The Sad Gasp

The bright part of Indian cinema today is, it is looking so real. In recent times with Talvar, Masaan, or Piku the happy gasp index has been pretty high. Gasping, not because of what’s happening to the characters in the story but gasping because Hindi cinema is finding a new high in the excellence of creativity on all fronts with the directors and actors leading the march.

Neerja, is a biographical account of the posthumously decorated young lady purser, of a PAN AM flight from Bombay to New York via Karachi, who outwitted successfully a motley group of hijackers. With a single stroke of presence of mind she ensured that the story for the hijackers ended where it began. Happening in an era when digital social media had to yet happen, her glory got only a minor mention then. It is to the credit of the makers and a regular advertisement director Ram Madhvani to research, delve and create an almost true to life Biopic.  There is ample evidence of genuine intentions from the first frame on in its sincerity and is very real.

The title role is played from the heart by Sonam.  My personal belief is that the accolades for a good performance are 70% of the director and 30% of the actor. That explains for me why an actor performs with varying degrees in the different roles in different movies. Besides that the beautiful and detailed characterization by the writers helps willing artistes to understand and sculpt themselves to the director’s vision. Sonam does this extremely effectively in the scenes before she gets on board the tragic flight. The scenes with the family including her mother (Shabana Azmi – she deserves a separate para) and her loving father (played with simplistic excellence by Yogendra) are marvelously touching, applause worthy and real.  I keep repeating real because you forget that Sonam is really into the character that you forget the actress. Watch as she walks in from work to a party at home and interacts with the children.

The parallel track of Neerja’s life with the antagonists preparing for their evil act is extremely well edited without ever irritating the viewers.  The movie creates quite a few characters who cannot be dismissed. Shekhar Ravjiani playing the boyfriend, who hopes to marry her while she hesitates due to memories of an earlier broken marriage, is very watchable with  a pleasant screen presence. He underplays and sticks to the background never expecting any big lines. I think he has made a good start and can be seen stepping into roles that was earlier in the arena of Shekhar Kapur.

Shabana Azmi is the biggest gasp factor. It is ironical but actually a treat to watch her execute the role of the loving mother who refuses to believe that fate can traverse the path of her little girl, wrongly. Small touches like switching on the heater before waking up Neerja , giving her those extra five minutes of sleep like every mother does, cuddling her . Wow. Those scenes just stands out of the whole movie for me and flashes the academic advertising brilliance of the director. Watch also as she takes an  emotional tennis ball and shoves it down your throat for a full 7 minutes in the climax, a scene which could have dangerously become ordinary.

Again the hijackers do not look very convincing with the writers focusing only on one of the hijackers Jim Sharbh managing to look menacing and giving a peek into possible frustration and confused ideologies of the perpetrators. He demands our complete attention and seems to have worked real hard on his character.

People overwhelmed with emotions may disagree, but I thought Sonam performed brilliantly as long as  she was in the scenes with her family, a clear indicator of what being in the company of outstanding actors can do to you.  She settles down into a regular execution mode in the hijack scenes with some flashes of comfortable brilliance. She is uncomfortable though in the scene where the hijacker makes her sing songs of her favorite idol Rajesh Khanna. The scene I doubt really happened and unnecessarily confuses the viewers into a tragicomic scene. Another time the director mistimes his actor is when the granny beckons the hijackers to kill her. Slightly inappropriate emotions one thought.

The camera work is brilliant throughout carrying the viewers throughout the narrow fuselage of the aircraft with acrobatic ease except in the beginning few scenes when the camerawork is unnecessarily unsteady almost feeling like a commercial from the Gold Spot days.

A few probable glitches though to be validated are aspects like whether making a V sign during pictures  was that prevalent, modern looking air conditioners seem to dot many of  the apartments  in a housing complex, a color TV at home, a Gypsy ( maybe out just that year?), the interiors of the aircraft looking modern, the door to the cockpit locked in times when it was believed to be quite accessible to the hostesses, guests at the airport wearing what looked like access cards, the large structural pillars of a modern airport, wheeled suitcases , announcements on pushback seats etc.

