A royal affair of sorts

I have three words to describe the events of 29 April 2011. Oh my God! Sure they got married, sure they are the future king and queen of the United Kingdom and sure it was a bank holiday (thank you for that BTW). But by golly! Did the TV channels take it upon themselves to make sure not one soul on this planet with a television or even access to a television gets to see this extravaganza.

I am not here to comment on the wedding, its lavishness or the craze surrounding the affair (OK, maybe I will comment on the craze, it is after all, too tempting to pass up!). I will instead draw parallels (or, rather, lack of parallels) to my own wedding, which as you may recall, was a pompous and much celebrated affair of equal magnificence, albeit restricted to the town of Chidambaram. You see, I think my wedding was a touch more grand. I am not delusional, nor am I conceited. I state facts here. Only facts. Here's why:

• Kate rolled up to her wedding in a rather old looking car. It may have been a custom modified Rolls Royce, but to quote my mother, "she is coming in an old car only, can't they afford a newer, more luxurious car?" I on the other hand rode into my wedding in a horse drawn carriage. Not one horse, but two horses drew said carriage.
• What's more, poor William was already situated within the Abbey when Kate arrived. I had the pleasure of picking up milady and riding to the wedding hall with her (you see, the old Rolls had no space in it to accommodate Wills). How romantic was that!
• All Kate had on their way to the Abbey was crowds of people cheering and shouting. I, on the other hand, had fireworks, crowds, traffic, dancers, James Band, friends and relatives leading me to the hall, surely you can't beat that!
• Their wedding started at 9:51am on 29 April 2011 and all proceedings will be complete at 2:50pm on 29 April. Mine, on the other hand began at 6:00pm on 6 December and finished at 1:30pm on 8 December! You cannot deny that a longer celebration is a bigger celebration!
• The church had pin drop silence when the wedding was going on, meaning the slightest noise could have potentially disrupted proceedings. At my wedding, you could have exploded a bomb outside the hall and it wouldn't have been heard, for the noise level inside the hall was significantly higher than a jet plane at full blast.
• Most importantly, when the priests prayed to the Lord to bless the couple, everyone could understand what the Lord was being requested to do. At my wedding, considering all chants were in Sanskrit, not one soul knew what sort of deal was being struck with our multitude of Lords for our well being. It is a well known fact that a secret, undecipherable message is far more exotic than an open and understandable one.
• Even more importantly than the most important point, although the world at large knew these folks were getting married, not one poster or banner marked the occasion. It is a well known fact that my and milady's photographs were plastered all across Chidambaram just to announce this! 

As I have undeniably proved above, my wedding was better than one fit for a king! So there.

Now for the crazies. 

Watching the invitees flock into the venue, one trend just could not be ignored. All men were in uniform, not of the ceremonial kind, but of the fashionable kind. They all wore dark suits/tuxedoes, white shirts, bows and polished black shoes. To boot, they all had sorry..er, solemn looking faces like they were going to watch someone beat a puppy. The women on the other hand, all wore elegant gowns and dresses that set off their looks like nobody's business, however, for some reason, it seemed to me that they were all pulled through a hedge of some sort on their way to the Abbey, what with the fancy "hats" they wore! I mean, a hat that looks like a set of antlers doesn't really qualify as a hat does it? Just a sample for your viewing pleasure:

Talk of analysis, the BBC commentator actually got emotional about the fact that Kate was wearing a particular designer's dress and that quote it was a proud day for fashion unquote. 

And the bets! God the bets! Will it rain, will Kate wear this designer's dress or that, will Will kiss Kate on the cheek or lips when they appear at the palace! Come on!!

All said done, here's wishing the young couple a long and happy life as a couple! Like their vows said, may they be together till death do them apart!

Look! On the TV, is that a show? No, it's a megaaaa serial!

The folks were visiting. Which can, among other good things, mean one thing. Soaps. Not the kind of soap that scrubs away at dirt to leave you squeaky clean, but the kind that scrubs away at your soul and leaves you torn between wanting to kill the villain, the hero, the director and/or yourself. Also fondly referred to by the apt moniker, mega serials. They truly are mega and run for years. What's commendable is that they are run for anywhere between 2 to 5 years on a wafer thin story line that changes and takes u-turns at the drop of a hat. Not u-turns of the '24' variety, but u-turns never-the-less.

