Scenes From A Marriage

I think only a misandric person could have formulated the customs in a South Indian marriage. How else can you explain the dhaare ceremony where the bride will be in a beautiful saree and the groom in a ridiculously translucent white kachche? The bride gets her hair beautifully styled and the groom gets a mysore peta to cover his receding hairline. Utmost attention is given to the bride's face for her to look divine, while all that the groom gets is two drishti bottu (to ward off the evil eye) placed with such precision that guarantees maximum possible pathetic looks! Trust me, every man finds his woman absolutely stunning in the wedding saree. But, I am yet to meet a woman who thought her husband looked mind blowing in that white kachche. Not just that, I spent the last week before marriage running from store to store searching for that elusive white underwear (you guessed it right, to go along with the translucent white kachche) while the wife (the then fiance) was shopping for her jewelry and taking tips from parlor aunty on how to look even more stunning.

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Feminists who scream hoarse about patriarchy and all that crap have no clue how men are actually discriminated in the society. Men just do the "I am the boss" act, but its the women who pull all the strings. Women in south india have this habit of gifting each other "blouse piece" during any religious or social occasion. Men usually get nothing, the lucky ones at the most get a kerchief. If you are in the closest family circles, the women get nice sarees when all you get is a lousy "shirt piece" (yes, the white shirt with blue stripes or brown checks) Researches have shown that the gift shirt pieces get redistributed 5 times more than gifted sarees.

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The most used phrase on the reception stage by friends/relatives is "Please bring him/her home sometime". Apart from "Happy married life" of course. I have already promised 1583 people that we, the newly wed couple would "definitely" visit their home. Even if we visit one family every weekend, I will almost be 60 by the time I fulfill my promise. By then, we will not be a newly wed couple though.

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"Remember me?" is the most tricky question, often asked by that over enthusiastic uncle on stage when you are already on the verge of collapsing due to dehydration and bright video recorder lights. "Hmm, yes uncle" and a sheepish smile works most of the times, while your mind is busy guessing if he is a distant cousin of dad, an old colleague of mom or someone who was supposed to be going to the wedding in the adjacent choultry. The even-more-enthusiastic uncles dont stop there, they come up with a "Tell me who I am". Seeing the name written on the gift cover from the corner of your eye helps sometimes (It can backfire too, if he is giving the gift on behalf of his aged father who could not attend the wedding) "I know uncle, but I dont know exactly how to tell it" is the safest, most innocent-looking and honest-but-not-rude answer.

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Sanskrit was my first language in high school and college. I understand it quite decently. But, I have no idea what all things I have promised to the poojari during the marriage ceremony. Just like knowing english does not ensure full understanding of what you have agreed upon while signing up your home loan papers. You just have to do it blindly. And trust your lucky stars!

Bells They Are A Ringin'

Pauline Thomason once said "Love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener". But, even the pre-marriage phase also can open your eyes to so many things. And if you are as general-knowledge-deficient as me, every moment is a new discovery. If you have a sense of humor, each discovery can be complete fun.

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Just before the saree shopping, mom asked about my fiancee - "AvLu work sarees wear maadthaLa?"
I understood it as "work 'ge' sarees" and told - "No mom, she generally wears jeans or salwars to work"
Mom was least surprised by the all too familiar stupidity of her son and said - "Work sarees do not mean the sarees which you wear to work. It means sarees that involve lot of handiwork like embroidery, mirror work etc."

***

Shopping for sarees will introduce you to so many new things - crape silk, tusser silk, raw silk, butta, mango border, peacock border, temple border, self, contrast, double color - the sheer magnitude of terminologies can cause a data overflow error! The shopkeeper comes up with different adjectives for even the most pathetic sarees, a skill that can put HRs to shame. Self border rich pallu, contrast saree grand look, big border traditional wear, lateshht dejign fancy saree - believe me, getting this knowledge imparted can be a very humbling experience.

***

The interesting thing is that while most saree shop keepers are such great ego boosters, the shopkeepers of men's dresses are in complete contrast (Yes, its a contrast, not a self :D)
You go to buy a formal shirt and the one Hritik is wearing in the ad looks very good. You ask the shopkeeper if he has the same piece and try it on. It looks quite ridiculous on you. You ask the shopkeeper if its a different shade or something. The shopkeeper would say its the exact same piece with a big "Thats Hritik, this is you" smile.

