The magic called Madhuri!

This has been my first season of watching jhalak. i had only heard about the show but never really got around to watching it. This year the promos started when i was watching other programs on Colours and - i thought why not? It's a great show with no drama or politics involved. No endless panning on faces and dramatic background scores. So its pure entertainment with healthy competition.

But the real reason why i watch it and am talking about it is Madhuri Dixit! Even though i wasn’t really fond of her during her heydays, i think watching her now brings back the old-world charm of Bollywood! Probably because no one’s come even close to her in some ways in the decades after she left the industry.

First of all, i now think she deserved to be the Superstar that she was then. In fact she was the last female superstar of Bollywood (after Sridevi). And there’s definitely been no one after her with that trademark 440 watt smile! After her, there are no specific names that come to mind that solely stuck to the no.1 position in the leading lady category. From Kareena, Preity, Rani, Kajol, Aishwarya to the more recent Anushka, Katrina, Sonam and Sonakshi - not one can compare to her unconquered status in the 90’s. In fact, all these ladies share the space so non-exclusively that the term No.1 position is no longer talked about. Because no one has qualified for it in a long time.

i also find that watching Madhuri now brings back the old world charm of the 90’s. Well, it’s not like she looks like a fossil now, but lets face it she belongs to the pre-item number and zero-figure days! That was a time when people shone by the dint of their hard-work. There were no tools of technology to cover their flaws and make them look or sound better. Success came from the quality of work one did and not automatically by flaunting a 6-pack chiseled body (men) or a zero-size figure (women). In fact, even though she didn’t shed as many clothes as heroines do today, we did not miss glimpses of her midriff (that became fashionable later). And the focus stayed on her acting skills making her an indelible presence from Bollywood of the era in our minds. 

One thing that touches a chord with me is the way she’s elegantly dressed every time. Now, some might say that a woman who has 2 kids and is her age has to wear layers to cover her not so perfect areas. That’s not the point. I’ve seldom seen heroines walk into shows in normal-person clothes. It’s mostly teeny-weeny pieces with unnecessary skin show which they feel makes a statement about how bold they are! Thanks to the recent anarkali series that people have started dressing up more decently. So, Madhuri dressing up the way she does actually upholds the simpler times that she comes form. You are in costumes only on the movie sets otherwise, dress up normally!

The same argument about her being old and married could apply to the way she greets most guests on the show. It is generally a handshake or sometimes a cursory hug. i don’t say that hugging anyone you meet along your professional career is wrong. In fact that is the trend today. i can’t count the number of time a particular woman choreographer hugged the contestants for their commendable performances on a dance show. But I haven’t found Madhuri say “I want to give you a hug for this performance” even once except for Darsheel who’s a kid. So that’s tehzeeb  for you which today’s actresses definitely lack!

She is also a true master of her craft! She’s not someone who’s reached the zenith of dancing because she can follow her choreographer’s steps through rigorous practice. She has that craft on a professional level. And yet she is so down to earth that when asked to demonstrate any of her steps, she’s always game.

So, for me, Madhuri is the magic of an era goneby. I don’t think we are going to see that grace, elegance, humility and truth in actresses of today’s times - as a person and as a professional.

Mind your language!

As a language trainer, i think i am more sensitive to the use of language than most other people. And i can’t help but notice how some erroneous usages have become apart of popular language. No one seems to know that it is wrong or care about what is right. i find such incidences amusing and sometimes, irritating, in that order.

One of the most common errors is in the usage of punctuation. Apostrophe and exclamation mark in particular. And i have seen it being wrongly used even by people who you’d think had sound basic schooling. What’s more irksome is that this can totally distort the meaning and the person doing it has no idea! I got a lot of messages on “Happy Friendship’s day”!! Or Like the sentence “The bank’s loan helped us a lot” Oh my God!! (a la Janice!)

An apostrophe shows belonging and adding at the wrong place makes weird things belong to each other! Like “Richard’s book” (the book belong’s to Richard) or “Laurie’s fault” (the blame is pinned on Laurie). Apostrophe is the critical difference between its and it's. Guess it'll make better sense now!