Art wise what stands out as exceedingly well done are the airport offices at Karachi airport, place where the hijackers assemble their ware, gate crashing through the airport simple approach in those days, the HT offices of Neerja’s father with their type writers.

Diminishing thoughts of how the film could have been even better is the best way to watch a wonderful tribute to the young lady who gave up her life so the rest could live. I think Atul, Shanti and Ram should be applauded for bringing a glorious closure to a hero who would have been otherwise lost in the events of history. Watch it not because it is a great film but it is a good film about a great person made from the heart. It does make you sadly gasp but leaves you having wanted more of the story of the young hero. A certain watch.

3 ½ *

The tightrope code

I almost sobbed. I am a big time fan of this company's products. Today they stand apparently, walking a tightrope, as they couch their consumer's (their ( consumer's) nobility or lack of it notwithstanding) with a safety sheath from the prying eyes of a state authority that nudges them on grounds of national security to break open this cordon of safety.

But no,. our Knight in shining armour rises like David to face Goliath, the state and refuses to budge exposing themselves to possible retribution. They can accede a digital backdoor to a suspect's phone but they are worried about possible misuse.

And all this in a country whose citizens never deter from thumping their chest with pride. Something does not add up.

Maybe it does. A win win for everyone.

The first thing that beats me, is that scientific tools on earth are actually so digitally timid or inadequate that the science can make things travel Mars and come back beating many complex odds, but excuse me cannot hack a digital equipment with state authority?

And the aggrieved company is so protective towards its consumers that there could never have been a more powerful marketing story than this about how secure their product is. If they have to open the back gates as they call it, millions of consumers in various countries in the east which are now eye popping markets will be open to having their data available for someone's research convenience of course.

And if they do not the, state looks oh so democratic and with freedom that is to be envied.

Wonder what the illuminary whose brilliance founded the equipment in the first place could have had to say if he were here today?

Racy Colors - Color Me Rich By Mohan Deep

If ever there was a moment in the future that I had to go off because of boredom, off books too big to finish, I would rush back to Color Me Rich to rid myself of that feeling.  Though it is an inappropriate comparison I could not help feeling that I was back to reading my favorite James Hadley Chases in my younger days. There was a hurried speed in the events. Extremely pacy, almost breathless the narration rarely stops to give the characters any lazy space. Either they do their bit or else they are out of the frame.

Mohandeep one of the most colourful of writers from his days in journalism and controversial writing history thereafter, presents an original unpredictable setting for a story that begins with an artist and a painter Akash Saigal being cleared of any suspicion in the mysterious death of his wife artist and socialite Zenobia.  Just a couple of pages into the plot and the author is already telling you about the core of the plot and how the central characters who are etched out before you will end up. You think it’s pretty gutsy to let go of the heart of the plot but the author has a lot of surprises up his sleeve.

The story makes you gasp as it was just recently where a similar circumstance played out in real life with an artist being questioned by the law for being allegedly implicit in the murder of his famous other half. There are no surprises then that the author gets popped with the question of whether it was inspired or was there a coincidence. Weird because the book released almost at the same time of the incident and besides crediting Mohan’s intuitive sense of story telling there can be nothing to it. But the curiosity should help the sales

Mohan is quite at ease describing the protagonist’s younger days at the art school and scripts the atmosphere quite realistically. He does have an innate view on the conversations in the canteen of a drawing school. He creates interesting characters in the other love interest Suma as also the main protagonist’s support system Pran.

Mohan almost etches out characters like he were writing for a film script. So it is not surprising that people see a movie evolving out of this book.

What I would have asked for more was if he had fleshed out the narration more detailed even if irritatingly so. It was like I was on a local train with multiple trains to change one after the other from different platforms. A run read. But this is also the strength of the book as it never bores you.

Anyone picking up this book for a movie will undoubtedly see drama in between many interludes ready to be enacted.

