The Dabbang Extravaganza

Happy birthday to the wittiest, sharpest, smartest, funniest kick-ass cutest person in the world! Nopes, contrary to what you may assume here, I am not articulating birthday wishes to myself.

Earlier this month, my quaint, little town was subjected to its very own claim to fame- Salman bhai ishtyle. It was my brother’s birthday and we decided to live it up a little more than usual. So what started as an idea for a “hat-ke” birthday party, turned into a phenomenal milestone-ic bash. Since for now I am seriously deficient in inspiration to entertain you with my tumbling thoughts otherwise don’t thank your lucky stars too soon, I thought I’d share the pictures and let them do a bit of talking almost gripping my hand firmly here to stop me from my blah-blah nevertheless...ah-what the heck, who can stop the unstoppable!

Let me introduce my brother to my dear readers. Ankur Kapoor is thy name. Yes, there is something about that Kapoor surname that ensures sexy sigh, wish could say the same about Arora, although I am a firm believer of the syndrome ‘once a Kapoor, always a Kapoor’. Anyways, he’s just entered his third decade on Mother Earth and yet refusing to grow up I guess, it is in our genes, sue us but wait there’s more to prove that. He’s smart, charming, wit personified and generally the centre of attraction see, I told ya. And only his brain could have churned out ideas like you are about to behold here. Spreading across the pages, is his Dabbang effort- just when you thought you had had enough of Salman Khan this year, here’s more.

The birthday party was at a famous night club-Felix, which was refashioned to look like a jail, based on the Dabbang theme. It gave vent to his not-so-secret aspirations and illusions that he would have been another Salman Khan had there been no Salman Khan...er...whatever! And all the nitty gritties of the event were looked into with a keen eye, to make it a run-away success.

A whopping pull out at the entrance with his picture, announcing the party... full-size banners within asking, coaxing and almost threatening the guests to indulge...even the washrooms were not spared. There was a Chulbul Pandey ke sawari- a remodelled bike, which everyone thoroughly abused and misused by sprawling across it while being clicked. Also most of his friends’ pull-outs were adorning the walls although photo-shopped to style them as famous ‘bhais’. The bartenders were in police uniforms, there was a munni to show some jhatkas and matkas, friends who dressed to suit the occasion and also a photographer who bugged you each time before pressing the flash, by saying ‘bhaiyya ji...eshmyle phuleese’

So without further ado, let me allow you to feast your eyes not on me silly, I know I looked good

The Dhamakedaar Invitation

This was the washroom..the only time when I got to see what happens in the men's room

The big pull-outs, more like final warnings, warna...dikhchayan*that's the bullet sound by the way*

The Dabbang shot and the guys at it...a sucking good job!

That's my bhaiyya ji at the entrance...well, unka welcome ishtyle

No one could help being Salman Khan of the day and well, acting like him too

Look what was done to an otherwise super handsome face

Alrite, I know I was not dressed for the occasion, but someone had to be thoda hat-ke na?

Me n G, before the jaam began to flow

Please do not miss the "shauchalya" here n yes, us posing before it as though it was Christian Dior instead

The famous n soon becoming defamed-Chulbul Pandey ki Sawari

We do take the theme seriously now, don't we?

The "wanted" ads behind which are not to be taken seriously though, warna bhai log bura maan jaayenge yaar

Yes, the cake too..now did I eat the eyes or the lips...no prizes for guessing;-)

Stay Dabbang!

The Maid of Honour

Yes, I am on a desperate look out for a maid of honour.
In fact it's almost like-Gori ho kaali ho...ya nakhare waale ho...kaise bhi dila de!
And before my dear readers a handful of whatever is left decide to jump onto the conclusions bandwagon...
Nopes, I have not altered my sexual preferences!
And also nopes, I am not planning to walk the aisle again!
G and me have decided to stick along to each other- he says he doesn’t make enough money to get married again and I feel I have drained out of ideas and inclination to turn another guy into a hen-pecked husband.
So that’s about it for the love story.

And then the “maid of honour” you ask?

