Beauty & The Bride

An Indian Wedding.
 
An Indian Wedding can be defined as the union of two souls , natural collision and not so natural unison of two families and bread and butter for a plethora of industries. I have had the good fortune of attending my share of Indian Weddings. I enjoy the awesome food,the sangeet and the mehendi , the five star treatment et al that comes with being a wedding guest. The families really work very hard to put up such a grand show but there is one department that more often than not manages to amuse me with its notion of perfection. It is that department without which it is understood and widely acknowledged  that the bride can never look like well...the showstopper one may say. All things said and done ,the bride is the heroine of the day and if she does not look like a million bucks, who does ?

 Enter- the lady with the magic wand - The Beautician.                                                                                  
They come, they see,they conquer. This is the mantra by which most beauticians swear. I think they have the Eastman color as their reference for no matter what the original complexion of the bride is, she has to end up looking guava pink. In fact , in most weddings one recognises the bride on the basis of the oozing guava pink from her face. Different brands have different claims with regards to what can make you look like an angel . Not the one to be outdated ,your beautician presents the best and mostly the most expensive option to you with the assurance of having no side effects apart from the diminishing of funds, for you, that is.
 Since a sizeable amount of money is invested in acquiring the said speciality product, the make up lady generally feels guilty if she does not end up using the whole pack on you.Having applied the foundation in abundance , all other sensory parts on your face fade away and go missing. Since leaving things there would make you look like Sanjay Dutt in the movie Agneepath ,the eyebrows are attacked next. I remember that for my engagement the beautician insisted on darkening my eyebrows. Since my knowledge in that domain was abysmal at that point, I let her do what she wanted. The eye pencil must have been fun to work with for my beautician worked on my eyebrow like da Vinci probably would romance his canvas.A good hour or so later I had two dark mountain peaks on my face in place of my benevolent eyebrows and no matter how much I smiled , I ended up looking very angry. My brother did his bit by saying that I reminded him of 'Kroor Singh'  from the yesteryear daily soap, Chandrakanta. Not the one to have fallen for looks , I remember my fiancé calling me beautiful with his voice failing the exact emotion he was experiencing. He looked a little scared through the evening of the engagement.
 Having had their fill with using the eyebrow pencils , the focus now shifts to the lips. The lips are coloured, coated,repainted and coloured again for the groom to get the signal that you have lips. A couple of other instruments are used with commendable dedication to make you look 7689509 Watts brighter than anything including the bulb that Thomas Alva Edison contributed to this world.

All bright and colourful you now get to startle your groom with a fascinating hairstyle.  There are some 132468769087 hairstyles that are shown to you in print.  As you are already under the influence of the exotic smell that emanates from the various beauty products that dwell on you, your personal judgement is at best average during this point. Invariably you find yourself agreeing with the beautician who has now become your close pal as she has the distinction of spending more time than anyone would ever spend on your face in a lifetime. After ironing,curling and fumigating your hair  , a certain hairstyle shall eventually attach itself to your bright face. Since your face is bright enough to declare that you are the bride and your hair is just plain black in most cases shining beads , shining paper ,shining threads and all things shining are attached anywhere a semblance of design looks possible on the head. This application continues till your hair is almost invisible and you are glittering brightly enough to be used as the Olympic torch if the need were to come up suddenly during the course of the wedding. I recollect in one of my cousin's wedding, the girl in question was not satisfied with how much she glittered that night. On the recommendation of her cousin who I highly doubt was looking for humour she asked the tired beautician to paint the parting of her hair in a colour that matched her dress. Not the one to shy away from challenges,the good lady applied the glitter that her 10 year old son had last used for his science project. My friend glittered alright but she and her husband had to spend most of their romantic first night trying to remove the adhesive that was strictly meant  for cardboard and other hard surfaces according to the instruction manual on the glitter tube that the couple spent most of the night searching for.                                                                                                                          