These soaps thrive on stereotypes. The protagonist, usually a youngish woman is down trodden, abused and considered inferior to the man. Add a stereotypical mother-in-law, a rude sis-in-law, lousy husband, a lousier father, abusive mother and you have the template for virtually every  soap on every channel. For variety and garnishing, you can change the name of the character, the type of torture inflicted on the poor sod who stumbles into this family and the thought is that a riveting program has already taken shape - in the writer/producer's head at least. All that remains is addition of the constant drone of background music and  repetitive dialogues with random sound effects and the producer is assured of a 5 year-seems-like-a-25 year contract with any channel. Humour and banter do not exist in this paradigm, the only thing that matters is to inflict as much pain and sorrow on the heroine as possible to still allow the program to be broadcast before the watershed timings.

I have only one question to the fine folks behind all this suffering. Why this kolaveri?

I mean, is it too much to ask if I want to come back from a long day at the office, plop onto the couch and let the idiot box take me away to a place that is joyful? After spending upwards of 8 hours fighting battles at work, I really do not want to solve problems for anyone other than my own family members. I really, really don't.

Why is it that there is not a single soap in India that has happiness/joy/comedy as its main agenda? Does that mean nobody in India is happy? I seriously doubt it. Or is it that only sorrow can be stretched and stretched until eternity?

I hate comparisons, but the mind simply cannot ignore sitcoms like MASH, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, King of Queens, Big Bang Theory, Rules of Engagement etc., that made people laugh for years on end and continue to delight generations. Sure, there were sob fests like Bold and Beautiful, Sex and the City etc at the other end of the spectrum, but the important thing is that there was choice. If I choose to laugh watching Indian serials, I can only laugh at the abusrdity of the situation facing the heroine who is crying up a river!

While on topic, I also suppose I should whinge a bit at the dialogue writing. Consider this situation:

The herione is contemplating the actions of the lousy husband, unable to believe why he did what he did and is doing so in the midst of her friends (3 in number).

I will now attempt to write dialogue the dialogue the way I urge do the magnanimous thing and look beyond my poor dialogue writing skills and focus on the message, try and be the bigger man/woman/child in this case.

• Normal/comedy soap

Heroine: "Why did that lousy son-of-~*@"h did that? Why? Why? Why?"
Friends: *shrug shoulders* "Maybe he was pissed with you or something?"

• The megaaaa-serials

Episode #1:
Husband does what is to be whinged about.

Episode #2:
Herione wistfully thinks of what he did, which includes a detailed flashback of what happened, return to Episode #1.

Episode #3:
Heroine meets friend number 1 and remains wistful. Friend #1 asks her "Why so glum chum?" Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine finds recollection too much to digest, sobs a bucket load of tears.

Episode #4:
Heroine meets friend number 2 and remains wistful. Friend #2 asks her "Why so glum chum?" Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine and Friend #1 find recollection too much to digest, sob a bucket load of tears. Viewers mop their moist eyes.

Episode #5:
Heroine meets friend number 3 and remains wistful. Friend #3 asks her "Why so glum chum?" Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine, friend #1, Friend #2 and viewers find recollection too much to digest, sob a bucket load of tears.

Episode #6:
Heroine recounts what happened. Flashback ensues, return to Episode #1. Heroine then asks Friend #1, "Why did he do that, Friend #1?" Friend #1 has no response to provide, no answers to give, so cries some more.

Heroine then asks Friend #2, "Why did he do that, Friend #2?" Friend #2 has no response to provide, no answers to give, so joins Friend #1 and cries some more.

Heroine then asks Friend #3, "Why did he do that, Friend #3?" Friend #3 says, "Maybe he was pissed with you or something?" and finds that too difficult to digest so cries, all of them cry for 5 minutes not able to comprehend why a husband would be pissed with the perfect herione.

Viewers begin playing with a loaded revolver.

See how subtle plot variations and changes to story were incorporated? See how the serial was run for an entire week and the viewer didn't even notice that happening? I can hear the producer laughing all the way to the bank. "Lousy Englis fellows," he thinks, "don't know how to make money!"

It's a good thing gun licensing is very strict and controlled in India, everything happens for a reason.

IMHO, though, the biggest winner of them all are the glycerine companies. Last I heard they were raking in profits from supplying the 'tears' to the producers of mega serials.

Endhirun

October is usually a monumental month in India each year, day 2 of the month marks the birthday of the Father of Nation - monumental mostly because booze is not available in the 'open' market on that day, day 23 marks the birthday of the Father (mine, of course!) and with Diwali in the vicinity, festivity is in the air.


