Those Golden Days

In tough days, the best thing to do is to remember those good old days. I always felt that college will be more fun than school but it wasn’t. My best year at school was class 8 inspite of it being not too great on professional front. One could discuss everything with friends without the danger of them using to to their advantage which often happens now.

It was before the advent of special ability sections in class 9 which was nothing but a system of leaving 54 hungry lions/lionesses in a cage without food to see who survives. Class 9 also marked the transtition into adulthood with all those silly girl-boy affairs doing the rounds and professional competitiveness taking a backseat.

At that time, the only proof of masculinity one could give was to stand in the first row of the field without any fear for those Maram- Pitti games with those hard flash ball which had a knack of hitting people where it hurts the most (you surely have got my point).

The best part was nicknames for all, the students, teachers, principal, sweepers etc.

I was Kallu/kallu mama.
Saurabh –Chai [Damn good at enacting how to make a pan to make Parandeep cry]
Vikramjeet- Pyaaj [The biggest maverick of all]
Gaurav- Gadhu
Ashish- Mallu
Anshul- Poori [Used to make 3D tea packets with nothing but a sheet of paper
to tease Saurabh]
Parandeep- Paanwala
Aditya- Sheru
Manik- Guru ghantal
Sidharth- Gori/gaon ki chori/chakki (still considers me responsible and curses me for this)
Hema –cycle
Jyoti- Thomson TV
Japneet- JP aunty
Megha Adalakha- 50 Hazar
Karan- Laali
Rahul – Anandi bai (named after Premchand’s mother)
Usha Chawla maam : Usha Rani (13 slaps to Sachneen on first day in school, 15 to Anik)

I apologise to any friends whose nicknames I might not have mentioned here. Having considerable influence on the teachers and some smart planning, I tried my best not to let this fun end inspite of protests from the Moral Brigade just because some stud boys were brought to the advent of crying because of this.
Its strange that I don’t know what I did yesterday but remember these as if written at the back of my hand.

To end it here is a conversation between 2 of my good friends hell bent at keeping their head high in this verbal fight

Deepak Sethi to Siddharth: Siddharth gori (none apart from his family can pronounce it correctly as Gawri) behen ki l**hi.

Siddharth: Deepak Sethi;

Teri barah beti [12 daughters];

Mang le katora mang le roti.

Indian Cinema on Upswing

Like fast bowlers hunt in pairs, I watch movies in pairs. Last time it was Forrest Gump and 300 in 1 night and this time not exactly together but two very good movies in close interval which I guess haven’t got their recognition. Indian cinema has surely changed for good from the days of Mithun beating 20 people at a time (I guess he still does this in some obscure movies and Sunny Deol doesn’t mind doing this in mainstream ones).

The first was ‘Oye lucky lucky oye’. Full of fun and laughter, my compilation of its dialogues has crossed a page. It starts with the hero Abhay Deol coming from a poor background but with big dreams in his eyes. He grows from a petty thief and does all his thefts with finesse. The confidence, technique and the skill he shows is simply awesome. Best thing was that not many jokes were repeats from other movies. No doubt script is king. Even in adversity, he doesn’t let go of his humour. There is a scene in which he is going out of the hotel he has invested in but not credited for; he still bothers to tell another customer, “Khana bekar hai, kofte hard hain”.

Paresh Rawal has three roles in the movie but sadly none with any sort of comic timing as in the movie too he is credited with narrating jokes jo ki zyaada hasne wale nahin the. A must watch for all. Some good dialogues are listed below.

1. Itne ande pad rahe hain, omlette tera baap banayega?
2. Tenti pakad ke uthalenge.
3. Aaja button daba jaa. Kabuchi Kabuchi. (Only the scene can describe what this means)/
4. Kya main ladki ke ghar kuttiya leke jaunga? (To tackle the dog at the entrance)
5. Tante chill ho gaye, aaj to kutte ne darling bana lena tha.
6. Mere bache ki poonch ke neeche fode hain.
7. Aaj to 200 jaat mil ke marenge.

Now comes “Dasvidaniya”. I say who needs SRK when people like Vinay Pathak can do a marvelous job. But still many may say that SRK is SRK so movies like OSO which had no content does better and feels that RNBJ too will; the actress there too is around 24 years younger to SRK. (Deepika was 21). Dasvidaniya is kind off inspired by The Bucket List starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Vinay is more off a loser who isn’t much happy with his life as he couldn’t achieve any of his dreams. Then he gets to know of his imminent death through cancer in 3 months (Indian Cinema waits for a better incurable disease to be used in scripts). His alter ego prods him to take matter in his own hands and to fulfill his dreams. So he buys a car, goes for a foreign trip, confesses love to hischildhood crush Neha Dhupia (now married), meets his childhood best friend Rajat Kapoor whose wife feels that he has come just to avail free treatment as he is a doc. Vinay hears this, leaves the place and then tries to jump off a bridge but then a Russian girl stops him from jumping with 2 tight slaps, with Vinay saying, “Kya zindagi hai, chain se marne bhi nahin dete”. He falls in love with her (another of his objective in the list) soon comes back to India and reconciles with his estranged bro and requests him to take care of their mom. He soon dies completing his list of wishes with prearranged obituary on front page of the newspaper and gives gifts to all those around him cause he never got any in his life. Never have I got so emotional in a movie without any such senti dialogue, but just with the thought of being in his place with those sort of things going around him made me feel so. Watching such movies those take a toll and also teaches us to enjoy life. But I guess I am not in a mood to learn.

Anyways, coming back to my ways, next movie will be Bhojpuri blockbuster Deshdrohi whose actor cum producer Kamaal R. Khan (jaise SRK waise KRK) boasts that he lost 10 crores from Maharashtra territory as the movie was banned there.