Encouraged by the praises that your beautician showers on you and accessorised with earrings that  are heavy enough to bleed an elephant's ear and other  random   jewellery that is designed to poke you and anyone you dare to hug ,you give yourself a top-down look on the shady mirror installed in your room  That is when it hits you. You looked just like this 18 years ago ,when you dressed up as Hanuman in your inter school fancy dress competition .You know you won thatcompetition but this is a different race. You now start voicing your fears to the beautician who behaves like the congress and assures you that she has known no woman as beautiful as you and you are naturally wrong to assume otherwise. Not convinced you present yourself to your friends,cousins and well wishers . There is one awkward second and then they cry out in unison that you are nothing but an impersonation of the goddess of beauty herself. With the confidence given by your group and the love showered by your beautician, you present yourself to your groom and the crowd. It will take your groom anywhere between 10 to 15 seconds to shower praises on you and anywhere between 10 to15 years to admit as to what he really thought of your make up that night.  The crowd of course will only lie.                                                          
So the real question is, why try so hard to look like something you are not  For is it not the very face the said man fell madly in love with for the couple to get to this day?                                                                 Having said the above there are certainly a good amount of weddings where the bride definitely looks like an angel thanks to the workmanship of the talented beauticians. However, many faces would look far more lovely if just left as they were .

Question of personal choice. Amusing Nevertheless.

The Warmth Of An llusion

He travels from the outerworld everyday,

Just to wake me up.

He paints the sky red every morning.

Just for me.

A romantic at heart he is.

We look into each other’s eyes all day long.

Not a second does his gaze leave me.

Then dusk makes its annoying knock,

I sulk for he now needs to leave.

This you see is True Love

Boasted the sunflower to her friend

The Sun , my man, he is for life

And I am his girl till the end.

Time flew by.

At her funeral he was .

Like he had been there for her each day.

Died the sunflower ,a happy death,

Blissful ,Content, this  way.

The sun came out the very next day,

Waking up all beings.

Basking in the warmth of his love

Were mountains,flowers and streams.

To each of them it seemed as though,

Their man was here again.

From outer world, painting the skies

For none other, just them.

The sun ,an artist , performed his bit

Romancing none but fame.

Obsessed  with his work, he found,

The stream and sunflower the same.

The earth was his audience.

Not enemy , not friend.

He belonged to his Art alone

And Art his girl till the end.

Padmini

I remember dad making paper chits and asking us to pick one sometime back in 1993. Vinay and I were excited about the whole thing. While the chit Vinay picked said it would be blue , mine claimed it would be an elegant black. We just could not wait to see what its real colour was.

This was back then when buying a car did not mean banks calling you more often than your girlfriend did to ask you if you wanted a loan , neither was it a time when you had to go to the internet to check out the different types of cars before deciding on the one you wanted to take home.

As far as I can recollect you had 3 choices- Ambassador , Fiat or Maruti 800 .

Mom was all for Ambassador given the propensity our family members had for fat rich edible items. Dad was all for Premiere Padmini as it did not have a swollen face. I was fine with anything as long as they would still travel by scooter ( I was pretty sure that travel by car would not be half as much fun as good old Hamara Bajaj) and Vinay who was always ahead of his times wanted the car to have the same features that his GI-JOE truck boasted of.

After minimal discussions and a lot of blind faith in god we decided on Padmini.
She was a beauty and we were extremely proud of her .In sharp contrast to what our respective chits proclaimed , she was steel gray .

5 year old Vinay went through a re-prioritizing experience wherein the car came before all immortal and mortal things he had known. Dad was ecstatic to have finally bought a car .Mom and I did our general girl thing by being generally happy and content with the men in the house being super excited.

The travel bug is deeply implanted in the Ramani family . All major or minor discussions have always ended in " Hey we should go there sometime".Obviously , Padmini had little choice than to adjust her gears to this travel happy family.