You look at some other trousers and ask your fiancee - "Will this look good on me?" and the enthusiastic shopkeeper jumps in the middle - "Sir, you go for that one - that one would look good on you. Since you are not tall sir, this will not suit you..."

You go for the suit trial and ask the tailor - "Is this okay? Or has this become a little big?", the tailor who has no idea of your beaten-up morale tells "This is perfect saar. Since you dont have broad shoulders, it looks like a little big thats all. Otherwise its just perfect"

Thats when I realized why men and women differ so much in their shopping frequencies. Women go to shopping to boost their egos. Men avoid it to protect their already low self-esteem from hitting rock bottom.

***

The other thing that strikes you at this stage is the importance of gold in human lives. Mythologies are full of gold related stories. "Hiranya garbha" or the golden womb from which the universe is formed, bears an uncanny resemblance to the big bang theory. Hiranyakashyapu and Hiranyaksha were the earliest of demons - kind of Bhimas and Chemmanurs of demonosphere. The earliest known story about gold was from Ramayana. One idyllic afternoon, Sita spotted a golden colored deer in the forest and suddenly realized that she had not shopped for gold from the last 10 days or so. When Rama was back from his jungle jogging, Sita looked at Ram in a way that makes men ask "What do you want honey?". Sita in a very husky voice said - "I want gold dear". Rama, who had studied mostly in bhojpuri medium schools understood it as "I want gold deer" and killed the golden deer Mareecha. This enraged Ravana, who then decided to kidnap Sita. The rest, as they say, is mythology.

The anthropologists also believe that the discovery of gold changed the equations in human society. In the very early hunter-gatherer societies, the persons who were strong, who could fight with animals, who could run for miles were considered to be very useful in the tribe. So the strong, big, fat, stout, sturdy people were well respected. The big, strong, sturdy guys got all the great girls (which means big, strong, sturdy girls) in the tribe. The thin, slim, sleek, delicate types were constantly ridiculed and were subjected to social bullying all the time. "Thin is in" is believed by many anthropologists to be the first ever hate slogan - to force the thin, slim types not to come out of caves. Within a few hundred years, gold was discovered and the big, strong, sturdy guys started losing out to the thin, slim guys who had found gold. But, this created a peculiar situation. The gold discovered was still not enough for the big, well built girls of the tribe. Jean Pierre, the first known statistician cum fashionista discovered that the thinner the girls are, the lesser the gold required and he manipulated the century-old hate slogan "Thin is in" into a very popular fashion statement. Humans, even today, have not discovered enough gold that meets the demand - and the fashionistas have maintained the balance with the still popular "Thin is in"!

***

Marriage is not without its share of compromises. If you take my example, I always wanted to marry on a wednesday in some city far far away from Bangalore. Sounds weird? There is an interesting logic to that. If you are marrying on a wednesday outside Bangalore, only those people who are very close to you will attend your wedding - applying leave and taking the trouble of traveling to a different city. Its a very effective method of avoiding unwanted acquaintances who might attend your wedding for the only reason that its anyway a holiday and the choultry is very near to their homes! But, I have compromised - for getting married in Bangalore on a sunday. Yes, this sunday! :)

When I Almost Became A Movie Star

It was late night. Surprisingly, the first auto I stopped agreed to come from Rajajinagar to BTM. The driver looked like Vijay of the movie "Duniya". He had long hair, wore a gaudy shirt and sported a 92.7 FM logo on his faded cap. I dont initiate conversations with auto drivers in general. But, when they start an interesting conversation, I know how to keep it going.

He was silent for almost 15 minutes.
"Saar, I will get the gas filled for the auto. Jusht 2 minutes", he said as he took the deviation off the main road. I remembered my dad warning me just an hour back that Bangalore is no longer safe and to be careful while going home.
"It wont take long, right?", I tried not to sound too worried and suspicious.
"Jusht 2 minutes saar. We can join the main road directly from there itself. See, here is my driver identity. I did not get time to stick it on to my seat", he seemed to sense my uneasiness.
"No thats fine, I just meant to ask if it wont take too long. I had to go to office early tomorrow, thats why I asked", I smile sheepishly.
"What are you working as?", he asks while taking a weird U-turn near the petrol bunk that seemed to defy all laws of physics.
"I am a software engineer", I blurt out.
"You also do computer graphics? If you know anybody who can do movie posters, tell me. There is an opening in Gandhinagara (Kannada movie industry) they pay 8000 saar", he tells me as he fills the gas into his auto. "My auto was missing from one month saar. Got it just today"
"Oh, what happened?", I knew I was getting into a long conversation zone. He got off the petrol bunk and joined the main road.
"I am actually Vinod Rajkumar's car driver saar". The way he legitimizes Vinod Raj's surname amuses me. "I had rented the auto to a friend. He owed me lot of money and also escaped with my auto. I spent so much money in finding it. When I found him, his wife begged me not to beat him up. Even Vinod anna and amma (Leelavathi, Vinod Raj's mom - he calls her amma) told me to forgive him and forget about that money. Bere yaar hathra aadroo avnu hinge maadidre majestic li hoge ne"

