Movie time... yes? no?

Once upon a time, a girl had all the time in the world, but was yet to have a laptop of her own. Ergo, all the movies she saw were from the theatres- at her workplace or her hometown. Inspite of having to book tickets in advance, dress up and get out, she saw a fair number. Which led to empty wallets at the month end.

Some years down the line, the girl got married, had a kid, moved up in the rat race. In her laptop now, she has some 10 movies at least- Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu- all hit movies, that her friend at office has downloaded for her.

The bank balance still get depleted by the month end. But not because of the movies. The movies- they have been lying un-viewed for the last 6 months.

This week, hopefully, when the girl will be traveling for 4 days in the week. . . .
- she will not have to cook after getting back home from work,
-  she will have her own free time post dinner (not have to read a book to her son, or hug him close while he     makes his way to Dreamland),
- her dog will not paw her insistently to get up and walk her, talk to her
- her husband will also not be there ;-)

 . . . . she will hopefully get to see at least 2. She has
Rock On
Cocktail
O My God
GAW I and II
Ghanchakkar
Dabangg

Neram
Neethane En Ponvasantham
Ethir Neechal

Arundhati ( Telugu- with subtitles)
Ala Modalaindi

Any suggestions as to which I should start with?

How green is my Keralam!

I had to go to Kerala the last week- to Trivandrum and from there, onto Cochin. 

Bangalore was clear blue skies at 9 am, when the flight  took off. Having woken up early to roll out chappaties ( for the Acha to make for Sonny boy’s breakfast) , I fell asleep shortly after we were airborne, carefully pulling down the window shades to block out the sun. I woke up to the air hostess requesting me to raise the window shades. I raised the shades, straightened my chair and went back to sleep. The sun was most unhappy at this. Beating fiercely on my hand and neck, “enough of sleeping, lazybones, rise and SHINE!” it seemed to be telling me.  So I finally rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, yawned, stretched, and sat up straight.

Over the last 2 years, I’d been used to the  view from the skies over Delhi Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad. While there used to be spreads of green and brown at a distance from the city, nce you came near the city, it was the same story everywhere- an unendingly bland landscape of buildings, houses, apartments, roads, traffic….   There was no view to look out for. I glanced out casually. 

And was entranced by the green that I beheld below.. It was a virtual kaleidoscope of green. Any way you looked, a different green met your eyes. The sight took me back instantly to my childhood, to the return journey from the summer holidays, spent with my Dad at Tamil Nadu. We spent it in various places over the years,  as Dad had a transferable job, but one thing remained a constant on all our train journeys back to Kerala. The overnight transformation of the landscape. You went to sleep in Tamil Nadu, viewing dry arid brown. If there was any green, it was a rather strained, struggling-to-remain-so green,  And you woke up in Kerala to an exuberant, lavish, exultant green.  Fresh and thriving and glistening. Because we always returned at the onset of the monsoons.

I’d always known Kerala was beautiful, but when you live in Kerala, you tend to take all that lushness and beauty for granted.  Having been away from 'home' for more than a decade, the beauty of my land was breathtaking.   Once again, it was monsoon time, and as we drew closer to landing in Trivandrum, there were only glimpses of roads to be had. One would have to move the fronds of palm leaves in order to see the roads in their entirety. Not for nothing is it called the land of coconut trees.

And this time, another first, I saw the beachline from the plane. Beautiful, the waves lapping the shore. Thus far, had only seen it during the Chennai and Mumbai flights. . . 

lost... and Found!!!

I was going through my old posts, and came across this one, My dearest girls, where are you..where I was bemoaning the fact that 3 close friends had lost track of one another over the years.

Its not for nothing that I am pretty active on facebook.  I've FOUND *gleeful smile* TWO of them! My hostelmates. Ap and My.

Ap is in Quatar or some such Gulf country, she has a daughter, P who sends me mails once in a while... We spoke to each other for over an hour, the first time we spoke to each other ( she'd gotten my number from My) It was as if the intervening years had disappeared, as if we were chatting to each other after coming back from a day's work from opposite hostel beds.... :-) Ooooh, it was lovely!


And My- she's in the US. She's had one more baby- another daughter, and is witnessing sibling rivalry and affection in turns.  We are in regular touch over facebook, she's grown prettier.... :-)

Now all that's left is to find what's up with Ar. Soon, I'm sure! :-)

Rape- the rape never ends...

Recently there had been a furore in the newspapers over a Malayali med student in Manipal, who was raped while she was returning from the library to her home, at night. She was grabbed and bundled by 3 men into an auto...and returned to the hostel unfortunately not intact
The media made the requisite hoo and haa.  The alleged rapists were hunted down, and at the end, 2 of them attempted suicide, fearing consequences of their heinous act.

