Across the Universe

Ever thought, that the idea of a parallel universe may not be all that strange? That perhaps a parallel universe isn't as mystic and unreachable as we really think it is ... that maybe the time-space continuum doesn't require any special breach to be accessible and manipulated ... that perhaps, we each visit our own little parallel universes very regularly without realising it?

What if our dreams are not the concoctions that our brain rustles up in collaboration with our subconscious? What if the things that we consider dreams are actually our forays into a parallel universe ... a universe where things are more in our control, where happiness is easily attainable, where we meet our past and are able to deal with it, where one meets the people one fantasises about meeting, one senses (touches, smells, tastes, hears, feels) the things one has wished for and they are more tangible ... where one can escape the harsher bits that are nightmares by simply jumping out of said parallel universe? What if we really and truly live there ... in our dreams, through our dreams, while dreaming?



And just as I was getting used to blogger's block I get hit on the head with a post. I'm done interrupting, back to the entertaining movie programming.

Nero: Kahin Deep Jale Kahin Dil

Blogger's block and Life continue to plague me so I have nothing to post. Catty has kindly come to my rescue though and provided me much fodder, while she's still on a roll at her own space. Gotta appreciate that! Now, I don't know how many of you followed the lengthy discussion that happened between Amey, Catty and I over an actual movie called Nero, but having now appointed ourselves director, writer/lyricist and producer, respectively, here's presenting Catty's very vivid script... in parts.

A beautiful land, very far away is ruled by a just and kind king who is obsessed with things Roman . All is well in the land except that the king can't have children. His evil half-brother karan singh (Arbaaz Khan) seeks to usurp the throne, and live happily ever after with his harem. Karan Singh has instructed the queen's maid to add 'the pill' to the queen's tea every morning. However, the maid's loyalty gets the better of her and eventually, Nero (Abhay Deol) is conceived.

On Nero's birth, the king speaks to the court wizard and they conjure up 200 new coins to symbolise the new era. The coins bear a picture of the king and queen with the royal heir on one side and the royal seal on the other. These coins are magical, as the royal wizard has charmed them. Every year, till Nero turns 20, 10 new coins would become visible in the chest. These coins would bestow upon the ruler (presumably Nero) one super power per year. The loophole is that if in the wrong hands, the superpowers could be used adversely - to plunder and destroy. And only the royal heir could stop the mayhem.

The wizard then puts the coins in a box and curses one of his ichchadhaari naags that he will guard the coins for Nero. Only the royal heir with the "one" coin would be allowed by the snake to touch the chest and take the coins. Once nero is over 20, and has taken all the coins out, he would be able to free the snake and return him to the state of his choice by gifting him the coin he wore around his neck. He then puts one coin, strung on a gold chain, around Nero's neck.

Karan Singh, however, overhears the first part of this "private" discussion and decides to get rid of Nero. He throws a party for nero's first birthday, aboard a ship. (cue Sunny paaji doing a "Lucky Kabootar")

While the guests are busy watching the item number, Karan Singh pays one of the maids to throw Nero aboard. He is unaware of the coin around baby nero's neck. The king suffers a stroke and dies. The queen, heartbroken, withdraws to a dilapidated kaali ma temple and swears that she will not speak unless reunited with her son. People eventually forget about her.

... Yeh jaanne ke liye ki aage kya hota hai, dekhte rahiye, Nero: Kahin Deep Jale Kahin Dil!

If the last post brought up bad feelings of any sort in you, the time to turn away is NOW

So, Medusa and her lover fought. And as women are wont to do, she railed and wailed and was furious ("Nothing's wrong! FINE! You don't understand me!").


Did she then give her lover the death-stare and break into a rendition of "Patthar ke sanam"?







Yes yes, I know. Long time indeed. No, I did not spend four weeks in hibernation only to come up with another awful pun. It just sort of came to me and I thought it too good to waste :D Back into my unintended hideout cave, see y'all back here when I do. Will continue to pop up at your respective spaces however.

*disappears in a flash of lightning after getting clobbered on the head by a huge stash of books, struck by an especially large one titled 'Life'*

Nero

Okay so maybe he didn't really fiddle while Rome burned.



But who's to say he did not sing "Is diye sang jal raha mera Rome Rome Rome"?





I know. Utterly dreadful. But this is partly why I blog :D

What a tangled web we weave...