The way he said "hoge" makes me uncomfortable. [For those who are not familiar with Kannada or this slang, "hoge" means smoke - which is symbolic of post death ritual. The sheer audacity and casual carelessness towards death gives "hoge" that chilling effect]

"Vinod anna said that shooting will start next month, and I have to help them in farming also. Amma cooks nice food to us all the time. Vinod anna lost almost one crore ten lakhs when he made 'Shukra'. Even 'Inthi Ninna Preethiya' did not yield much money. So next month we are starting 'Govindu, Karnataka Nindhu'"
"Did you not enter into the movie industry?", I ask him.
"I have acted in 'Shukra' saar. I was the villain who raped the heroine and killed the inspector. And then Vinod anna comes back and takes revenge. Nowadays, anybody who has made some money in real estate business can cast his son as a hero. After 'Mungaru Male' and 'Duniya' were hits, everyone wants to act as a hero. 'Nanda Nanditha' was good, the girl has acted well, even the hero was okay. 'One Two Three' was nice saar. Full comedy. 'Om shanti Om' was good too, did you watch it?"
"I saw 'Om Shanti Om'. You watch lot of movies, is it?
"Tamil, telugu, hindi - we watch all and remake them into Kannada. Who writes original stories in Kannada today saar? And did you know, even the hindi people copy from english movies?"

As we were still half way to BTM, I decide to ask him about the actors. Movie trivia flows effortlessly as he speaks.
"Ganesh, saar, has same type of dialogues and mannerisms in all movies, he will fade away. And he will be replaced by 'Nanda Nanditha' hero. As far as I have heard, Shivrajkumar is the most decent in his family. Puneet earns one and half crores per film saar, but no commissions, no rollcall. Nenapirali Prem, 'Sainika' hero, 'Shishya' hero - they are all big rowdies saar. Darshan is good, he has struggled a lot to reach where he is today. He used to do up-and-down from Mysore in lorries so that he can save 20 rupees. My friend who is a lorry cleaner has told me this. But, Darshan is not proud, very down to earth. And Vishnuvardhan - he is almost God saar. His heart is purer than Rajkumar's. He has got homes built for all the people working for him, and he treats all the people - from his car driver to bathroom cleaner - equally".
As I keep wondering if someone needs to be employed full time as a bathroom cleaner, he abruptly stops the auto at a junction near BTM. "If you take a left from here and then first right, the third house is Darshan's"

"Why do Kannada movies get their heroines from Bombay?", I ask him, half expecting to hear stories about Kannada heroines not 'compromising' to 'expose' when a 'role demands'!
"Kannada heroines ge kobbu saar. This 'Cheluvina Chittara' heroine got 25 lakhs for that movie. Before that, she had got only 10000 for 'Shishya'. Now, she is demanding 1.5 crores saar, Narayan has filed a court case also. Kobbu saar, kobbu. But, heroines from Bombay, they are inquisitive about our industry and want to prove something.", he said dashing all my hopes of some juicy gossip.

As he takes the last turn towards my home, he makes me an offer - "People in our industry loot a lot for giving an acting chance. If you want to act, dont go anywhere. Come to our office, give 3 photos of yours, mention my name on the backside. I will get you a chance, no money. I am the one who processes all these things in Vinod anna's office"

As I get down from the auto, I imagine myself in a movie awards function, dedicating my first award to this driver.
When you are not talented enough or ambitious enough, you should at least be brave enough.

I sit here and blog, while I could have been applying make up in the van or watching that driver get beaten up yet again trying to rape Vinod anna's onscreen sister!

PJ Proverbs

Disclaimer: Good understanding of Hindi, English, Kannada is recommended. And absolute tolerance towards non-sense is mandatory.

I was just thinking about how some proverbs have multiple meanings when you interpret it using multiple languages.