It seemed like justice would be finally meted out...
But then, in an anticlimax, the victim said that she did not want to press charges.

While I wish that the girl has all the support to enable her to come out and press charges against the accused, I understand the girl' s side too...
You never know how long the case will get dragged on...it could go on for years,  the whole unpleasant incident will have to be thrashed out all over again, each time she needs to go to court.
The barrage of questions from the cops, the court, the prosecution, can subject the girl to a virtual rape all over again...And you never know what tangent the questioners could go off on.
There is no guarantee that the victim and her family will be safe from other violent attacks against them, physical or otherwise, by the culprits' family/friends.
The poor girl can never put her horrendous past behind her.

I cannot talk for all the rape cases in the country. But at least 2 cases are not encouraging to say the least.

The Suryanelli girl is still where she was two decades ago.  A promising young life has been scarred irrevocably. A young girl's character has been dragged through slime, time and again, by all and sundry. Even after she's been given a govt. job, the tentacles of her past do not spare her. She's been subjected to continued dishonour and shame... and not just her, her family has to suffer along with her. A happy married life, a loving husband, children, grandchildren.. these are normal dreams, of ordinary girls.  But the Suryanelli girl will never have all those. She will forever be Suryanelli Girl.Interrupted.

More recently a courageous young mother decided to come out from the shell she'd been forced to cover under by an unforgiving public. The Park Street victim decided to discard the name her rape had christened her with. And to go back to being Suzette Jordan. To try and pick up the pieces of her life, and try to help others who've had their lives similarly wrecked. Its not easy to read her story, I can't imagine how much harder it must be to live her life. I wish Suzette a happy life.

I wonder how long it'll be before a rapist get his just dues. Till then, there will continue to be rapes. And till the time comes when rapists are brought to trial swiftly, efficiently and mercilessly, their victims will go on getting raped. In court rooms, in doctors' examining rooms, in the market place, in discotheques. . .
It is one thing to wish to change the legal system in India. But it is entirely another to behave humanely towards the victims. It is entirely upto us to stop  treating her as a museum piece. A not-so-attractive one at that.  And stop subjecting her life to curious stares and comments.

One hopes the Medical student ( and other girls like her) gets justice, but more than that, I hope the girls get to build their lives all over again. That they are able to bring their dreams to fruition. That they can continue to be the unsullied pride of their families. God willing....

To aid and abet, or not

A colleague in office has fallen in love.   I act as a sounding board for her anxieties about the guy and the parents and other stuff, being a) a friend b) older than her c) having had a love marriage myself, with its share of teething problems. She is extremely close to her family, especially her dad and right now is torn between her boyfriend and her parents. Her parents are not for the guy, for various reasons, some of which reasons I empathise with.  Her mother consulted an astrologer about the match, and he came back with first a NO. Then, when the anxious mother found that there had been a mistake, he re-calculated, and came back with a YES.

The colleague doesn't believe in astrology-shastrology herself, but she's glad for the positive verdict, because now she'll have an ally in her mother, if for no reason other than the fact that the marriage is not 'doomed to failure'.

I don not know if astrology is really such a great forecaster of whether a marriage will be happy or not... I have 5 relatives in my family, all of whom have had arranged marriages, with their horoscopes matched to perfection. One of them was widowed after 5 years of marriage. 3 of them are divorced. And the one has issues. And this is just couples I know. There are many more instances of people whom I don't directly know who've been cheated by the stars that foretold a happy-ever-after ending.

I married the Acha without any matching of horoscopes.  The Acha's parents rigidly opposed the match,  for various reasons they considered important. One of the reasons was that they consulted an astrologer, who said that we would have no peace in the house, as there would be constant strife between us.  LOL. I am yet to see a couple who do NOT fight. My parents did. His parents do. My sister and husband do. My aunts and their husbands did/do. The reasons for and the intensity of the fights and the way they got resolved was different, but they all were/ are happy. ( I say were, because, my dad and one of my uncles are no more).

Its difficult enough to live in a hostel and adjust with various room-mates/inmates. And you do not have to share a bed / loo / towels with them. There is no social conditioning that ONE of you always has to cook/clean and generally take on responsibility for the collective happiness. In a marriage, all of this applies. So it is but natural that there will be some(lots) of friction at times. The wife of today, rebels against having to burn both ends of the candle herself. The husband of today is coming to terms with the fact that he will have to pull his weight equally around the house. Stereotypes die hard, but the old order is indeed changing, albeit slowly. Mutual adjustments, not one-sided compromises are the order of the day.