Exclamation marks seems to be in fashion for weird reasons. What with the chat language making them pretty famous. It seems as if when a message with just words looks bare, exclamation is added for company. “Hi!! Just left home! See you in 10 minI!!”. If you were to read this message aloud including the effect the exclamation is supposed to produce, it would sound pretty funny. But it doesn’t really matter because no one pays attention to those little standing lines!

It also doesn’t matter how it is used. i once got an email whose subject line declared a “job opportunity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” i couldn’t see why someone offering a job would be so excited in the subject line itself! i guess because he had no clue about the meaning he was going to convey. Imagine. if. full. stops. were. to. become. fashionable. sometime. in. future.

The exclamation mark is used to show wonder and surprise. And it should be used exactly at places where it makes sense. Like “i had an amazing day!” or the school time grammar classic “Hurray! We won the match” 

Moving on, one question that seems to be a great conversation piece in polite social situations is “Where do you stay?” i really have no problem answering the question. It’s just that i don’t ‘stay’ where i do. i need to correct it while answering that i live in Mumbai. i can confidently say that not one person has ever asked me where i live. Stay and live are two different words with separate usage befitting each. Stay is used for a short duration when you visit a place or temporarily station yourself at a place. Live is used when you are settled in one place and that’s where you live. Like “i live in Mumbai but I stay at hotels when i am traveling”

The next one is beyond me! We were taught in school that a tall person was so because of the height. A variation, of course a wrong one, is developed from the word height - heighted! (you see, the exclamation here expresses my surprise at the existence of such a word) When i first heard it, i thought that it was an error made by the individual speaker. But repeated use of the word by people, who spoke English not too bad, convinced me that the word is current as an accepted one. Even though no such word exists!

i could go on and on since to my grammatically trained ears, a lot of phrases are an anomaly. So it’ll be more better for me to stop here.

I am sure most of you didn’t find anything amiss in the last sentence above! Good luck!

Rains!

Monsoon seems to be finally here in Mumbai. Personally, i don’t see what’s the big deal about monsoon anyway! The only reason I don’t mind rain is because i don’t want my taps to go dry next summer. It's not like i really look forward to it. i also don’t get the whole idea of a romantic walk in the rain with two people huddled under one umbrella. i am pretty sure that cant keep both people dry. Plus your shoes and pants are sure to get wet. i know the Raj-Nargis’ legendary walk in the rain but how many people do you see doing that in real life? Not many! Simply because it is not that fun or romantic actually! Rains are so messy and wet. And in most cities, it is a civic hazard. i had to wade through ankle deep water to make it home from the gym. Finding rickshaws is such a nightmare not to mention the public transport systems become dysfunctional.


i think monsoon is fun for little kids when they are only 2 feet high and about 3 yrs old. This is when you get cute rain coats and cuter baby umbrellas with bunny ears sticking out of them! i saw one such kid dressed in a tiny, pink rain coat that went all the way to the feet. i could only make out that little figure wrapped in pink plastic happily jumping around in the rain! Rain is also fun when you don’t have to worry about traveling to work despite the shower. You can just sit by your window watching the downpour, sipping tea/coffee with the mandatory plate of bhajiya!

It's not just Saif!

There was a national furore over Saif Ali Khan’s boisterous behaviour a couple of months back. The press berated him for being angry and violent. And first of all for having fun noisily. The whole thing apparently started because Saif and his friends were so loud that it interrupted the people at tables around his. i agree that he shouldn’t have gotten violent and the hit the other guy. But being noisy - is it that bad? Aren’t our children left to have fun running around the restaurant making as much noise as they like just so we can have a good time? i can imagine quite a few people righteously shaking their heads in denial because their kids are well mannered!

i feel it’s not just Saif. So we should leave him alone and look around us. You are just as likely to run across noisy kids in any such place. It has nothing to do with being in a local eatery or a classy five star place. Last year, i stepped into a restaurant where the ladies at the table next to where we got seats seemed to have gathered for a kitty party. Thank God, it ended 5 minutes after we sat there. The kids they brought with them were playing a game of running around the pillars trying to catch each other. Going by the ruckus they made, they didn’t seem to mind that it was a restaurant and not a park. They are kids and kids are bound to make noise. But i was totally flabbergasted at the fact that not one of the adults responsible for them tried to control them even once! It was obviously convenient to leave them to entertain themselves no matter how inconvenient it could be for the others.