I would call it a Karjat CST book. You would not want to get off till you finish it.  Try it!

Flood Line

The severe floods in a capital city of a southern state in India recently were the point of discussion. Being away from home it is natural for us to seek out as much information as one can by traversing across different mediums ranging from news channels, online newspapers and social networks. Personally having been in the center of quite some ferocious floods in the commercial capital of the country, I know it can be unnerving, extremely troubling and also a wakeup call personally and for the governance as well. My own personal encounter with deep waters was in Mumbai. I was staying in those days in Chembur. I travelled to Nashik on the weekends to visit my parents and one Sunday I got back by the Kasara local amidst extremely heavy rain, the local delayed by almost 4 hours trundled into Kurla station at 3am. Stepping out I gasped as I saw the waist high water all around glistening in the few lights that seemed to remain lit. It seemed like the sea water had taken over the city. Suffice it to say it can be very unnerving to stand on the steps of a structure surrounded 360deg  by water. Those days with adrenaline running high, it was the dominant fight hormone and not the flight hormone which seemed to take precedence. Today I would probably call it foolish bravado. I walked almost 8 kms to my home in waist high dark waters, trying and trusting the central divider holding the lampposts along the road, as an indicator. With not a soul on the road and passing trucks creating mini Tsunamis and me holding my bag high above my head, it was a crash course in military training. I survived that and also remember  relishing my mother’s home cooked parathas and peanut sauce untouched by the Mumbai waters. Braved and saw many floods after that but not as unnerving as this particular one, capable of giving goosebumps even today.

Floods have turned worse over the years and it has less to do with unnatural rains and more to do with reduction of surface area for water to get absorbed and run away. When we appreciate the neat well laid out cement paths in the thousands of modern housing societies that have sprung up neck to neck in any piece of real estate that appears to be staring emptily at the sky, one could do well to note that it is going to collect water which needs to run off. Just look up at the Sq. kms of clouds spread in height and surface area. With sufficient combination of humidity and gravity they need to come down and cover similar surface area. If it comes down in a hurry it will need to work out its way across the stern and unfriendly cement blocks that are unwilling to accept it. If the clouds are in a hurry to let go there may not be enough time for the water to work its way out of  the new narrow maze created to lead it to the water bodies. So then there is the back water pool that gets created similar to a dam. Instead of a vertical wall what we have done is created a combination of horizontal wall and vertical walls for it to navigate. The sea has its own challenges probably. ‘Look guys hang on, I cannot accommodate the bergs coming downin the Artic taking over my volume and then you come down in a hurry. Let’s flood the land for now ‘

Nothing will change for now except for some serious debates, angry fist shaking at the civic bodies, calling the builders as corrupt leeches, and abusing politicians. All well-deserved undoubtedly. But it is unlikely to change much. The greed is too strong. Why blame only these people? Each one in the world today is bubbling with greed. Not just the politicians. Every one of us working in any field is greedy to fulfil their materialistic needs, be it personal devices or homes. So it is we who finally feed into this frenzy of building which in turn leads to a corrupted morass and nexus of the aspirational and the opportunistic where ethics struggles to find a foothold. We are all equally responsible. So will we stop our own quest? We won’t. Will they stop because of niggly little bothers like floods. They won’t. Everybody is too busy satisfying their wealth lust before they die having accumulated enough for no one in particular! But that is another story.

Social networks are the first to spring to attention for any activity. More than the emotional slant towards an event it is about who is the first to share the morbid news, the first to gather as shocking data as possible with pictures and the first to make comments on the general socio- politico impact of the situation. Everyone has a voice these days. Rather words these days that flows incessantly across tireless bands of the spectrum. If nothing interesting is happening we can even fish out old shocking videos of disasters and circulate them as those representing the latest one in the news. Should shock in short. Sadistic pleasure unknowingly cloaked under pretentious concern abounds.  The organizations of politicians too are under so much pressure that they even start ‘photo shopping’ visits by heads of states to indicate the proximity to the scene of the disaster. Not the fault of the leader but of his PR team for sure.