They say it takes a thousand workers to build a castle, a million soldiers to protect a nation but just one woman to make a happy home.
Let’s be grateful and show our deepest gratitude to our
KAAMWAALI!

Yes, the maid in question here is a maid/domestic help/nanny for my one year and three months old whirlpool of a daughter. Ignorant people of the world, people who have no children yet would never understand how crucial this one woman can be in the lives of women all over. Ask me, I have been guilty of mocking such poor sufferers and hence perhaps condemned to bear the crushing shackles of their torment as my penance. And now although I am at the brink of hiring just about anybody to prevent me from premature balding by tearing my hair apart, yet I am praying for someone honourable to fill the post...honourable bole to who would not desert me now till death do us part modern times woes-maids share an equal and prime slot of significance along with the spouse. Sad but true-often you can manage without the husband being around but oh no, not without the maid-blasphemous thought!

In the last nine months of having Seeya with me, two maids have come and gone alternatively and this because every month they conveniently decided to sit at home for around a week to ten days, without any notice they should train this race for more loyalty and selfless service, I tell you. This brings me back to the grind every fortnight or so, just when I begin to get smug that my life is finally settled and about to be on the roll and I can don my avtaar of the super star, super sexy, super mom writer of this millennium...tch, tch!

I would like to think I am a super nice employer but perhaps they would beg to differ, or perhaps they know it and hence take me for a ride when I mentioned I love rides, dear Lord, you should have asked me before manifesting it in this way in my life.

So now there is no maid again from the last 16 days, 5 hours, 15 minutes and 30 seconds and this is how my life is- You can discover me anytime, not bathed till almost 12 noon (this is huge because no one ever saw me in my nightwear until now, except of course G), running between getting her dressed to making her do her potty. My god, I never realized someone else’s bowel movements would govern my life so decidedly some day that I would spend half my waking hours and half of subconscious dreams in fretting about- patli aaye ya kiss colour ke aaye...kam aaye ya itne zyaada kyon aaye...ya phir simply kab aaoge maharani ji...phew!

It’s been ages since someone’s hands touched my body, for a massage that is, and this latent craving rises within every time I drench my hands in almonds soaked ghee to give a body massage to my little princess, who has made sure I give up my title of the big queen. For the erstwhile big queen then goes to clean and sterilize her bottles, wash and iron her clothes, boil her water and milk, make her khichdi and in all this while check her from chomping off the soap bar or putting a pencil in the electric socket or spreading the peas I am about to cook, in the whole kitchen, fascinated by the size of these new “balls”.

You would almost catch me doing the famous Dimple stunt from the flick ‘Bobby’, when I would run to the door to meet the arriving guest with one hand smearing the flour on my hair and leaving him mesmerized causing love at first sight. Ah, since no one better than delivery guys or the postman visits my humble abode, let’s give up on this thought bubble!

I am almost the modern day Superwoman, or so I’d like to believe, minus the red and blue outfit and the figure too actually and the ability to have soft flowing silky hair in the midst of the morning rush they are oily now thanks to lat jo I have to suljhao every time while oiling Seeya for old habits die hard, especially of settling the hair which are used to of dangling flirtishly on my face.

So I pack my husband’s lunch, see him off and return to sing “Sheila ki jawani” to get her to gulp down the milk before taking it all out in her pyjamas some ten times till it is time to feed her with it again. And my dearies, when I look at the clock, it ironically says just 1 p.m. Do you really want to hear about the rest of the day? I don’t want to relate it though, for the prolific writer Amitav Ghosh once said, “For great writers, the pang and jubilations of situations set in when they write about it”. So I’ll save myself from being a pain, you know where!

And best of all is my predicament, when I asked my bartan-dhone waale to baby sit her for two hours while I teach my students although I make sure Seeya sleeps through most of it. This because I burnt the midnight oil teaching Seeya words like Car, carrot, star, apple...which she now calls gaadi, gaajaar, eshtaar and aappale.