This was just an average eating joint. i’ve also seen kids running around at a plush 5-star place where you expect the people to be more cultured and understand he purpose of people choosing to be there - a quiet evening together. The whole time we were sitting there, a group of three kids (one of them even had tiny wheels below his canvas shoes!!) literally covered the length and breadth of the restaurant with the guys with wheels chasing around the other kids. And i am sure the parents, who i never got to see, were enjoying their quiet meal at the other corner of the place. And i am guessing that parents and kids have a natural tendency to find each other when it is time to go home at the end of their respective adventures!!

i cant help but draw comparison with the kids in other countries who are taught to sit quietly at the table. I am sure there are brats there too. But they seem to be fewer in number compared to how commonly we come across the opposite here. This could be because the people in general respect the boundaries of social space and I guess kids are taught to do the same.

i just want to wonder aloud - is it really difficult to nurture kids with sensitivity towards others around us? Is is so hard to get them to behave? Do we, as adults, accept this kind of behaviour because this, like everything else, “chalta hai” and who cares? Or is the answer just a shrug with “kids!! You can’t have them stay quiet at will and they will make noise”?

Follow the line, people!

When i shifted to Mumbai, it was pretty amusing to see people follow the queue system diligently as opposed to Delhi where no one bothers. In Mumbai, commuters patiently wait in serpentine queues for buses, taxi, rickshaws and lifts. Even queue up at a wedding to wish the newly wed couple!! Though i found this very funny initially, queuing up makes so much sense to me considering the number of times i have been the victim of queue cutting!

i have had people move ahead of me on several occasions with no regard to the already formed line called a queue. i think its simple social courtesy to acknowledge that someone's been waiting before you arrived and should have the right towards being served first! But surprisingly, no one recognizes that right of others.

It actually has nothing to do with whether a person is educated or not. Once my husband was standing at the billing counter of a movie theater. He was the only one there, so it was pretty evident that he is the one being served. A lady, well dressed and educated-looking, stood parallel to him and passed on a 100 bucks for a can of pepsi. The guy at the counter accepted. When my husband courteously pointed out to her that he was already at the counter, she did not even apologize for for what she did, which wasn’t obviously by mistake! (Since she did look old enough to have grown up kids, my first thought went out for the kind of manners she must have taught them as a parent!!)

Last week, i was at an airline check-in counter in Mumbai. i passed on my ticket copy and id proof to the attendant. i moved a little right to put my baggage on the weighing carousal and another lady coolly took my place in front of the counter. From then on, the attendant had to speak to me past her and pass my id back and the boarding pass while she just moved a few cms to let me take them from the table. Doesn’t that sufficiently indicate that i was being served at the counter and she should not have been standing there in the first place (no pun intended!)?

The worse happens in the ladies loo (in India)! (Yeah, sorry for spilling over the details of what happens in there!!) And it happens so many times that you might think its a norm to queue cut!! The  women who’ll stand at the beginning of the stalls waiting for a vacant one are just a minority. Most will totally ignore a couple of people trying to make a line and walk straight up to the stalls and start trying doors! Hello!!! You think we are standing there to admire the wonder of modern times called a toilet!!! We are here to do our business too and in quite a hurry at times! But how dense can people (yeah, women, in this case) be to not get it!

(i specified India earlier because in other countries the line might extend till outside the door of the toilet, but women will never step beyond the beginning of stalls. Just a respect for the privacy of people in there! And surprisingly Indians, when abroad, seem to gel into the group with no aberrations until they return to their own country!)