Then the news channels. When their reporters are not busy trying to find the deepest end of the water to stand in and speak with Asthmatic fits, they also try to annoy poor residents trying to find their own peace and pressurize them to give equally annoying answers to how they are feeling. With a whole city cut off from electricity for their own safety, why would a woman on the street standing in waist high wter, complaining about how the authorities are not doing their job by not providing electricity, will make news is amazing.  Then there are local Charlie’s, hoodlums in their lanes trying to politicize the situation by organizing their own protests and blocking an already bothered population from moving around.

The most curious part of this whole grave situation in a key metro of the country was the lack of relevance for the mainstream media. For starters they seemed to be not sure if probably the city really belonged to the country. For anything beyond a thousand kilometers of the capital is probably beyond their definition of national and newsworthy. A city marooned and turned into an island with 250 deaths may not be exciting enough for them to get the required turn of heads to the TV. So they reluctantly had intermittent reports of the continuing cms of rain that offloaded from the skies. They got excited when a key government reporting channel did the Photoshop. Here was a chance for them to batter the image of the country and in return get the required TRPs.  And once that wore out they returned to their more exciting news of odd and even number vehicle road laws. Wow that must be really exciting.  One thing has happened for sure and for good. The mainstream media had lost their authenticity by biased attacks on the new government and now with the lack of attention to a national disaster have lost whatever little support they had.

The floods must have affected not just the physical property of the people but their psyche as well. It will take some time for them to come to terms that this was not only unusual but very dangerous and that it could happen again. Will this shock be enough for them to demand strong actions to environmentally protect the city? Will other cities sit up and take notice? Will people stop blaming weather systems for their agonies and look at the damage they have themselves caused? Only time will tell. 

Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo par Main tho Takh gayo !

It is just so difficult to be unkind to someone who must be such a sweet person in real life. A person who has made sweet mushy movies like HAHK, MPK, HSSH that we loved unequivocally.   We left our bitterness at home and relished the sweet dish served by this angel on the celluloid, amazed that this goodness if it really existed was heavenly. And then we went back to our not so sweet homes.

So why are we trying to be unkind. Well not exactly unkind. Just struggling to grope for words that can describe vacuous puerile and imbecile plots as vacuous puerile and imbecile. Oops!  It was not supposed to come out like that!

The music that was released before was tantalizing. The teasers seemed to have everything right. The helicopter shots which is being reinvented with different speeds and angles from Mughal E Azam days. The symmetric choreography of thousands of dancers. And no they did not seem morphed.  Sonam Kapoor doing a Madhuri from HAHK resting like a mermaid in a subdued beautiful Blue. Salman looking all gooey eyed explicitly portraying infinite goodness different from the aggressive intimidation he reserves for a reality show. There were huge Havelis encompassing the 70mm landscape. The teasers were alright. And with those delightful songs the formula seemed set. Till of course we land up for the actual show.

Now living in a city where movies do release earlier can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on whether you want to be the first to enjoy good creative work or be the first to suffer the ignominy of relentless exhibition of lack of imagination on the screen. Sadly the second one defines every moment of this movie and it is indeed tragic coming as it does from the noble stable of Rajshris

You give out a big sigh as a RamLeela song unfolds for the umpteenth time in recent movies. You wonder if the Bajrangi song has been superimposed with Salman and Tikka et al. A commoner (Salman) in Ayodhya going by the name of Dilwale Prem stars in folk tale enactment in a small village. He is enamored by a princess (Sonam) who does charity work that needs collection of funds in 1 kg tin cans. She is engaged to a prince (Guess who again) who meets with a deadly twist even before he is introduced properly. The prince and the commoner have things in common including looks.