Within a year of her arrival , she took us to Goa, Pune ,some known and unknown cities , a couple of nearby picnic spots , a couple of far off picnic spots , a few areas by the hill , some more by the sea....Needless to say , she looked like she had lost some weight by the time we celebrated her first anniversary with us.

I dont recollect the exact time when this started but the outsiders we share this episode with might . We had just finished enjoying a party at Dad's course mate's house . It was late in the night and we were all set to leave. As it is customary in the armed services , the hosts had come to see us off . Our brush with elegance was short lived . Padmini refused to move. Dad tried moving the key , the gear and all that can be moved to get the car to start, but she simply would not. The gracious host and a series of helpers took it upon themselves to get the car started. Half opened tool boxes cluttered the site . Mom and the hostess used this opportunity to discuss their favorite soap "Swabhimaan". After spending a lot of time with the heated engine someone said " Lets push the car".

And that is how it began....

Padmini entered the next phase of her life where she needed to be pushed to get started. Multiple visits to the mechanic shop made Padmini temporarily respond to the key and permanently make the mechanic rich. As travel lovers we decided to adapt ourselves to the mysterious ways in which Padmini had now started behaving.

Every morning , Vinay and I sang the Hanuman Chalisa while pushing her. It motivated us a great deal . A few meters later she would become the car that she was supposed to be and we would be extremely proud of our ability to cause that.It no longer bothered us that she would choose to embarrass us by not budging from her place at a relative's house or a colleague's party. Sometimes it helped that she stopped at public places. We had more people to push her .

Next the radiator gave in . So we carried a leather bag full of water that hung on to the rear view mirror. We called it the Potli-Baba bag . It looked a great deal like it. With the passing days , Padmini introduced us to the various things that could possibly go wrong with a car . We made a list of them and tackled them as a team. Fernandes the mechanic now started visting us so often that sometimes we got confused if he were a relative or a mechanic. Anyway , his visits always meant that Padmini would behave herself a little for the next few days and that meant we could take her on a trip again.


Slowly ,all her parts came to a state wherein they started behaving like musical instruments. every time the car crossed the speed of 30 Kmph , there would be a lot of instrumental noise that would act as a background score to whatever one said. Initially we tackled it by singing out things but the pitch rarely matched. We adviced relatives and friends alike to sing out things in the car but they weren't as much into music as we were . Too add to the misery the door knobs gave away very often . So we had one broken door handle that we called " The Lever". We passed it on to each other to lock and unlock our doors. As the sole surviving door handle , it was as important as the engine itself.

Friends and well-wishers began it with subtle remarks and then moved on to giving clear cut opinions . They all wanted us to sell our car and buy a new one. We could have done it had it not been for the love each of us had for Padmini. She was our first car and we loved her despite her many shortcomings. The thought of replacing her was simply treacherous.

Fernandes was on a holiday. His cousin , Joseph was in charge of the mechanic shop in his absence. Padmini was suffering from some complex issues again , so we called him as usual. Joseph was a happy go lucky chap from Goa. He gave our car one look and declared that he would bring her back to her original form in 7 straight days. It would require some extra cash but the results would be worth the money.

The prospect of having a trouble free car was certainly inviting . We gave Padmini to Joseph , asked him to do all that he wanted to to make her work better. He left us with the assurance that we would be stunned to see a brand new car shortly.



We were stunned.

She was not Padmini at all . She could probably be called Rukmini. In his desire to please us , the moron of a mechanic had decided to repaint her .If Mona Lisa was repainted with white hair , will she still be called Mona Lisa ? We did not think so...

Joseph the great , for lack of the original steel gray colour had applied a dark shade of grey colour on the car . Good old Fenny had numbed his ability to distinguish the two colours apparently. The steel gray mixed with dark gray now looked like a colour that would suit only mortuary vans. Thank god he refrained from writing something on it with white.

