The times they are a changin'

Not so many years ago, my favourite time of the week used to be Saturday night. Come evening and phone calls would fly back and forth between me and my friends to find the unanimous decision to that all-important question – where do we go today?
Come to think of it, we never asked each other what do we do today. Saturday meant ‘going out’ which meant a trip to the pub and possibly, if we were still standing by the end of it, dinner.
After calling each other frantically for at least three hours and trying to figure out a ‘new’ place to go to, we would invariably land up at Toto’s Garage Pub, our second home in Bandra. We would ask for pitchers of beer and spend the next 20 minutes arguing over ‘what to order.’ Absolutely useless exercise, as we always ordered masala peanuts, golden fried babycorn and mushroom (‘coz H loved mushrooms and P loved babycorn) and the chicken starter.
Sometime post midnight when Toto’s had kicked us out, we would bundle outside and start the ‘where to go’ argument all over again. Because this was Saturday night, because we were such ‘hard working, super busy’ people throughout the weekday and because we were young, poor and living on our own (or had manageable parents), we had to party, even if we were dropping dead. So what if some of us ‘Toto-ed’ on Tuesdays, Thursday and even on Mondays, sometimes?
Anyway, post Toto’s and post arguments, we would again invariably decide on the usual, Club IX on Pali Hill or Madness in Khar. We would dance hysterically (often not realising who we were dancing with -- each other, strange fat sardar or the mirror) and drop dead till we could take it no more or the health conscious people at these places threw us out, whichever was earlier.
Naturally, the evening didn’t end there.
A couple of boys in the gang would more often than not, pick up more bottles from the seedy all nighter Janta Beer Bar at Pali Naka for ‘later’. I never found out when ‘later’ was. We would then set forth in search of sustenance, this time in the form of food, trudge all the way to the bhurjiwala/dosawala at the airport or sometimes even go all the way to the bhurjiwala at Churchgate station.
At around five in the morning, we would get back home, give the building’s sanctimonious morning-walk uncle the glare/fumble with key in lock/wake up sleeping and rarely-there roomie/strip off uncomfortable bits of clothing/say unintelligible things to each other and CRASH.
These Super Saturdays existed only five years ago but for some reason seems ages back. In fact, they seem quite unreal. The participants are still the best of pals, at least the ones not married to each other, are. But now my favourite time of the week is so similar to my mom’s that it’s definitely scary.
I now love my Sunday afternoons. I finish cleaning the house, cook, have a marathon shower, a heavy lunch, curl up on the bed with loads of pillows, books and newspapers, read and doze off.
And bless me, I sound exactly like my mother.