The pauper is made to stand in for the missing prince by the loyalist Dewan (Anupam Kher) till they are able to stave off coups by the prince’s evil brother ( Neil Nitin Mukesh)  and safeguard the kingdom.  There are two step sisters too who live in an adjoining mini palace and live their life cutting vegetables for their lunch or animatedly washing clothes with a washing beetle ( yes they still have them) perhaps to depict the economic status of the deprived princesses. The stand in Proxy prince has to correct the relationships,  provide the comic relief and of course woo the princess he so admires.

That is a lot of work and one can imagine that it must have required a lot of mathematical formulas to put all the characters together and intertwine their situations suitably.  True but no one seems to make an effort. So much attention seems to have gone into the ornate sets and elaborate accumulation of dancers making synchronized moves that they did not have space even to keep the injured characters in a proper hospital but rather depend on a an Aladdin type cave where the rocks moves at the entrance and finally the plot went down the hill along with a horse drawn carriage.

IPhone / Notebooks freely dot the landscape where kings and queens still exist, where the subjects seem to have no other work than to dance for their royalty. Mercedes cars  run shoulder to shoulder with horse drawn carriages. Roads on the hills look down steep cliffs and horses decide to fly off them for no reason. Water abounds in an area which seems to be situated in a desert zone judging from the types of palaces that abound.

Thirty minutes into the movie and I had already given up trying to make sense of anything.  There is no clarity on time era. Ludicrous settings make the story extremely implausible. Not sure if it is a period film or a modern day tale.

One imagines that the director is fighting an internal battle with himself. He must have started to make a mushy period film with kings and princesses. The pressure of the box office must have made him include some unusual violence. Salman is barely held back in his act as he seems ready to go into his Dabang act. Half way he indeed finds a plot convenience with the princess and asks her if they can quit being royalty just giving them the right excuse to launch into masti songs acts.

Perhaps unbeknownst to Sooraj Barjatya there are instances of cleavage show creeping in. Which is a shocker for his brand of movies. There are suggestive references in the song and scenes made but quickly withdrawn before they enter into the ribald zone.

To be kind let us say it is a plotless, timeless film with no pretentions of being entertaining.

Salman’s sincerity which helps ludicrous scenes look a bit entertaining, Anupam Kher’s tried and tested act, interestingly Swara Bhaskar’s act which stands out despite the insignificant act length and most importantly excellent music from Himesh are the saving graces of the movie.

Himesh should be complimented for providing roti to his reality show contestants who do a great job in “ Jalte Diya” and “ Prem leela”. Shaan sounds good despite trying to mimic Udit and Kumar Sanu in the nice sounding “Aaj Unse Milne hain”. Halo RE seems to be trying to get into the Bhansali arena and Tod Tadaiya trying to provide a Dabang opportunity to Salman.

One curious aspect of the movie is the act of Sonam. She looks isolated and seems to amuse herself with her own act , sharing no chemistry with the hero besotted. She reminds you of Rekha in many ways and is hopelessly miscast.

Earnest request  to Sooraj – we love your movies the way they are. This world requires some affection and sweetness. But don’t start mixing up and serving a concoction of Bajrangi Bhaijaan and HAHK. Just does not work.

The city I live in apparently sliced off a few minutes from the 180 minutes. Wonder how tough it must be for the people enduring the entire length. 

Main tho Thak gayo

**

Plagued by a word

I was very annoyed. My shirts and pants were not being laundered well. I had walked into office with a wrinkled shirt and people who never ever wished me a ‘Good morning’ had suddenly gone “ Hey Happy Wrinkles”. My hands first rushed to my face to check for bodily wrinkles creeping in with age before sighing with relief at the more synthetic reference being made.

The laundry man stood at my door step.

‘ Look Dhobi Saab I pay you well and wait patiently for the delivery and you cannot just get me wrinkled pants and shirts “ I said my face reasonably grim

“ Saab, you seem to have become intolerant nowadays”  the Dhobi replied looking quite grim himself.

“ What ?” Wondering if I had heard right

“ Intolerant Saab. Highly intolerant.” The dhobi reiterated.

