Swing it!!!

Pavan sent me this link of a hilarious Wedding entrance dance sequence today, which had me completely in splits!! Wish we could replicate this at our wedding too...though I guess thats just wishful thinking because South Indian Weddings are notoriously boring!!! But yeah do check out this fabulously funny video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

Another day, another say; another sign, another whine!

Why must everything in my life have a limp denouement, I wonder? Why must a day start off with me having no fever and feeling upbeat? And then why must it end with the fever coming back to me at bedtime, knocking my head saying, ‘What’s up buddy!’ and crawling under my skin?

This happened to me the day before. Now I have been feeling under the weather since Sunday, when the viral had first marked me as an easy target to spread its family lineage. Was slowly recovering (the fever had been conquered, only the cold was left to be won over) when suddenly, instead of retreating peacefully, the vanquished hero decided to come back & attack me again on Tuesday, just as I had put off my guard. Talk about back-stabbing. All this resulted into me being rushed off to the family doctor again yesterday, who opined smilingly (encouragingly in his opinion; sarcastic in mine!), that if the fever lasted for one more night then it may well be a case of typhoid or malaria. He again went on smilingly, about the necessity of me getting admitted to a hospital in such a scenario. The smiling assassin’s pronouncements were enough to scare the shit out of me & put me in a vile mood the entire day. The moot point is I hate taking medicines. They make me sick (pun intended). Most people mistake my abstinence from pills for my false bravado, but they don’t know. My throat burns when I swallow a pill and my head throbs like a torn drum. My liver clams up and I hear turkey noises behind my left ear. I feel nauseous and then I start shivering. But I must repeat the vile capsule shoving noon and night as well. And to top it all. Hospital. Saline. My mom kept saying ‘It’ll make me better.’ Yeah. Sure. Death cures sickness.

So here I was cursing myself the whole day, with both anger & pity directed towards myself. I hoped against hope that the fever would not come back in the night, while I lolled about in antibiotic haze. I kept snapping at people for no grounded reason. I snapped at Papa when he asked me for the TV remote (‘you want to watch the TV, when your daughter is ill?’). I snapped at Mom because the soup she had prepared was seemingly really foul-tasting (it is actually the medicines leaving a bitter after-taste in my mouth). To top it all, I had an argument with my fiancé. Bored to the core & frustrated after having not spoken to him for the last 3 days because of his work, shot off a terse one-liner SMS to him, which had him, scrambling to call me within the next 5 mins. He didn’t know what exactly we were arguing about, so he couldn’t put up a counter-argument fitting enough for my formidable erudite reasoning, which irritated me further. But I guess my fiancé’s placating skills are far much better than my resisting ones. Finally after 2 hrs of cajoling in the dead of the night, he managed to find out the crux of the matter & calm me down enough to make me go to bed with a smile.

Talk about anti-climax. And when I had finally resigned myself to being ill for a long time, today morning the fever has completely disappeared, though leaving me weak enough to miss office for one-more day. So time for something which I think I do well, but has disastrous implications for everybody else: self-introspection!! I made myself some tea and thought about why I behaved so cantankerously – that is, not counting the distinct element of fun in being dour. And reached the wondrous conclusion that I simply make a very bad patient.

(Ahem, yesterday night’s bad mood was beneficial to me after all. Today my fiancé called me up early in the morning (which he never does!) to ‘gauze the waters’ so as to speak & again twice during the day. Wow, talk about getting lucky!! After ascertaining safely that I was back to my bubbly self, the guy admitted that he is really scared thinking ke ek chote-se viral se mera ye haal hai, what would be the extent of my tantrums if I really fall ill! Guess darling, you have to just find out for yourself :P)

Quintessentially Mumbaiyya!

Yeh Delhi hai mere yaar, bas ishq muhabbat pyaar...So went the gtalk status msgs of almost all of Delhi friends a few days before. My response was "Haa haa, bas yehi kaam kar sakte ho, aur waise bhi koi kaam hota hai nahi tumse" & my friend retorted "thats the essentially practical Mumbaikar speaking, who can never understand the finer nuances of romance. Dilli Dilwaalonki aur tumhaari nagari Paisewaalonki". Ahem. The comparison of Mumbai with Delhi is the most exciting subject for the people who are been to both the cities Its a gr8 debate and why not!!! India is all about its two capitals... you have the political capital of the nation at one hand while we have economic capital of the nation at the other hand. And both set of people claim to be the best!

I have my own experiences. People from Delhi think that they are more sophisticated than the Mumbai folks “Hey it’s a matter of semantics”, as my friend HP puts it. “Basically a difference between a 'Delh-ite'& a 'Mumbai-kar'. That sums it all. Also Mumbai has locals while Delhi has Metro. I will say these transportation modes of the cities actually reveals the character of the people.” Ahem.

But the most colourful difference is found in the language. A true Delhiite's soul is often shaken to the core when he hears the mince-meated version of the national language we Mumbaikar's pass around as our own (though must confess, am equally not too much enamoured with the Haryanvi, Punju & Bhojpuri influences in Delhi's Hindi- what with the Dekh Liyo, Kar liyo floating in almost every sentence uttered by them. Also every time I visit the capital am tickled pink with the wierd & suggestive Bhojpuri songs played by the cab waalas) But all thing said & done, Mumbaiyya Hindi is enough to get the goats of the Delhiites. The other day, a bunch of us were talking about Mumbai & its quirks. And the Delhiites were reminiscing about their first brush with the quintessentially Mumbai Hinmarlish (Hindi+Marathi+English), which left us all shaking with laughter.