Met two friends yesterday. Separately. One over lunch and one on the long drive back home. KP and Aar, the friends I met are studies in contrast. KP’s moving out of India soon and therefore the hurried lunch and attempted bonding session. She is smart, sexy and a total career girl. She and hubby live on their own. When I met her yesterday, KP was “fielding” a call from her ma-in-law. She finished it, rolled her eyes and informed me that “the woman” just won’t leave her alone.
“Now that we are moving, she wants to throw a dinner for us, with the entire family,” she whined.
Thinking that’s pretty much what my ma-in-law would’ve done too if I were to move out of the city and thinking I could have handled an evening of relatives, I made the mistake of saying, ‘pretty natural yaar, go ahead.’
Of course, you’ll think so, you good bahu, KP smirked.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be blogging about this but yesterday this comment, the good bahu bit, got my goat. Ever since I married P and moved to Delhi to live with his family, I haven’t heard the last of it from some people who thought bindaas me was sacrificing her independence. They were convinced I was going to turn into a ‘salwar kameezed, chai ka tray carrying’ person who would have to say goodbye to her jeans. When I broke the not so spicy news that the dreaded ‘in laws’ were a conservative lot but pretty much happy to let me do my own stuff and treated me exactly like they treated any other child of theirs, it wasn’t treated with much approval. This didn’t lend itself to juicy gossip. Poor girl, must’ve been brainwashed. Must be wanting to keep a happy front. Tch, tch…
KP and I met on and off all these years because before Anita decided to make Delhi her temporary (?) home and made me vvvvvvv happy, KP, and my mad friend B, were the only two old fiends I had here. KP always joked about my ‘good bahu act’ in quite a sarcastic way, especially after I couldn’t stay overnight at her place once because there was a family function to attend the next morning. She was a friend and fun to be with so I didn’t mind it much, until yesterday. Because I cannot see why KP has to brand anyone who doesn’t live life the way she does. KP has known her husband, R, since college. He comes from a middle class background. Her dad is a top-notch corporate boss. R’s first foreign visit was on their honeymoon. She has been travelling forever. Naturally, KP can’t ‘stand’ her very middle class ma-in-law. And ‘won’t be bullied’ by her sis-in-law. Forget keeping in touch with them, she gets quite pissed that despite staying apart and despite his busy schedule, R does call up and visit his mom and sis often. That he doesn’t ever expect, let alone ask her to, is totally lost on her. And when she complains about the little socialising she has to do with the ‘in-laws’, it doesn’t occur to her that she inflicts her parents on her husband often. Of course, her parents are ‘fun’ and it helps that her dad is a member of upscale clubs like India Habitat Centre, Delhi Golf Club and The Gymkhana, where Sundays are always sooo much fun to spend.
Do I sound like I am bitching about someone for no reason? Perhaps I do but I need to get this out. Trust me, I’d nothing to say about KP’s life until yesterday. Until I realised she had been sitting on judgement all the while on me and a couple of other friends, without even knowing things for the way they were. Now that I have moved to my own place, she’s thrilled that I have ‘my space’ at last. I am thrilled too. But KP just won’t believe if I told her I had ‘my space’ earlier as well in the dreaded joint family.
Anyway, post KP, I met Aar in the evening. She lives close to my place, so I dropped her home. Aar is married to a common friend of P and mine. It was a love marriage, totally against her parents’ wishes. The reason? Very different backgrounds, pretty much the same scene as KP’s. But Aar went ahead and made the best of a very challenging situation simply because she loved her guy and yes, the family may have been trying but she wanted to do the best for them as they were important to him. About a year and half back, Aar found her husband was seeing another woman. Things have been downward for her ever since. She’s moved to her parents’ with her little daughter, because of whom she’d earlier taken a sabbatical from work. She has a job and is trying to balance work and being a single parent. She’s also trying to save enough money to get a place of her own and move out, a tough deal. Her husband stands at that supremely convenient zone called ‘dilemma,’ saying the other woman is out of his life and throwing the decision making ball at Aar’s court. ‘What did I do wrong?’ Aar was wondering yesterday and before you think she’s the whimpering, pining type who blames herself at the drop of a hat, nope, she was just wondering why the relationships she’d worked so hard on had to fall flat so soon. She reminded me of KP; so carefree and indifferent in her own world and I thought once again that it isn’t cool to be good or nice. It doesn’t pay probably.

I was reading Man’s World and came across this quote from Mahima Chaudhry.

Reporter: We definitely think you have the hottest cleavage in Bollywood...
Mahima: "You know what, Suniel Shetty actually told me that to my face. I grinned and said, 'I thought you didn’t notice.' To which he replied, 'Oh No, we can tell when it’s natural.' I think it’s quite flattering to hear this and I am glad I have at least one thing I can boast of. Anything to distract attention from my face, because I have no confidence about that.”

Now if she has really said that to the reporter, must say the girl has a sense of humour and loads of chutzpah. Bollywood heroines usually come in two types. One does the ice maiden act a la Aishwarya and the other is all over your face, or Delhi/Bombay Times like Ms Sherawat.

To a question like that Aishwarya would’ve probably said (with a toss of L’Oreal hair and pursed lips): “Well…I think people need to focus more on serious issues like my work and stop spending their valuable time on my not so important assets. Gawd!”
(Rolls eyes heavenwards, perfectly)

And a Mallika Sherawat would’ve probably given a mini monologue on how oppressed girls from Haryana do not get noticed unless they have a hot cleavage. And Preeti Jain (or is she Pretti Jain now?) of Madhur Bhandarkur's shame...oops fame...would’ve sued the reporter for sexual harassment.

That’s why I loved Mahima’s quote. She knows where it’s at. Can laugh about her face. And thanks to her, we now know that Suniel Shetty is a natural-boob spotter.

It's absolutely gorgeous weather...rains, clouds and a slight chill in the air. Makes me feel like it's almost winter!

If there's one thing that's good about moving from Bombay to Delhi, it's the possibility of having more than one season in the year. I love winters and one reason I loved living in Pune was that it had winter, unlike Bombay which is uniformly humid throughout.

Winter means opening the balcony door at seven in the morning and getting the fog on your face, cosy quilts and blanket that brighten up the room, gajar ka halwa, hot showers, reading in the sun, outdoor lunches, long drives, warm jackets, oversized pullovers and steaming mugs of hot chocolate, coffee or soup.

