Kutte main tera khoon pee jaoonga!

Often, while watching a hindi television serial, I find myself wondering “puhleese! Who talks like that in real life”. Then I have to remind my self that its only a serial and obviously no one talks like that in real life.

So this post is dedicated to certain words/phrases/dialogues that I have repeatedly come across in movies and serials and that I am pretty sure only a half-wit/drama queen will use in real life:

- ma-babuji, humaare liye to aapka ashirwad hi kaafi hai (mom-dad, your blessings are enough for us)

This line is preceded usually by the parents’ effort to gift something material to the children. C’mon now, which one of us will actually NOT take the gift on offer and that too from our parents and instead blurt out the above stupidity!

- iska to main wo hasher karoongi, ki iski saat pushte yaad karengi (I will do so much harm to him/her that his/her next seven generations will remember)

I know we have all had murderous thoughts about somebody or the other atleast once in our lives and we want to do exactly what is written above to the intended target…but have we ever EVER used the lines above aloud to express what we intend to do..EVER

- shaadi aise dhoom dhaam se karenge ki saara shahar dekhta rah jaayega, aakhir “add surname” ke khaandaan ki shaadi hai (we will arrange the marriage with such pomp and show that the entire city will remember, afterall its “add surname” family’s wedding)

The number of times these dialogues are used in the movies/serials, the poor population of the intended cities would have a hard time remembering the numerous weddings that they are supposed to remember for their lifetimes

- us gaadi ka peecha karo (follow that vehicle)

Infact I recently used the line above (asking our driver to follow a friend in another car who was supposed to show us the direction to some place), but only because I have wanted to use this line for almost all my life and never ever got the opportunity

.- dosti ki hai, nibhani to padegi (since we are friends, we will have to work on this friendship)

Or not! Alternatively, you can drop the above-referred friend like a hot potato, rather than living your life with such a “friend” being a pain in the backside, just because you made an error in judgment in the past and decided to befriend him/her

- tumhaare liye ye keval kale moti honge, par mere liye ye mera suhaag hai, meri taakat hai (for you these must be just black pearls, but for me these are my married woman’s marks (??), my strength)

“!!!!!”

The following two phrases are probably not that cheesy, but I find them irresistibly funny

- tumhari itni jurrat (How dare you)

Ofcourse, that’s why I did what I did and what led you to blow your top off and use these lines!

- machuaaro ki basti ( colony of fishermen)

This is seriously funny and I am pretty damn sure that no one in the past decade in a real life conversation would have tried to describe any piece of geography the above words

Hope you survive the week!

I searched for a foreign land, for years and years I roamed

So recently I went to Maldives for a vacation. The island nation was chosen as our vacation destination after much consideration, the key factors being- distance (less than 5 hours of travel, check), weather (more than 18°C, check), expense (will not result in us filing for insolvency and allowing us enough to be able to feed ourselves for the next month, check), clean beaches and water sports (hell yeah! check), not falling geographically in southeast Asia (check) and most importantly – number of Indian vacationers statistically (less than 5, check).

The last factor was important to me not because I have some misplaced pseudo inbred sense of superiority and disdain for vacationers from my own country (whatever that means), but because every previous time that I had gone outside India for a vacation, there have been sooooo many Indians all around, that I never truly felt that I was on an international vacation. Secondly on my last vacation which was a beach-y location, I had very very bad experiences with drunk and lecherous fellow Indian vacationers.

So after braving the very cold climates of Rajasthan and enduring the surprisingly chilly temps of Bombay we packed our bags and were looking forward to the balmy Maldives. When we boarded our flight to Colombo I was full of dread since all around us were typical Indian honeymooners (you know the girl with the chooda in hands and funny fitted jeans/ weird length shorts/ midi skirts) and loud Indian families. I prayed hard and thankfully very few of them boarded the connecting flight to Male. However the flight to Male had its own share of obnoxious passengers (count me out). There were these two huge families, presumably from Delhi, where the aunties were so well turned out, I wanted to throw up. They were wearing absolutely too much bling, talons were predictably varnished in blood red/fuchsia pink, cropped pants, silk stoles, lip liner (!! It was an overnight flight), eyeliner, eye-shadow in place and I even suspect that their hair were blow dried! I was feeling absolutely dowdy next to these shiny and not-a-hair-out-of-place-people. I mean after all I was just dressed for traveling- 3/4^th jeggings, over-sized shirt, spectacles, slightly oily hair, knotted in a bun and the only shiny thing about me was my super shiny T-zone. The uncles left me speechless, one of them was wearing a broad vertical striped blazer (blue and white), with silk lapels and a silk rose (huge) stuck onto the lapel, a hat and shiny white shoes, for chrissake! And these uncles and aunties went on and on about “that edition of Vogue”, “At my golf club”, “Taj Exotica” and blah blah and I had to endure them throughout the flight since they were sitting right behind me.

Thankfully they went off to some other island (housing Taj Exotica I presume!) once we landed at Male. The only other fellow Indians on our island was a very quiet honeymooning couple of the type described above. I was happy and frolicked around the beach wearing whatever I felt like wearing without anyone raising so much as an eyebrow and I tried my hands at all the water sports available, without anyone staring or smirking at my pathetically unsuccessful attempts.

But after 2 days I realized that I was strangely missing the bonhomie and laughter of my fellow Indians that I was so desperately running away from. The only other Indian couple had also left by then. It was strange because we were in the middle of firangi population who hardly ever spoke even English, mostly Europeans, who stuck to themselves, who didn’t laugh loudly, who didn’t people watch, who didn’t stare at you, who didn’t participate in the “treasure hunt” organized by the management of our resort (I was soooo excited about the TH but there were only two couples apart from us who participated), who didn’t dance on the DJ night. And finally on new year’s eve, when the dance floor was open, all these bloody-firangs just sat there in groups sipping there stupid drinks and laughing in that infuriatingly cultured manner! I missed my fellow Indians so sorely, I wished there were loads of Indians who would by now have been half drunk and would have been laughing LOUDLY and doing the jhatkas and matkas and demanding the DJ to play “munni” or “sheila”. If that was the scene then I wouldn’t have stuck to a mild form of head bopping feeling shy of being the only few people on the floor. Instead I would have been half drunk and would have been laughing LOUDLY and doing the jhatkas and matkas and demanding the DJ to play “munni” or “sheila”, in other words, I would have behaved exactly the way the people I was terrified of bumping into on this holiday, would have behaved.

Mental note: kick myself for the misplaced pseudo inbred sense of superiority and disdain for vacationers from my own country (whatever that means).