“ Wow ‘ I said forgetting my wrinkles for the moment “ Hi Fi English ! Wow “

“ What do you mean Saab by Wow and Hi Fi. Are you making some discriminatory statement ?” He said turning red

”Uh …err I am sorry If I sounded like that, but did you just say intolerant and discriminatory. I am happily surprised to see your language getting more …err stronger”

“ Sir I think you really are now annoying me and if you continue to do so I will have to return the electric razor you gave me 3 years back as a Diwali gift’

‘ Oh no no , sorry if I offended you, but why return the razor, you must have used it right, it must be not even working now, I mean sorry …what I meant was you don’t need to get too offended  just by some casual remarks”

The dhobi looked satisfied and calm. I was worried about looking for another Dhobi in the 10Sqkm area.

“ And you can continue to give me wrinkled shirts ok I don’t mind and no need to return my gifts, even the 1000bucks I gave you along with the razor”

The dhobi looked a bit nervous.

“Ok sir got to go . Have deliveries in many other houses. Will get late and people are getting intolerant these days “

I shut the door and returned to the living room muttering under my breath about the changing times. 

The wife was around and noted my disconcert.

“Dear what’s up. What’s bothering you?”

“ I just don’t understand the attitude of these laundry professionals. I need to feel sorry to point out 

mistakes in their job which they should be doing efficiently anyway”

“Dear don’t you think you have become a tad bit intolerant ?”

“What …!” That word again. What was it like? A word plague ?

I walked away in a huff and then spied into my son’s room.  The laptop was open.

“ You up to games again ?” I huffed and then puffed

“ Dad, yes. Finished my homework and was chilling”

“ But you have exams tomorrow and how dare you play games ?”

“ Dad but I am ready and the psychologist Nancy says it is good to play a game or watch a movie before the exams to relax the nerves”

“ Just beat it . And shut that game down and open your text books” I screamed

“ Uh ! You seem to have become really intolerant dad “

I did not stand around. I was perhaps dreaming . The word was chasing me around. Was it my imagination.

“ Dad” I jerked back to reality

“ Here take this” my son said handing out his old PS2 “ I don’t want it anymore . I am returning it “

“ What ??? . Anyway you don’t use it after you got the PS4 . So what’s this returning business?”

“ I don’t know dad, I am sad and want to return something which is not useful to me anymore . So thought of returning that to you”

The logic did not make any sense but then nothing seemed to on this day.

Back jumping into my favorite bean bag I switched on the TV. My favorite debate called the  “Newsecond “ was to start.

I was startled again when a jingle on TV chimed

“This programme is brought to you by Intolerant soap, it just does not tolerate dirt. You will love it”

This was really a bad dream for sure. The anchor had come on with his opening line now.

“ Welcome to Newsecond and we bring you this debate on whether we really have become an Intolerant society”

I just buried my head in the newspaper. I was tired and emotionally drained.

Switched off the TV and logged on to the internet on my IPad.

Search for Intolerant, I typed on google

The result thrown up

“Originated 1765, Missing since October

2015”

Feeling left out ..

‘What’s up’ my wife asked, looking at me through the corner of her eye while she remained fixated on the TV screen with some character staring frozen and wide eyed at her. I did not answer immediately. I too was fixated by the person on the TV who seemed to have popping eyeballs , nostrils flaring and eyebrows arching to touch the hairline. There was volcanic music in the background so I knew the person on the TV set was not frozen. And not giving up too easily either. It was like a game of who blinks first. But here it seemed that this character was a hands down winner. I looked at the whites and wondered if they used some good eye cleanser which also compressed arteries to make the blood capillaries appear less vivid and less red. But then I am digressing. I allow the character on the TV to bleed his eyes out and turn back to the wife.

“What’s up?” she repeated arching her eyebrows now.

Worried that I was just about to get into a ‘who blinks first session” in real life I answered

‘Well nothing really, you fasting?’

‘What?? ‘She asked, her eyebrows really arching now and those two question marks there to emphasize the height of the arch.