Maid...maid...maid...I am beginning to wonder now if there was any maid made for me or not. You know like Shahrukh Uncle says, ‘Koi na koi kahin na kahin hum sab ki liye bana hota hain’. So I am waiting for my knight in shining armour to come or rather knightess or whatever...

And every time I bow my head in prayer for the well being of my family, I also say a little prayer for me...no marks for guessing what THAT is!

A Mish-Mash of Emotions and People

Yes, a PHUNNY/FUN space this world is especially when you get into the observatory mode!

~Stand in an escalator going up and you’ll know what I mean.

It can be a purely sensual experience-one that involves all the senses.

A conflux of hundreds of influences and shades coming together or rather going up together!

~A hesitant newly-wed from the outskirts, on her virginal step to the big city “mall” making it almost like the ‘giant leap for mankind’. She’s dressed in a gawdy, loud manifestation of six yards of silk with a super fragrant gajra, adorning her long, jet black, silken tresses, plaited meticulously makes you sniff down at your own Chanel No.5 probably to ascertain who’s/what’s stronger. There’s a chunky, gilded mangal sutra tossing against her bosom that is filled with an equal bounce of thrill, along with an armful of marital circles termed as bangles let’s call them the marriage arsenal or cuffs as her situation may be. These bangles jingle with one another as they reflect the blinding mall lights which seem to fade before the glow of the “just married bliss” that fills up her countenance and ear to ear grin.

You watch with half annoyance and half fascination as she tries to take a step onto the fast moving planks and then hesitates, shaking her head with a visible fright that could match the one that she probably had on her first ‘golden’ night.

You see how her husband holds her hand so gently and yet assuredly and takes her on board, almost symbolic of what he’d be like in life even otherwise.

~And then again would be gym-going wanna-be’s in tight fitting t-shirts with rippling muscles that could give away at the first hint of pressure; Folded sleeves of the shirt, never mind the sweating armpits and adding to the burst of sad whiff, would be the chameli ka tel on their heads, that settles the side flicks in a gel-like illusion. They would be wearing sunglasses, never mind the interiors and standing proud on heeled boots that would creak even when they stand still. The gold printed on their clothes would make you want to wear eye protectors for yourself. And also wish you had got ear plugs too for defence against their on-the-mobile-phone, blaring verbal attacks termed as ‘conversation’ made more on your poor ear drums. 

I am not prejudiced against the have-nots, I just don’t understand why go out of your league to be what you are not. I would rather carry a good leather bag from the store around the corner than a fake Louis Vitton please mind the pronunciation as you read that surname, walking with a toffee-nosed air that says ‘look at me world, I am too good for thou’.

~In walks a teenager girl in the shortest of mini-skirts. She flaunts ‘a figure to die for and brands to kill for’-the embodiment of size zero, never mind if there’s no body to speak of as such. The pumps make her appear taller than her frame would otherwise allow, solving the purpose of standing up to the equally supercilious onlookers she would be aiming at. A ‘omg, wtf-blah blah’ on the mobile in one hand and locks of her hair being settled perennially with the other, she forgot perhaps that she might have to go up the stairs somewhere and have people below stretching their necks to find out if it would be their lucky day to get a peek.

*You make your way to the most happening lounge-cum-bar-cum-pub I never really understood the difference between each of them being claimed separately to fame, as though you would not be served drinks at a lounge that was not called a bar or as if there would not be a lounge to sit onto if the pub is not a lounge...ah, never mind. The party of the year is supposed to be taking place here with an elite theme and fringes to boot. A pole dancer and bartenders have been flown in for the occasion-the DJ has just returned from a successful stint in Singapore and thereby added another zero to his charging/changing figure. The swanky lights that cost a bomb for each bulb, the drinks flowing freely as though it was Ganga-jal and costing as though it was liquid gold, the over dressed and under dressed as in they look in dire need of clothes going by their current shreds. There is techno music that you cannot mouth to match and beats where you can do not much but gyrate as though the fits engulfed you.