It also means the end of the year and, in case of my family, a whole lot of birthdays and a trip home to meet the parents.

Can't wait.

Bride Shide Hai Rabba!

After sitting through Bride & Prejudice, I'm pretty sure Gurinder Chadha, flush with the success of Bend It Like Beckham, woke up one morning and said, 'hmmm...now that they like me in India, let me take a shot at making a pure Yash Chopra/Karan Johar style Bollywood movie!'
But why dear Chadhaji, did you have to drag Jane Austen into this? Couldn't you have made a song and dance without naming Pride & Prejudice as the inspiration? Without calling the characters Darcy, Wickham and Georgina and changing Bennet to Bakshi? Couldn't you have reduced the number of songs, especially the first one where NRI Naveen Andrews breaks into instant Karan Johar type jhatkas with Aishwarya and Namrata?
Chadhaji must've thought this would work. After all, the NRI + mera Punjab mahan + mustard fields formula always works in Bollywood, doesn't it? But this seems alien territory for Gurinder Chadha, who excelled so brilliantly, and got the essence of each character right in the closer-to-her-zone Bend It Like Beckham. Or Bhaji On The Beach for that matter.
Bride...does have its funny moments, like the Cobra dance by one of the Bakshi girls and in the trophy wife hunter Mr Kohli. But it falls badly flat, not just as a movie inspired by a classic but also as a pure Bollywood shaadi shindig. This could've been a fabulously funny movie on its own, with the characters less wooden, their relationships a little more etched out. And it didn't have to 'inspired.'
Aside: Aishwarya Rai has found her perfect filmi match in Martin Henderson. He's equally perfect looking and equally wooden. Touche
Another aside: And now Mira Nair has added an item number to 'Vanity Fair.' Should be thrilled at the Bollywoodisation of English Literature. But does it work?

Random...

I want to work for Conde Nast Traveller. Apart from obvious reasons like getting to travel around the world free and in utter luxury (they only cover top 10 resorts and things like that), the other is the sense of humour. They have an Editor At Large and if that wasn’t enough, an Acting Word Of Mouth Editor. Imagine, handing people your business card!

More on my travel related aspirations. Saw with bitter regret that the daughter of some rich industrialist has brought Time Out to Mumbai. It was originally my idea though Rich Daughter doesn’t know of it and therefore shall forgive her. Loved Time Out when I landed in London with loads of time, very little money and a desire to see EVERYTHING. Ditched Lonely Planet after fainting at the price and bought Time Out. It came with many free things like entrance to London Dungeon (why on earth!) if you cut out one corner of the mag and took it to them, canal ride for one through Camden Lock and other such highly dispensable things. But with info on free entrance days in museums and the tip about the invaluable Bus No 13 that passes all the ‘sights’, it was a fabulous guide (apart from Anita’s long email with a list of Must Do’s). Naturally, I wanted to get it here and start Time Out Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and so on but girl with munny and business skills has beaten me to it. Shucks!

Old friend B and Me went for fishy lunch and tried to figure out how to revive our sagging spirits and careers. We thought of the Writing A Book route but since that requires imagination and contacts and both of us don’t have much of these, we came up with the Hook Rich Daddy route. Find a Readymade Rich Dad who’ll sponsor all your whims (papa, I want to get Vogue to India. NOW!), get into tie up with phoren publication house and get desirable fashion/lifestyle/travel mag to India. With us as editors (at large) of course. This is sure way to get rich and make your whole family famous by devoting the last few pages to parties and splashing pictures of self, dad, mom and rest of family. Only problem in plan: Lack of willing Readymade Rich Dads.
Result of lunch: Not so sagging spirits. Not because of our big idea but because of the nice Goan fish curry and Indonesian Prawn Sambal we had. If you are in Lodhi Market, go to Ploof. It’s got a strange name but it’s also got good fish!

Also recently opened. The Oxford Cha Bar in Statesman House, Barakhamba Road. Since the Barista in CP has become intolerable thanks to teenagers who mistake it for their college canteen and I was never a Coffee Day fan, this is a great addition. Best part is you can take books and mags you want to flip through but don’t particularly want to buy (OK. Can’t afford) on your table while you sip through your cup of chai. Reminds me of the time when Crossword in Mumbai opened its Café. The fact that you could actually sit there, read through a book and pay only for your coffee was the most thrilling part. Made my friend's dad wonder: Aajkal yeng bachchalog ko time waste karne ke liye kitna achcha jagah milta hai!'