The car seemed to function normally . Dad the optimist brushed aside the fact that it now was the only Premier Padmini in the world to have such a colour. "We will repaint it again if required" he argued. In a strange way , it had become somewhat black , the colour the chit promised it would be .

Vinay went through a re-prioritizing exercise once again. With his advanced knowledge about the new types of cars available , Mortuary Padmini did not even make it to the waitlist. Mom was tired of the regular expenses that came along with owning Padmini . She gave a strict no no to repainting . I did not know how to react to Mortuary Padmini , she did not look like family anymore. Dad however , continued to support her .

A few months passed . We became famous for owning one of the strangest looking cars this side of the Suez Canal. Vinay had started marketing the idea of buying a new car. Mom and I were ambivalent . Dad the lone supporter of Padmini , found himself inclining towards buying a new car. No one suggested selling as yet .

And then it happened , Vinay's immense potential to market any idea won over all other ideas that the Ramani family came up with . We bought a new car.

Padmini accomodated the newcomer into the garage with grace. Initially we used both of them and slowly Padmini started staying home a lot as we left for outside in our new car. This happened for a year or so after which we admitted to each other that Padmini was just occupying space.

We did not want Padmini to end up as scrap .She was a happy car and deserved more. After a lot of research , a couple of phone calls and random discussions we realized what would be best for her .

On a fine Sunday afternoon , we gave her away to be a part of joyous occasions for the rest of her life. Padmini would be a marriage procession car and would bring happy souls together amidst excited friends and relatives.


The ten years that we spent with Padmini are ensconced with events that we will remember and cherish for a lifetime. We hope she is having a nice time carrying the bride and groom around and becoming a part of their marriage albums.

As for us , we cant thank her enough for making our lives so interesting !

The Pseudo Mother In Law

I dont know her name. I have tried asking her a couple of times but have never been able to comprehend her answer . In fact it is difficult communicating with her on any subject. Both of us speak Tamil but i guess while my Tamil got influenced by my childhood being spent in the northern part of India , hers got corrupted watching KTV while chewing betalnut.

Anyway.. We manage.

She comes home every morning at 6 , 7 or 8 ... Her visit is largely dependent on when she thinks sunrise occurred that day.
I dont mind it on most days but when she makes that fateful knock at 6 AM on a SUNDAY... the only day i probably can sleep to my heart's content ... i feel the need to get a gun licence at the earliest.

She also does not approve of my sleeping while my husband is awake.If she happens to witness any such episode where i have blissfully lost myself to sleep, she immediately switches off the fan , opens the windows and asks me ridiculous questions so that i wake up.

If thats not enough,my cooking is constantly under her scrutiny . Once she brought her daughter along and both of them gave running commentary while i was cooking.

Her daughter's tamil was pretty understandable unfortunately.

They concluded that I had not been taught the basic things that indian brides should be and that it was pretty sad that my husband had to settle for me.

Despite all the irritation that she causes i cannot imagine someone replacing her.

She has never taken an off without giving me due notice . She prides herself on doing her job correctly . So much so that even if I ask her to leave she insists on completing the job that she had in mind before thinking about leaving.

And most importantly I guess I have gotton used to her running commentary and lets face it... she does make life interesting by playing the role of a psuedo-mother-in law.

My maid servant- Ladies & Gentlemen !!!!

And then God said....

Dear God,

Hope this letter finds you in the best of your spirits .How are you doing ?

I am doing great here. As your chief messenger, I am writing to you to bring to your notice a couple of things that have been troubling me in recent times. A lot of squabling is occuring down here on earth because of the different books that the publishing units in heaven are constantly manufacturing. You have by now sent so many books on the 'ways to live' that my team and I are having a hard time trying to agree with each other.