Gather around kids, I'm going to tell you a story today (yes, another story).

So in this story are five people. Two guys and three girls. Let's call the girls Mini, Skinny and Bonny. And let's call the guys Thor and Arthur.

Mini, Skinny, Bonny, Thor and Arthur all knew each other (even if just vaguely) since they all went to the same school.

Mini, Skinny and Bonny all lived somewhat near each other. Mini had hung out with Bonny on several occasions and was quite friendly with Skinny whenever she saw her in school.

Thor and Arthur had always been good friends.

And the girls all were friends with the guys in some way or the other.

A few years later:

Mini and Thor are friends and talk to each other infrequently about inane things.

Thor crushed on Bonny but nothing came of it and they've both moved on.

Bonny and Skinny are the best of friends, as of years.

But neither Bonny nor Skinny talk to Mini. In fact, when Bonny was visiting the place Mini lived in and a crush-crushed Thor requested that she extend a friendly hand to a lost-in-new-city Bonny and Mini did so, Bonny wouldn't acknowledge it.

Bonny was showing her solidarity with Skinny because Mini had dared come between Skinny and Arthur at one point. Never mind the fact that Skinny had been engaged then and was basically going to screw up things royally for herself, Arthur and the invisible boyfriend. Never mind at all the fact that Mini only stepped in trying to protect Arthur from said screw-up without any intention of bagging him herself.

Arthur is happily partnered. He hasn't been in touch with Thor for months. In fact, it would be safe to say that he has been totally incommunicado for a while with everyone. Mini is a special case though.

Arthur has cut contact with her entirely.

"You cow!" "Actually, I'm eight of them"

When I sailed to Kiniwata, an island in the Pacific, I took along a notebook. After I got back it was filled with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costumes. But the only note that still interests me is the one that says: “Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father.” And I don’t need to have it in writing. I’m reminded of it every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn. I want to say to them, “You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife.”

Johnny Lingo wasn’t exactly his name. But that’s what Shenkin, the manager of the guest house on Kiniwata called him. Shenkin was from Chicago and had a habit of Americanizing the names of the islanders. But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections. If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo could put me up. If I wanted to fish, he could show me where the biting was best. If it was pearls I sought, he would bring me the best buys. The people of Kiniwata all spoke highly of Johnny Lingo. Yet when they spoke they smiled, and the smiles were slightly mocking.

“Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining,” advised Shenkin. “Johnny knows how to make a deal.”

“Johnny Lingo!” A boy seated nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter.

“What goes on?” I demanded. “Everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Let me in on the Joke.”

“Oh the people love to laugh,” Shenkin said, shrugging. “Johnny’s the brightest, the strongest young man in the islands. And for his age, the richest.”

“But if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?”

“Only one thing. Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!”

I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four of five a highly satisfactory one.

“Good Lord!” I said, “Eight cows! She must have beauty that takes your breath away.”

“She’s not ugly,” he conceded, and smiled a little. “But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands.”

“But then he got eight cows for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?”

“Never been paid before.”

“Yet you call Johnny’s wife plain?”

“I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow.”

“Well, I said, “I guess there’s no accounting for love.”

“True enough,” agreed the man. “And that’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest trader in the islands was bested by dull old Sam Karoo.”

“But how?”

“No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’”

“Eight cows,” I murmured. “I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo.”

I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked “You come here from Kiniwata?”

“Yes.”

“They speak of me on that island?”

“They say there’s nothing I might want that you can’t help me get.”

He smiled gently. “My wife is from Kiniwata.”

“Yes, I know.”

“They speak of her.”

“A little.”

“What do they say.”

“Why, just….” The question caught me off balance. “They told me you were married at festival time.”

“Nothing more?” The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more.

“They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows.” I paused. “They wonder why.”

“They ask that?” His eyes lighted with pleasure. “Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?”

I nodded.

“And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too.” His chest expanded with satisfaction. “Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita.”

So that’s the answer, I thought: vanity.

And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of here eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right.

I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me. “You admire her?” he murmured.

“She…she’s glorious. But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata,” I said.

“There’s only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.”

“She doesn’t. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo.”

“You think eight cows were too many?” A smile slid over his lips.

“No. But how can she be so different?”

“Do you ever think,” he asked, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? An then later, when the women talk, the boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita.”