There is a proverb in Kannada called "Hani hani kooDidare haLLa" (Same meaning as "little drops of water makes a mighty ocean")
Hani = Drop; haLLa = Water body
Now, "hani" sounds exactly like "honey". "Honey" is a term used to address a very lovable female (or male depending on your gender and orientation!) Now "Honey honey kooDidare" means adding many such lovable females to your list - which means having multiple affairs. "haLLa" can also be interpreted as in "haLLa hidyadu" which means "to be in ruins". So, this proverb also means that multiple affairs are not advisable.

Have you noticed that people from different countries have different body shapes? To be more specific, butt size varies from one race to the other. The asians (excluding the Indians) have the smallest butt sizes - you can almost call them non-existent! Next comes the Indians, followed by the Caucasians. Africans undoubtedly have the biggest butt sizes. There is a beautiful hindi proverb that sums it all up:
"Jaisa des waisa base" ;)

Tagged!

Parijata has tagged me to list five posts of mine with the following subjects:

Family I have rarely written about my family. The only one I could find was the visit to Chamundi hills with my brother.

Friends There are very few posts I have written about my friends too :( Now I feel like I am too self-obsessed than what I originally thought myself to be. The only post I could find was one of the conversations I had with my friend Bata.

Myself My blog is too full of myself, but there are only few posts that I love when I read it again at a later date. My first earthquake was definitely one of them. The history behind my name is another. And how can I forget Crime Diary that made me quite famous :)

My love If "My love" means the usual "My love", I have not blogged about that ;) But, let me interpret this in a generic way as something I love - and yes, you guessed it right, it has to be movies! I like India's contribution to world cinema and of course my blog post on Woody Allen (no, I tell it for one last time - he is not my alter ego ;)) I thought Jodha Akbar was quite funny too.

Anything I like For some reason, I like this attempt at story writing.

Now I tag Bikerdude, Madhuri, Soumia, Venu, Krupa.

Jodha Akbar

Most of the people unnecessarily hype up Akbar's religious tolerance. Not that he was not a religiously tolerant man, but what annoys me is that his other great qualities are completely overlooked in this frenzy. Akbar was not only one of the earliest kings who started the trend of inter-religious marriages, but also perhaps the first king to prove that inter-lingual marriages can work.

Who was 'that' wife, you might be wondering right? Its the same Jodha, the rajput princess! "What? we saw the movie and both of them seemed to speak Hindi and as far as we remember we did not see any subtitles when either of them spoke. Are you sure?" If these are the questions you are having, step back for a minute and observe what you had overlooked. Jodha spoke 'shuddh hindi' with an overdose of sanskrit, a language that would have become extinct, if not for those uninhabitable suburbs of Barjatya's Sundarnagar. Akbar spoke his hindi with heavy influences of urdu, arabic and persian. To call both of them as the same language is as ignorant as calling all the people living down south as 'madrasis', just because their languages 'sound' very similar.

A typical conversation between Jodhaa and Akbar generally went like this:
Akbar: "Mashallah, kya khoobi, kitna noor hai aapke soorat mein"
Jodha: "Hey Bhagwan, aap bhi toh itne sundar aur prakashmaan hai, mukh thoda lamba hai, paranthu kya thejaswi dikthe hain aap"
Akbar: "Hum aap se nikaah karne ki khwahish rakthe hain. Aap ki intezaar-e-raazi mein bechain hai hum"
Jodha: "Mai bhi aap se vivaah karne ke liye uthsuk hoon, paranthoo...ek vichaar hai jo aapko krodhith banaa saktha hain, paranthoo..."
Akbar: "Lekin? Be-shakkh aap uska zikr kar sakthe hain. Aap sirf mallika-e-hindustan hee nahin aap hamari kaabil-e-maaf-o-ghussa bhi hain..."
Jodha: "Mujhe Bhaarath ki raani hone ki aasha toh hain, par main Kishan bhagwan ki bhakth hoon aur..."
Akbar: "Bismillah, hum prasann huye...uff, oh no, hum khush huye...khuda ki jo bhi kadr karthe hai woh hameh pasand hai, chaahe naam jo bhi ho..."
Jodha: "Paranthoo...hamari saas, I mean aapki ammi jaan ko dukkh ho saktha hai na?"
Akbar: "Naheen, ammi jaan jaanthi hain ki mazhab mazhab hai. Fateh fateh hai. Pyaar pyaar hai. Aur war war hai"
Jodha: "Hum bhi isme vishwas rakthe hain. Ki dharm aur prem ka aakraman ya yuddh ke saath koyi sambandh nahin hona chahiye"
Akbar: "Subhanalllah. Yaa parwardegaar. Yaa Khwaja. Hum elaan-e-muhabbat karthe hain. Jab Jodha Akbar hai raazi toh kya karega Baazi" (both smile at the then futuristic joke on Ashutosh)
Jodha: "Hum bhi aap se bahut prem karthe hain, haay bhagwaan" (gets shy for a moment, forgetting that she is a rajput)
Akbar: "Yeh daastaan-e-ishq-o-muhabbat duniya yaad rakhegi"
Jodha: "Jab tak rahega Taare Zameen Par, tab tak rahega Jodha Akbar" (gives the expression of wow-did-not-realize-it-rhymes)