But I digress. Once during the courtship days, when I was really upset at the way matters seemed to be heading, I confided in a priest of a local temple I used to go to regularly.  And I told this old man that as per our horoscopes, there was to be no peace in our house, if we got married. And that the required number of  poruthams  (this is one of the terms in horoscope matching, where you are supposed to have a minimum number of matches of certain variables, for a successful partnership) was sadly lacking. At which that wise old man said that what was most important was manaporutham - a matching of minds/thoughts. And that so long as we had that, all the rest of the poruthams would either fall in place or didn't really matter.

Which brings me back to my colleague.  She's known this guy for a short while only. She does not know his parents/family. She's only seen him at his best. It is kind of a whirlwind courtship, where after some 4 meetings, the guy proposed to her on his knees in front of the Taj. Enough to turn any young girl's head.

I've heard and ready enough about love at first sight, but in real life, I am a little sceptical about these grand gestures. I like people to get to know each other really well before they decide to commit to a lifetime together.I believe family and family background, matters to a certain extent. Roses and stuff will of course be a-plenty in the initial days. But there will come a day, when they will peter out (or am I being a cynic here?)
 And so , I am torn between wanting to offer my young colleague support in her love affair, and wanting to caution her against getting overwhelmed.

I have as of now told her not to commit to the guy, but get to know him better. (They're not in the same city, and so this would take time) To get to know his parents as well.  To try and get her parents around and not rush into anything on impulse.What would be your advice, people?

The shoe rack that wasn't to be

 I've been meaning to get us a nice big show rack for quite some time now. We'd had a nice spacious shoe rack made when we had our own house. But after we shifted to our rented place for the proximity to Sonny boy's school, all our shoes/sandals have been getting accommodated on erstwhile TV stands and book shelves and cardboard boxes! With all the Rs.200/-a-pair sandals I guiltily buy  from Commercial Street every time I pass by on my way to a client, my shoes seem to have multiplied rather like rabbits. To add to it, Sonny boy has his school shoes, his badminton shoes, his going-out shoes, and his sandals ( in our days, we had a shoe and a sandal/chappal for the year!) The poor Acha just has 3 or 4.  But every time I bring it up, the Acha would say- let us get our own house, and then we can have it tailor made for the space there.I bought that logic for 3 years. And then I decided that enough was enough , and set out shoe-rack shopping with a vengeance.

I scoured all the online stores first. But my problem was that all of them were too small. I needed one that could store at least 20 comfortably. Besides, I am big on touch-and-feel before I buy. So my colleague and I physically scoured Shivaji Nagar's galis. I found a couple I really liked, but then when I came with the Acha to 'buy', and we got the things moved into the limelight, I found that they were a bit too narrow and would not hold 20. So we decided to compromise and buy another small one from Zuari to accommodate the 4-5 odd pairs that would get left out. But then, we ran into a roadblock. The same shop did not have both racks. Which meant that we'd have to pay transportation to both guys. A strict no-no from the husband. So we were back to square one!

And then last month, we found this furniture shop NEAR our home. He didn't have a ready made piece. but he had a bed, the head-board design of which we liked.  We asked him if he could make our shoe rack with that design. He said he could - it would be a plain shelf, with the design of the bed headboard for the doors. We liked the idea. The bed had been manufactured at his factory, so we could see how our shoe rack would look.. and we found it decent. But we were still worried about the space inside- width, depth etc. What if after he made it, we found that it was not upto the mark?
 'Full money-back guarantee, Sir!' the man said.
We were a little unhappy about that, it would not be nice to get something made FOR us and then not take it....At which the man said- 'Sir, I will make the piece, if you don't like it after I make it, no problem whatsoever, I will get other customers for it. I am confident about my work. You don't worry about that.'
Finally we agreed that we'd go ahead and get it made to order. He said he'd deliver it to our place in a week. Advance given of 5000/-.

The week came, and went, without the shoe rack.
We called up- what happened to our shoe rack?
The man said that since it had been raining hard, unexpectedly for the last couple of days, the polish was taking time to dry, and he'd deliver it in a couple of days. It had indeed been raining hard the previous 2 days, so we agreed to wait.
A week passed and still no sign of the shoe rack. We called. The man picked our call, pretended he couldn't hear and hung up. And refused to take our calls thereafter. Which is when the husband smelt a lot of rats.
We kept calling the whole of the next week, without any result. We called from a land phone, the man picked up, and , recognising the Acha's voice, hung up again.
Then we went over to the shop, and found that there was just a boy there, kind of caretaking. Really pissed by now, the Acha told him to tell the owner that we'd consider that the money had been given to a beggar, since obviously, we were not going to get it back. That unkind remark struck home. Another man called the Acha up shortly. And asked what the problem was, that he was the shopkeeper's brother, and that he'd ensure that the item was delivered in a week. We said that he knew very well what the problem was, and that if he meant to do business in good faith, he'd do well to either deliver the piece or return our money.
He said he'd deliver the piece in a week, ( this was well over 2 weeks from when we were supposed to get delivery). Since we'd didn't have an option, we agreed and said that we wouldn't call for a week, and that we expected to have the piece delivered then.