Even i was a little lax earlier and didn’t pay too much attention to queues. Some of these experiences have been lessons enough for me not to do something that can be so irritating to others! It seems a petty concern compared to poverty and rape problems but it just shows the level of social manners we have. i think it serious enough that it surprises me that Aamir didn't think of it for one of his episodes!! i know that’s taking it too far but you get the point - follow the queue!!

Saas-Bahu sagas - the true repositories of Indian culture!

It’s sometime after 8pm in the evening. i am engrossed in my favourite saas-bahu saga on TV. The camera a panning alternatively at the faces of saasuma and bahurani, the background score is moving towards a crescendo. The moment is tense as i anxiously wait for what happens next. My husband walks into the room unnoticed and adds his sarcastic comment on the scenario which jolts me back to my drawing room!

At other times in a similar situation, he shrugs dismissively and wonders aloud,  “How do you even watch these programs?” and thus ensues our argument. He’s not interested in ANY of the programs i watch and that’s not fair. Judging any woman who is a fan of saas-bahu serials based on this fact is gross injustice. Women watching them are generally scoffed at as having nothing better to do or a reasonably high IQ. That’s why a lot of people who watch them will not admit the fact!

i don’t understand what is wrong in watching the saas-bahu serials! i am proud of the fact that i follow them diligently. If i can’t watch them live, i painstakingly put the series on record on my Tata Sky Plus (thank god for this great invention of man!) i agree that most programs have a similar look and feel to them but so do most Enid Blyton or Jeffrey Archer books!

i think you need to have exceptional intelligence to peel the onion and appreciate the finer aspects of these programs. i hope after my humble attempt to do so for the reader, you will be able to comprehend how valuable these gems of television actually are!

First of all, these programs are made for the mass consumption of women and women like me who spend loads of time at home. And if we don’t watch them, who else will! Let the men smirk and scoff at our choice of programs but who cares! We do not interrupt when they choose to watch sensational pieces in the garb of news (at dinner time!!!!!). You will soon see what a great idea it is to watch them!

Secondly, these programs are greatly responsible for promoting our national dresses! They have kept sarees and kurtis alive in the public consciousness! Where else can you feast your eyes on such a wholesale parade of Indian attire!! While the real life betis and bahus have shed the 6-yard ensemble, it is these characters who have kept it going. Show me one woman in these shows who isn’t dressed like a true bharatiya naari, pallu dutifully on her head and a mangalsutra running all the way to the tummy! (As if the length of it is directly proportional to how pati vrata she is!!)

i feel the most important contribution of these shows is the portrayal of indian values at their best. When kids of generation Y have only heard stories of so-called joint families, these programs actually depict them in action! All of them have joint families and women of the household cook collectively in the kitchen. (Ask your grand mum and she’ll tell you it was a reality a couple of generations ago!) No matter how opulent the family, it is the bahu raniyan who are seen running around the house fussing over the household chores, just like yesteryears! (No career women here!)

i’ll give you one more reason why saas-bahu shows are the true repositories of Indian culture. They have kept the real status of an indian woman alive! Every woman on the shows is a maa, behan, beti, patni and is never allowed to forget her multiple roles by frequent allusions to it. i mean i am all for the modern career woman but come on we are so much more than just that!! Had it not been for these programs, i would have never realised the host of roles i am!!

Yet another reason why women who watch these shows are better off than those who don’t is these programs are extremely knowledgeable. In these times of kalyug, when women are only career minded, these programs remind them of their real duties! How many times have you heard your in-laws spout sentences like

“Aarti bahu ko ek acchi bahu, yash ki patni aur bachchon ki maa bankar dikhana hoga”
or
“hamare ghar ki bahuein bahar jaakar do paison ke liye naukri nahin kartin”.
Or
“Arre tu us ghar ki beti thi lekin ab tu is ghar ki bahu hai. Tere haath mein is khandaan ki izzat hai”
But these programs have an abundant supply of such advice! i sure feel more responsible as a bahu and patni (and surely later in life an achhi maa also) since i watch them!

So the next time you go bashing about these programs, remember that they are champions of social change and reminders of lost indian values.