  Kachaa Poori(Raw Poori-Indian flat fried bread)

A red signal one was NIYAT NIYAT…..which I put to good use to fob off a very tall and persistent stranger,who I eventually pegged as a beggar,When he flashed his stained teeth at me,lurched a little closer,and probably thought me gullible enough a target to ask for a dollar by wagging a finger at me,rude man.

Had the incident not seen me in a very crowded subway with people constantly pushing past me I may not have had the courage to loudly say NIYAT NIYAT and then coolly stroll off to the next shop along the dark underground subway..

In all my days in the city that eats mainly potatoes,if not borrowing from other cuisines of broken off sister countries, it is the parks of Moscow that tinge my experience with a brilliant halo. All other memories and language conquering vanish when I close my eyes today and sit back on the bench in the woods,look up stretch and smile at the bird that hops close to me,because I am sitting so still. I am still and so is my world,which usually spins faster than most spells.In this solitude a fat red squirrel mistakes me for one of the school kids that feed them,but I am a silent greedy person who has already finished her snacks,so they greedier still, curiously scamper close, sniff and then disdainfully scamper off,in rejected mode,with one last hopeful hop backwards.Tough luck little chaps!!

And even though Muscovite s may treat my piece of Moscow as a figment away from reality and what really shapes it is the historical buildings and socialist history,what sings its praises are compilations by great composers like Tchaikovsky. Probably Lenin also would not be very pleased by my take on him, as Lenin Bhaisaab (a term of reference placed as an honor by my,below a decade old nephews)but with all due respect the man makes a very imposing figure with a ten foot statue,but then maybe so would I make, if I was encased in ten feet of bronze,not taking away from the sculptor and with all due respect to lenin's ideologies that led a nation through revolution, I only speak of today. And what exists today, is a throbbing language insulated, cosmopolitan city which is same as any European town.

Moscow for me will always be,summer snow that floats ethereally around the city,sometimes settling on your nose as it passes,making your nose twitch. or sometimes just catching the sun,or the street lights,and today as I walked in the monsoon washed streets of delhi, the moths that flew past my nose whispered memories of the summer snow,and that is a trigger that will flick on Moscow channel forever in my memories cinema hall.

Moscow also is, the smell of wet wood,crushed leaves,stagnant lakes feathered by the summer snow,slithering golden ducks,couples standing holding hands,couples sitting on benches by these lakes,just reading,couples walking by, stopping for a stolen embrace,a fleeting kiss that sometimes lingers.Not all young, some old. It makes me pause and want to stay, not for want of companionship but the feel of Love in the air, an affirmation that the emotion does exist.

(actually they don’t need stealing, some are just all over each other and the desire to get a room doesn't exist, as the term’ stealing affections’ was left behind in the 20^th century,fueled by beds and hammocks hanging invitingly by the lake sides, I am guessing the powers to be, alarmed by the declining population ,are also fueling up the baby less Russia, with loads of free love opportunities)

They say that if you touch the walls of Kremlin then you would return again one day,I didn't smooth up those walls so who knows if I ever walk these roads again but forever for me the colour of Moscow will be green,The feel of Moscow, love.The touch , fluttery and fleeting, crisp and extremely mobile and bright Neon in the glimmering summer  months.The vibrations, of Hope,as light as the summer snow that shrouds city in its hunt for a safe home,hopefully.

BABU RAJ

Fluttering pages on an overloaded desk of musty files,stirred from their decade long slumber by the occasional intrusion by the air lazily waving around the room from a ceiling fan,bringing a breath of fresh air on a balmy sweaty afternoon.

Thumb curved back to wipe the bead of sweat racing down the sideburns which have lovingly embraced the oil in sheeny glory. afternoon sun twinkling  off the gloss from hair that still has channels drawn through it from the single toothed comb,run through it with precision in the morning.

Head bent over exhausted by the three flight trek back from a three hour lunch,bent in hunt for support from the desk, seeking a platform to launch its siesta.And dream of the evening tea.That is the image I evoke when I hear “babu”

A clerical position of subservience coming down from the raj,having morphed over  a

period of time from efficient diary keepers to matinee samosa dreamers.

It is also a word that I have heard echoed in whispered phone calls to distant loves,an endearment,a declaration of closeness,aSealing of fate,a sign that babu to bahu is just a difference of an alphabet.

How and why it crept into the romantic parlance?a  bellwether for endearments?is anyone’s guess,mine is that the word has slipped in to the conversations in disguise hiding under the rotund OO instead of the cirque.evolving the word to baboo.

Having just returned from a popular blockbuster Hindi movie,where the heroine trills up a “hello baboo….” in a phone conversation with her best friend in the climactic scene got me thinking,how authentic,so realistic.

That’s before getting home and drinking water I realized (for effect: glass still tilted to take in more water) that one of my drivers to work is also in a habit of calling everyone baboo,sitting in a cab early in the morning and to be called that.urggggggh!!!!

Without having to think too hard ,Another example of my encounter, is a colleague who if she has to correct you, will slowly shake her perfumed head in shattered disappointment, just tilting it so, as to not displace the hair from her bun and open her address with a disappointed na na baboo,now that can either now be an open ended statement left hanging to be completed with the head shaking effect or sometimes maybe a whole dialogue is suffixed with extra head wagging for pronounced effect.

So am I to assume that the word has been taken on by the Diaspora willingly,or an epidemic? a virus that has been filtered down and left to run amok fueled now it seems by popular cinema?? a word that transmutes between romantic and non romantic.so widespread in its virulence that it sometimes slips out unnoticed.

 The meaning is just not as simple as a darling. So I can obviously not take offence for something which does not have a laid down definition and is vaguely floating around in the pond of words infecting random people. Its in a transitional phase and has yet not found acceptance in the oxford dictionary, just having found attention in my meandering writing.

Have I ever had a babu phase?I thankfully shudderingly so,have not,but then neither have I gone through the honey puss,sugar buns phase,hmmmm however I do come with a sickeningly rich smattering of sweethearts and sweetie pies.and a quirk,do read on.

If I call you by a name that is not Ramakrishnan Pillai Subrahmaniam Aiyyar…a name that was lovingly weighed on you by your parents, I shall call you depending on my fondness for you, with a  name that either I conjure up, preferably(increasing your status in my list of approval) or just tagged along because of general pet name popularity. I do not sit and agonize on these names they just roll out.Individualizing the person on my radar, scanning them into the ‘close’ category.Maybe some of those names rattle people, like baboo does to me,do feel free to discuss our interactive address with me, its subject to change.

What do I have against this word babu? What got me thinking thus??Nothing!!Just imprinted images of the musty balmy room refuse to leave my mind's living room where they come out and lounge on hearing the command from the 'ear'ly yours.

I guess I am just biased and a little particular of its aural origins too,as they fall on my ear drums and if the origins are favourable,maybe it could lull me.By favorable I mean someone like Ranbir Kapoor probably,as he asks me to mix sugar in his tea baboo ,mmmmm yes,now that’s an endearment!!! ….and RK too is on the probable list,as I just cannot imagine Bradley cooper whispering baboo.For him I reserve darling or actually I should say, shut up!!! you got me at hello.(pause) baboo…(sheh!!still not Shakespearean enough for me)