The week came and went without the shoe rack again. At which an irate husband decided to haunt the shop. He finally found the shopkeeper there on a Saturday ( he only came there on weekends!) Caught face to face, the man gave excuses, saying he'd run into some unforeseen losses, and was in a tight place financially, which was why the delay. At which the Acha said that if he'd mentioned this in the beginning and asked for a grace period, we'd probably have understood, but now it was too late, we just wanted the money back.
The man said that he didn't have any money with him. The amount was 5000/-
The Acha said- how can you sit there and say you don't have the money? I need it.
At which the man just sat wooden facedly.
After some more words, finally, we got a cheque for the amount- to be cashed the next week.

Today was that day. On presenting the cheque to the bank, we were told by the cashier that the account hadn't been used for over 2 years. Clearly there was no money in that account. The Acha told the lady that he wanted to present it. The lady said that  it would bounce. At which the Acha said that that was the idea, we wanted to give a police complaint.And he went on to the shop where, wonder of wonders, he found the man once again. And after a brief discussion, the man handed over cash in full to the Acha.

Hurray!

A highly suspicious Acha is still doubting his good stars. And is wondering whether the notes will turn out to be fake
And at the end of all this, I am still wanting my shoe rack. I think I will have to get a carpenter to make it from home... Sigh!

Between Enid and Roald..

We've been member of justbooks.com, the local lending library for the last couple of years. Our deal with them entitles us to take 3 books at a time, and ever since Sonny boy started reading, we've been encouraging him to take one as well. All of last year, he used to browse through the Chotta Bheem comics there, while the Acha and I squabbled over who got to take the third book. But this year, things have taken a turn for the better.

I had  introduced him to Roald Dahl last year, and he really liked them. He liked the writing, he liked the fact that he could share what he'd read with us, and I think one additional factor that also swayed him is that his best friend's sister is an avid reader who was suitably impressed when he said that he too had Roald Dahl. Helped him earn brownie points with his friend. Anyway, Roald Dahl is his current hero and that is that.

But then one day he came back from school all indignant. In English class, they'd been asked to share their favourite author. And on his naming his naming Roald Dahl, his teacher refused to believe him, saying that Roald Dahl books were for adults. I empathised with her- she had most probably read Uncle Oswald, or those chilling short stories that the man also wrote.
I tell you , his skill for straddling the child's world and the adult's in unparalleled. I know Uncle Oswald was how the Acha and I got introduced to Roald Dahl. The wicked writing certainly wouldn't have made us believe that he also wrote for kids! I got to know of Matilda much later...Anyway, we pacified Sonny boy saying that Roald Dahl also wrote adult books , which kids wouldn't understand, with lots of big words and all that.

Was reminded of it when, at the library, he saw Dahl's short stories ( certainly not for kids!) and grabbed onto them. Having dissuaded him from taking that, we showed him other books we'd loved as kids.
Wishing Chair? No.
Famous five? No.
Adventurous Four? No. Amma, I don't want any adventure books.
Malory Towers? Amma, I DON'T want Enid Blyton!

It seemed the skies had fallen down on my head. Not like Enid Blyton? Sacrilege! How could he not like Enid Blyton? Who was going to read all those books in our library at home, which we'd bought thinking they could be enjoyed by us and later our kid as well? I still love reading them...Sigh!

Sonny boy's favourite book is a Science Encyclopedia! My Dad would be thrilled and I'm happy too, but I don't get it. Isn't science something you study? What can you pore about for hours in an encyclopedia, for heaven's sake? The other day he was even showing something in it to Trinity, who politely tried to indulge this family member of hers who was giving her a book, instead of food ( very weird, but that's life around humans for you) There was a snippet in it on barnacles, Sonny Boy was delighted at having found out Captain Haddock's (Billions of) Blistering Barnacles and was trying to share this prized information with the dog who wandered off with a desultory wag of her tail after ensuring that there was no food involved in the exchange!

Thankfully he loves Tintin and Asterix and Amar Chitra Katha too, so all is not lost.