MM was telling us about his first brush with the friendliest person in the city- the chattering, gabbering Taxi-waala. Yup we all have had various jovial, exasperating experiences with them, havent we?? Now this guy apparentely took it upon himself to show this guy just how much he did not know about this city and its familiar, well-known black and yellow taxis. 'Khaali Peeli overtake nahi karne kaa' was the advice given by this warm-hearted samaritan going under the guise of a taxi-driver. MM took it literally and told us that for the initial 3 mths he never ever tried to overtake a taxi, even if it was extremely slow-moving, as he logically interpreted 'kaali' - black & 'peeli-yellow to refer to our famed taxi. But it took him ages to figure that one out, since in Mumbaiyya Hindi, khaali-peeli, said with a little more spit and less polish, is a way of saying that something is unnecessary. MM got so peeved of being made a fool of, that to this day he deliberately tries to overtakes every taxi speeding in front of him....

Then there was DP. One evening, she took a rick from Andheri station. The auto fellow, being friendly or bored because he didn’t have a music deck, started making small talk with her. He sympathetically looked at her and asked ‘Train mein gardi thi?’ My friend didn’t seem to understand, so she mumbled something that the rick guy didn’t want repeated. So that was that. The next day, her bai comes in late and launches into a huge narration, the moot point of which is, ‘Bahut gardi thi.’ My friend reaches office and hears two colleagues commenting on the horrid route to work. ‘Itni gardi mein kaise koi time pe pahunchega.’ She was now left wondering what ‘gardi’ is, because she hasn’t heard that word before – ever. And finally drew her own conclusion out of it.

One day in context with something her friends had to say, our DP goes & says 'gardi' mein patte jhadte hain. Everybody is perplexed. What could ‘gardi’ possibly mean here?DP explained “I’d heard of garmi (hot climate) and I’d heard of sardi (cold climate). I thought an intermediary season would be ‘gardi’. So poor DP's interpretation of gardi was yup, Autumn!!!

By this time everybody of us were almost ROFL-Rolling on floor laughing.

It was then VPs turn- the most unusual Delhite, because he genuinely loves ‘Aamchi Mumbai’.He says the proudest day of his life was when he surprised himself by asking the taxiwallah, 'tereko wahan jaane ka hai ki nahi?' Nowadays he goes & proudly talks to the local shopkeeper ishtiyal se 'ke mujhe chuna nahin lagane ka'; which strangely makes him fee no longer an alien in a strange city. But he still is perplexed why the North Indians in the city take umbrage over being called “Bhaiyya”

Indeed the quirkiness of the city gets to everyone, especially if are a ‘sophisticated Delhite’. But as a Mumbaikar will put it “zyada load nahi leneka, shaanti se yahape rehneka”

An Ode to Love

Was listening to this beautiful Punjabi song today. And remembered discussing it with my friend K in a taxi the other day. I have always loved this song (it holds some special memories for me); but then K also drew my attention to another facet of this song, its poignant lyrics. "Everybody loves me for my strengths, but besides you, there is nobody who will accept me with my demons" The purest form of love- Acceptance. A simple thing to say, but the hardest thing to do.

Reminds me of that ancient Persian ode to love:

Even after all this time

The sun never says to the earth, "You owe me."

Look what happens with a Love like that!

—It lights the whole Sky. (Hafiz)

Tere bin sanu soniya,

Koi hor naiya labhna

Jo dave ruh nu sakun

Chukke jo nakhra mera

Apart from you, my love

There is nobody else

Who gives peace to my soul

And bears my arrogance

Ve main sare ghumm ke vekhia

Amrika, Roos, Malaysia

Na kittey vi koi fark si,

Har kise di koi shart si

Koi mangda mera si shama

Koi hunda surat te fida

Koi mangda meri si wafa

Na koi mangda merian bala

Tere bin hor na kise, mangni merian bala

Tere bin hor na kise, karni dhup vich chhan

I have gone & seen it all

America, Russia, Malaysia

there wasn't any difference

as everybody had a condition

Some asked for my time;

Some were fascinated with my face

Some demanded my fidelity

But none who wanted my demons

You are the only one who accepts me with my demons

You are the only one who shades me from the sun

Milya si aaj menu tera ik patra

Likhya si jiste tu sher varey shah da

Parke si osnu hanju ek dulliya

Aankha vich band si, seh raaz ajj khulya

Ki tere bin eh mere hanju kise hor naiyo chumna

Ki tere bin eh mere hanju mitti wich rulhna.

I found today a note of yours

On which you had scribbled a *Varis Shah couplet

Upon reading which a teardrop fell from my eye

And a mystery locked in these eyes was unraveled

That nobody besides you will ever kiss these tears of mine

And if not for you these tears of mine will wither in the dust

Tere bin sanu soniya

Koi hor naiyo labhna ,

Jo dave ruh nu sakun

Chukke jo nakhra mera

(*Varis Shah- 18^th century Punjabi Sufi poet, best known for the seminal ‘Heer Raanjha’)