While one of your books talks about rebirth,another says that there is only one life.I must tell you that this has caused an unnecessay difference of opinion between me and my wife. She does not let me kill mosquitoes ( which by the way are one of the most annoying forms of life you have managed to create) as she believes that i will be reborn as one and suffer similar consequences. I,on the other hand agree with the book on 'one life' and hence want to have the pleasure of relieving myself of the pain caused by these monstrous mosquitoes.And it is not my family alone that is subjecting itself to such events. Caveman 2 , who was otherwise happy with his 2 wives is now all set to take 4 more wives .He is deeply moved by yet another book of yours and wants to follow it to the tee.This has irritated Caveman 3 and Caveman 4 who firmly believe in 'one woman for one man' concept. Now all the three cavemen verbally abuse each other and pelt stones at random cavemen to vent out their frustration.

Every morning at least three cavemen come to me and talk about who they think is the
“True God”.They have now started new rituals to differentiate themselves from each other.Caveman 3 has a weakness for bananas so caveman 5 has declared that his book bans people from eating Bananas. He now forces his children to refrain from eating bananas and has made “apple” a holy fruit .

Seeing this Caveman 3 has declared that his book talks about the goodness of bananas and the evil nature of apples.His family is on a strict banana diet .His wife says that the entire family is now suffering from diarrhoea but this has not affected caveman 3's decision to eat nothing but bananas.

While all this is happening, Caveman 6 , who was widely appreciated by the council of cavemen a few months ago for his discovery of fire has declared that he does not agree with any of the books sent by the ministry of heaven.In fact he says, he does not think you exist.The council of cavemen now wants him to be beheaded, the only problem being that it is Caveman 6 who has been working on coming up with sharp tools to kill animals.He has slowed doen his research work and hence the council cannot behead him without a proper tool.


Please do not get me wrong here but why are you sending out so may books.The syllabus is just too much.Is it not enough that we have to live in these really scary jungles of yours and keep inventing stuff so that the future generations can have substantial history syllabus for classes I to 5 ??

It is still ok now.Apart from the casualities caused due to hungry lions,frustrated serpants and a few unknown diseases, we do not really have other causes for death. However, I fear the day when Caveman 6 will finally end up discovering a sharp tool. I fear that these cavemen will kill each other over these books.

Between the two of us, I know how hard you worked to make 'man' .Do you really want all your hardwork to go in vain because of a few books ?

Do think about it.

Write to me whenever you find time.I know you are busy. I heard from some heaven dwellers that you plan to have something called “civilizations “ coming up soon.

All the best for that.


Lots of love,

Caveman I (Promoted from the designation of Early man I recently)


....
....
.....


Dear Caveman I,

First of all , Congratulations on your promotion. I am glad that you are doing well on earth. I am doing fine here. Just a tad bit busy with planning civilizations etc.

With regards to the books you were talking about, I am sure there is some confusion somewhere.I sent out only one message- A sentence to be precise .

Of course I had it sent to the PR agency before release. Idea was to have a wider reach.Will look into it immediately.Dont worry , everything will get sorted out.Just send me the name of the publishing unit that is sending these books to you.

By the way, the only message that I had sent was-


“Do good and be good “.


Do let the other cavemen know about this.



Love,

God
Heaven- second street, First Avenue.

.....
......
......

This letter from God never reached Caveman I. The publishing unit probably smelled a rat and bribed the postman.God was too busy with planning for tomorrow and Caveman I was too busy with his day to day problems...

life ... and death ....continued.

Why are you a "Family" ?

On a fateful Wednesday , I let my feet venture into the city's newly built multiplex to catch up with Mr Karan Johar through his star studded movie- “We are Family”.

I am not a huge fan of Karan Johar but have always expected his movies to tickle a funny bone here and there and entertain me with catchy music if not a tight screenplay.

However , this one movie has made me doubt Karan Johar's taste for cinema for life.

“We are Family”is apparently a shot by shot remake of a hollywood flick “Step Mom”. The cast of the original movie is sure to suffer a massive stroke if subjected to the trauma of watching the Hindi Version.