‘You know like fasting the whole day, the moon etc.?’ I asked weakly not sure if I was paraphrasing well

‘What are you talking about?’ She now reached out for the remote and put the guy on the telly on real freeze. Perhaps she did not want to miss out on any of the artistry on display.

‘You know some guys at the office were chatting at the coffee machine about having to leave early for the day due to some moon and fast issues’

‘Hey wait, you tell me you never have time to go to the coffee machine?’ She asks her eyebrows still doing their mountain act

‘Look you are digressing’, I said, ’I passed the coffee machine and there was this group of four guys who were animatedly comparing notes on how to get back home so that they wives could see them and then have their first meal of the day. And you know what they looked like a cult by themselves and I was feeling left out’

‘What?’ She asked her face puzzled looking completely flummoxed apparently either with my expectation or with the fact that I had spent time at the coffee machine when I had been earlier claiming I never spent time there or perhaps the fact that I was looking like a wimp sharing girly stories with her

‘From when have you started believing in festivities anyway? That is a festivity in another part of our country and in the south we never celebrate and we never did in our so many years of marriage. Why today? The other day I had to drag you to do some basic Ganesh puja and you had this urgent telecon to attend to“ Her voice went vacillating from extreme annoyance to the vulnerable

“Well Uh, I, uh, surely you care about me don’t you? I mean like pray for my life, my welfare etc. “I asked weakly

She sprung up from the sofa now looking worried reaching out for my forehead

“You are ok dear? Are you experiencing fever of any kind? Sit down will you. Let me get you some water”

“No, I am fine just wanted to know you care for my welfare and are praying for my longevity?” I said recovering the strength in my voice and pushing her hand away, offended

“Dear, tell me the truth.Have you been sneaking behind my back and watching my TV soaps?” She asked genuinely concerned

“ Of Course not ,‘ I replied horrified that she could even think that, ‘ and I am sure these guys at the office preening of the festivity and feeling part of a core group, do not either. But their wives seem to really have cracked the code for displaying their affection to them”

Her expression changed from disappointment to flummox to now a bit angry. Her eyebrows were doing their arch act again but this time the combination with flared nostrils was a bit disturbing and unsettling.

‘Remember how in Khabhi Khushi Khabhi Ghum Kajol did that for SRK? “

She was now looking worried sure that she had lost her husband’s sanity

‘You know my friend Veena Gupta she also has never celebrated these days but thanks to the soaps and the depiction in the movies her husband too has been asking her that .Look here dear, everyone has a different way of celebrating their joys of life and in the south we have a different way. If you want we can go and look at the moon even now if that helps. But with the haze even that is not possible!! “

“Hey it’s not just about the moon” I said angrily

“Then? “

“It’s about the feeling that you care for my longevity that you care for my welfare, even Subu’s, Ganya's and Hegde’s wives were doing it and they are also from the south. So then? “I challenged back

She let out a sigh!

“Come on dear out with it, what is bothering you? Surely it cannot be this festivity. We never spoke about this in years of marriage and now this? What is it? What is bothering you?”

“ Ahem well you see I have been getting all these updates on What’s App and FB with pictures posted by my friends and their wives with so many glorious statuses and just look at the likes and gasps they are eliciting. Don’t you think I also aspire for that?”

She could not believe her ears apparently as she went silent for a minute and then she silently gets up walks over gets her phone and proceeds to take a selfie with us together.

“Smile “She orders angrily

I grin as hard as I can. She grins as hard as she can.

She posts it on our common groups

“Thrilled to be spending a lovely evening with the darling of my life. Waited all day for him. Prayed for his long life. Looking forward to a rocking evening”

“Ok? “ She asked like asking a small child who had just been handed over his candy

“ You did not pout”, I say weakly again but sense this is too risky,”Yeah it’s fine”

I started to look appeased. Strong enough to be able to stand among my peers on the groups with sufficient evidence that we had a rocking life full of festivities and endorsed by the world. The Love You all’s and mwahs started pouring in

My heart also seemed to be beating better.