“Then you did this just to make your wife happy?”

“I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things happen inside, things happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks of herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman in the islands.”

“Then you wanted–”

“I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman.”

“But–” I was close to understanding.

“But,” he finished softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.”

I read this story a long time ago in Reader's Digest and loved it to bits. Even today, Johhny Lingo beats any of the other heroes I've read about hands down.

Googling for the story today, I found that a short film had been made too ... not too much to talk about apropos the picture quality and definitely doesn't compare to the prose, worth a watch still... there's even a very recent version made!

It almost makes me wish that system was still around. Hell, in keeping with my 'men must be wooed too' pratigya I'd pay eight cows for the man I loved!!!

Although, if the experience of one gentleman were anything to go by, it's not a good idea. He says:

I called my wife an eight cow woman and.. no dinner.

What do you say to your boss

when you see something that looks like fluff atop his head and he catches you staring?





"I thought I thaw a puddy tat!"

Vicissitude

is one of my favourite words (even though it does not end with 'ous'; yep, those are my absolute favourite for some unfathomable reason).

Anyway, vicissitude has been the flavour of my day because my morning started off with me musing over how tiny things had changed over months and contributed majorly to my 'growing up'. Such as remembering to renew my travelcard the evening it expired instead of waking up the next morning, panicking because it would take time to renew it, huffing and puffing and being late for work (heck, I managed to remember and renew it one evening in spite of being fairly inebriated! Go me!).

Then there were the posts that Chandni and Dee put up today...

And then the biggest realisation. I stopped myself from sending an email to a friend. It was typed and ready. It was okay sounding. Hell, it didn't even have any matter that might cause inconvenience, trouble or bad feeling. But it didn't seem right. The time. My inner voice told me I'd be better off if I did not send it. And I listened to it. So I guess that's goodbye to the rash old bit of me.

Finally, that I write about feminism quite a bit (no, wait for the part that follows) and since feminism is in itself a rather changing thing ... my old tagline could well apply to it. Or maybe I could have a new tagline: Feminism is a dewdropdream.

Perspective

While in conversation with Winger today, we were talking about someone who proposed to his girlfriend over the weekend.

"He took her to Venice ... on a Gondola
waited for sunset
and proposed
!"

"WOW! Man he's got style!"

"Yeah. And money :)"

And at that moment, it struck me.

That we women are a bit sexist ourselves.

There are those of us who might decline expensive trips and costly trinkets and the like ... even if we secretly want them.

But how many of us actually go to the lengths men sometimes do, like whisking away our men for a weekend in Venice and propose to them dramatically? Or anything akin to that?

We might be empowered, earning, ambitious, and making financial decisions independently. And yet, something like this doesn't come to us. We are happy to cook a fine meal, dress up nicely and keep house wonderfully to show our love ... hell, even deal with difficult relations and in-laws with fortitude as an extension of our love for our men. Yet, the wooing continues to be done by them.

There are good men out there who deserve to be wooed, god knows there are men like that out there. And yet, there is no sign of them being showered with those elaborate displays of affection that they bestow upon their women.

Suddenly, I feel a bit small.

Oh and she said yes, in case you were wondering.

Tenner

D tagged me to do this a really long time ago and I am finally getting down to it (sorry, D!). I'm also partly borrowing D's idea for doing the tag.

1: My roll number from class 1 to 7. Loved being the first one to have her name called every morning to answer... and then I could spend the next 20 minutes day-dreaming while the teacher finished her list :D

2: Number of laptops I've had thus far. Meet Yvonne the second!


3: Number of cities I've lived in — Mysore, Bombay and London. Also the number of countries I've visited: England, Scotland and Singapore (I SO need to travel!)

4: Number of bloggers turned good friends — Mahi, M, Catty and Galadriel.

5: My favourite number... I also like to think of it as my lucky number.

6: Number of cellphones I've used till now. I have some stories to tell there... of the ancient but sleek one that died a slow death and the trusty one whose face I managed to destroy one night ... bejeezus!

7: My favourite day every month, even if the actual day is pretty crap. Also the number of years I've lived away from home.

8: 2008 rather, if I had to be precise. The year in which blogging took off for me in a big way

9: the soft toys I had when I was growing up.

10: The number of books on my desk right now ... take a look!

Tag done! Anyone wanna take it up?