Akbar and Jodha showed that language is not a barrier and communication can happen through food, jewelry and not to forget through bodies (now dont get dirty ideas, I was talking about sword flighting! :D)

Today, in a country like India where the number of major languages exceeds the number of religions, anyone who follows Akbar-Jodha's example will have at least a hundred times more prospects at marriage than others. And every time a "Religion no bar, language no bar" in a matrimonial site brings a smile on your face, dont forget to tell "Jodha ki Jai, Akbar Zindaabad"!

Post Death Paranoia

What happens after a man dies?

Is there a God waiting to settle things? Is there another world? An afterlife?
Does Chitragupta use the latest version of Tally for his accounting purposes? Or do dead people get bored to death waiting in never ending queues for their turns to come up as he flips through the pages of his dusty old books?
Would St.Peter's job be outsourced to some other Indian saint from a tier 2 city? Will the Indian saint have lost it to a mexican or a philipino by the time you reach there?
Do the jehadis get their share of 72 virgins? Or will they be given a raw deal citing the dwindling male-to-female ratio as the reason?

No, these are not the exact questions I am having. I am thinking more on the lines of what happens to the online world of a person after he dies.

Have you ever wondered what will happen to the email account of a person once he dies? What happens to their blog? Their flickr account? Their adsense? I have no clue why, but this question has been bothering me from quite a long time. All these are not very old technologies and considering that the adoption is higher among the younger age group, people might not have faced these situations often. But these would be serious questions a couple of decades from now.

Just imagine for a moment that you have an online friend about whom you dont know a great deal about. You dont know where exactly they live, what exactly they do and you dont have common friends, but you are constantly 'in touch' with each other maintaining a great deal of anonymity and discussing only about 'common interests'. If they die, there is no way on earth you could know that. Of course the email account will be disabled due to inactivity, but how do you differentiate between the inactive mailbox of a living person and that of a dead person? :) Same thing with blogs. How do you differentiate a blog that has been inactive for a while and a dead person's blog? Would people in general prefer somebody else to inherit their blogs or would they want their blog to end along with them? Interesting question actually!

If people want their online world to end along with them, there needs to be some sort of notification system - something like a "Out of office reply". You could actually configure your message what you want to convey to people and store it in your mailbox or your blog settings. And only your lawyer will have the access key which triggers sending this message. Once this system matures, there will be provisions for custom messages for individuals or groups.
A generic message could read something like this:
"Hey, I am dead now. Sorry for not responding to your mail. For any further queries, contact my family at 1-545-..."
A message to an online girlfriend can go like this:
"Honey, I am dead now. Apologies for not buying you the diamond necklace I promised. Dont keep in touch"
A slightly complex message could be configured for a particular friend and only for forwarded messages:
"Yeah bastard you were right. I ignored all those 'send it to 20 people or else bad luck will haunt you' forward and I am dead now. Send this message to 20 alive people you know"
so on and so forth.

Blogs can have a 'last post' option, where you can save what you want to say to your readers if it were to be your last post. And of course, the account will be locked once that post is triggered. The blog search results will display the alive people blogs and dead people blogs in different colors. As you have guessed correctly, the dead people blogs will not have RSS subscription :D

All those people who want their legacy to continue will make 'wills' to make sure that who will inherit what. A lawyer reading it out will be something like "The son will get the blog account and all the ad revenue generated from that. The daughter will have access to flickr pro account and youtube account and the son cannot share her flickr account to upload the pictures for his blog posts. The grandson will get the Rapidshare premium account and if it is noticed that he is using it to upload porn, it will be given to charity. The wife gets nothing as she does not use the computer at all"

Come 2025, the possibilities are immense! :)