As it is with other Kjo's movies , this story also takes you to America/London (I don't recollect now). We have a bunch of wannabe american-desis and their only connect with India is the fact that they speak in Hindi.


Kajol plays the role of a divorced wife who is content and happy with her 3 children until cervical cancer knocks the door and saps the life out of her. Kareena Kapoor is a career woman as she repeatedly tells the audience lest they get confused as she seems to stay home or appear jobless most of the time.

Arjun Ramgopal is either into the advertising industry or has a Kodak showroom in America. His occupation is not very clear but since he is spotted with a camera in most of the scenes , he must be into one of these professions.

Arjun and Kajol have 3 mentally deranged kids , though the writer would like you to believe otherwise. Their eldest daughter Alaya is supposedly 13. Alaya manages to exhibit the intelligence of a 4 year old while disturbingly look at least 25. The youngest daughter Anjali is probably 5 years old. The only training in acting that she has is to either smile aimlessly or cry to no avail. The second son is not important to the story.In fact a lot of screen space and time could have been saved if the makers of the cinema had realised that the kid had no acting talent in him and would have been better off attending school instead.

Arjun and Kajol are a happily divorced couple until Arjun brings his love interest Kareena to meet his family.As it is with 99 out of 100 movies , the kids hate Kareena in the beggining and then start liking her. In the meantime Kajol discovers that she has been let down by her body and that her days are numbered. She decides to train "Kareena the career woman" into "Kareena the Mom". The story revolves around this training , random incidents and such other useless arguments ensconced by needless crying ,mindless happy moments and bizzare outcomes.( It is difficut to write the synopsis of a story-less- story).


There must have been a story in the beginning .Otherwise it is difficult for the film to survive given the wrong cues ,reactions and dialogues the cast continues to subject each other to.
For example , Kajol with great discomfort , announces to her children that she is suffering from cervical cancer and that her days are numbered.
While the audience prepares itself to watch an emotionally heart wrenching spectacle , The eldest daughter Alya challenges the audiences intelligence by calling her mother a LIAR. At this point one's basic beliefs about humanity are shaken from the root. If this were not enough , this cretin explains the basis of her allegation. She reminds her mother that just a few scenes back her mother had promised that she would never leave her and now she had the audacity to announce that she had cancer and that she was dying,

The creative hand behind this dialouge is requested to refrain from writing anything after this for the rest of his/her/its life .

A scene or two after this , one finds Alaya dancing at a pub. When caught by her mother for this offence , she manages to justify her stand by saying that her mother shouldnt bother as she was leaving them anyway.

At this point one wonders as to what Karan Johar was thinking when he let this film hit the screens.


.
Arjun,Kajol and Kareena come across as sincere actors who have been betrayed by miserable direction and imbecile dialogues.Kajol deserves an award for crying evry now and then and reacting to her reaction less children .Arjun Ramgopal deserves a standing ovation for looking clueless throughout the movie and finally Karan Johar requires medical help before he invests in his next movie.

We are family – Stupidity Redefined.

GRRRRR!!!!!

A cup of tea at Inox sells at Rs 45.

I am shocked by this open burgalary. I understand that Inox is supposedly a place that gives me the ambience and they need to maintain the place well for us. We certainly undrestand that we need to pay a little extra to enjoy it all. But Paying 45 rupees for the same cup of tea which the pottikadai cheta demands 3 rupees for is ridiculous.

If this is not enough they sell these " potato wedges". They cut half a potato into 6 slices and fry them with salt and give it to you with sauce. These utterly useless pieces of potato come at Rs 69 a plate.

Whats more ?


The WHOLE population is happily paying this price and buying it.

Someone needs to help me here.

Arent we here to watch a movie and have some snacks while doing so ?

If the city is brimming with soooooooooo many people who are willing to spend sooooooooooo much on eating then we need to certainly alert the IT department and ask them to forcefully transfer these people's money to NGO's.

How dumb can the citizens really get ????