The people there are swooning in your joy although they don’t care two hoots if it was your wedding anniversary or anniversary with another new dish by your arm. They are not interested in you but whether you would invite them to the next bash you throw. They inquire about who’s walked in and why Mr. X’s wife is giving so many pecks on the cheek to Mr. Z or even Mrs. Z. They fall over each other in the name of having fun and the men try to feel the bare backs of women out of their leagues taking advantage of the lack of inhibitions and maybe deciphering if they could have their chances now otherwise claim later “Ah, I was too drunk then to remember now...I hope I did not go out of line?”

And you wonder, being in the naive, vulnerable shelled inhibitions of that new bride on the escalator is better or being the uninhabited, exhibited, hip social bug at the next happening party?

Age is a relative term!

Contrary to what the mind set has drilled into us, age is not really an indicator of maturity and thereby wisdom and substance. We have heard people say umpteenth of times, ‘I am older and have seen the world’ and thereby implying you should blindly follow what they are advising. ‘How could you know better being younger?’ is the typical belief on which the society in structured.

Yet, experience and the number of hours spent on Mother Earth cannot always ascertain the sagacious streaks in an individual. A twenty year old in this decade is smarter than one when I was one. But the adult forum around these twenty years old is still as was before, wrapped snug in the hazy, self-conceived notion that their off-springs are never going to be smart enough to have the last word. And consciously or unconsciously it is telling upon the gullible minds.

Credit should be given where due. The newer generation has the one-up card of modern and pro-active learning up their sleeves. This makes them more street smart than worldly wise. Even in emotional matters, it is often surprising to see many of the early twenty somethings behaving better than those taking precedence by several decades.

Are we heading towards a more mature young force?
Or is the older group suddenly losing its dominance over precision?


Sense and sensibility is an individual thing and can be cultivated!

I can still be corrected for my grammatical mistakes by a twenty two year old college going blogger and in all humility I must graciously accept where I falter. I often get into arguments about the home remedies to be tried on Seeya, with many well-meaning relatives and even my beloved. I refuse to follow just about every counsel that is thrown my way just because someone with more gray hair, is dishing it out, custom-made, without even me soliciting it. I’d rather go by what the doctor says now than what you experimented with, many years ago with your siblings.

However, often not just the oldies but even many-a-children are getting ensnared into this fabricated idea that the elderly are better equipped to handle almost any predicament.

It is sad that often a vulnerable, young mind is led to believe by his parents that they are right in deciding the course of action of his life, irrespective of their personal successes or failures, but by credit of the fact that they seem to ‘think’ they are better positioned to take these decisions. Many youngsters are still opting for a vocation based on their parents’ sketching it out for them, rather than scribbling through vague lines to reach to perfection themselves.

You are pushed into the ‘marriageable’ circuit or ‘child-bearing activities’ because the adults pull your reins and feel it is high time. A surprisingly high proportion of boys and girls let the issue of a life partner be decided for them after a couple of bad ‘love’ experiences, having lost the faith in them and patience to wait and watch.

Age has nothing to do with proficiency. Twenty years spent in erecting a life for oneself, are not less to know what we want. Children are not always wrong and adults not always right. If you are smart enough to know between right and wrong, you should also become smart enough to know what is right and wrong for you; or else give up on yourself as a bad job.

There is something that we are not teaching our children, despite providing them with a plethora of hand-picked facilities and nuances. It is the Midas touch of self reliance that can turn every obstacle into a landmine of golden opportunities. They are so accustomed to decisions being taken for them, that when the onus comes on to their own shoulders, they find their steps hesitating, voice mumbling and mind fumbling. We are not giving them the strength to take their decisions or courage to take responsibility for their actions. We want them to move on in life and yet wait for them to get prodigal and return to us again so that our relevance is reasserted.

Next time someone turns around and tells you that he is older and hence better suited to express an opinion...please give him a piece of your mind too, of whatever age n make it is! Let the children be. We all learn by one own experiences more than by sermons of a hundred epiphanies heard. We all have to make our own paths and walk on them with our own legs...high time we use our own minds too and let others use theirs for their own bodies. Amen!