2010 was different. India was grappling with two other epic events. CWG or Common Wealth Games (not sure what is 'Common' about wealth or what games have to do with Wealth, but what would I know, I'm not a cricketer). And a couple of days before that, the release of Robot a.k.a.for.tax.reasons. Endhiran.


The amount of hype and hoopla surrounding the release of this movie boggled the 'ol noodle. The thing with all Rajnikanth movies is that there is always going to be an atmosphere of festivity in the air, expectation even. Expectation, not of a good movie or *gosh* a story, but of entertainment for the masses. He normally does not disappoint (*cough* 'Baba' *cough*) and the masses' mass hysteria is often appeased. This time though, there was a critical difference. Gone were the trademark introduction songs where he astounds one and all by doing completely varied things like ride a motorcycle, horse, cycle, bus, auto-rickshaw or something equally varied before the ol' song and dance around what his name is and what his beliefs are for that movie. Sterling stuff, all that. None of that in this movie. None at all. Zilch, Nada.

Once cannot accuse the old top of not doing anything different in this movie though. For instance, there was not a single scene of him smoking a beedi. He was also playing the role of a geek and technocrat in this movie, something that must have been hard to pull off for a guy who is in his elements in more labour intensive roles. He has also proved that he is a man of his words. Back in the nineties, he wowed the world by warning all baddies that anything he says needs to be compounded by a factor of 100 in order to comprehend the magnitude and seriousness with which he says anything. Now he's proved he backs that by making one robot which multiplied itself a 100 times to devastate Chennai. Kudos.

For a movie that has been set in 2010, the story is about as watertight as a piece of gauze. Due to reasons of health and safety, I am not going to review the movie. I would say, though, that had the story been set in 2050 or something that establishes it as science fiction, I may have enjoyed it a bit more.

Just like Chitti the Robot is amazing, I find his creator's car, the Mercedes CLK convertible amazing. In the movie, it appears to have powers that even Chitti does not have. For example, when Chitti gets behind the wheel for the first time, he drives the car straight into the median, which, among other things, takes out the front right fender and most of the front bumper, but by the very next scene, when they pull into the good scientist's house, the car is gleaming and spotless - it has the powers of self healing! How cool is that. Then there's the scene where Chitti snatches Aishwarya from her wedding and takes off in the Merc, a whole army of Indian security forces materialises in seconds and dumps an entire years' supply of bullets in the general direction of the car, and yet it still chugs on, old faithful, what! I simply loved the way the car could do wheelies, jump over bridges, drive over trucks, get shot at by everything except nuclear bombs and still outrun all badies. I resolved at the movie that my next car would only be bought if it could do at least 1 of the above, its no point owning an automobile that is going to go kaput the moment you run over a nail or run into something as silly as a wall.

On a side note, I don't know what all the fuss about security at the CWG is all about. In the couple of minutes it took Chitti to reach the main road from the wedding hall, an entire army materialised. If that level of security could be provided to an individual who is just a scientist, i.e., not a movie star or politician, then sportsmen have no need to worry. Its all safe and secure.

In order to see the movie about the robot that can only be destroyed with an axe, the wife and I took our chances against the elements, risking life, limb and dry clothes, only to return disappointed. The Gods were chucking it down with a vengeance in bleary old Blighty on the Saturday night that we decided to venture to Cineworld. Cineworld, I might add, is exactly 6 minutes and 30 seconds away from home on the trusty old Burgman. 6 minutes and 30 seconds is all it took for us to get soaked to the bone, the rain was that heavy. We dripped and sploshed our way into the theatre, stood in queue for a further 5 minutes and only on reaching the counter did we notice that all shows for that day were sold out. So we sploshed and soaked our way back home and all but sat in the washing machine to dry out.

The next day, we decided to combine exercise with strategy and ran the 3 miles to the theatre at 10am, only to discover we were the first souls onsite. Not even theatre staff were around. Not recognising the signals from the Gods, we waited. When staff finally arrived onsite, we virtually lynched them and found a couple of seats on the only show available - 8:45pm on a Sunday evening. Notwithstanding the fact that we would be sleepy and tired the next day, we went for it.

Having fulfilled various social commitments, we ran late for the show and anxious to get a good seat, we skipped dinner and went straight in. Around 3.5 hours later, we staggered out, none-the-wiser. To his credit, God gave all the signals and short of hitting us on the head with a kitchen sink and putting up a large neon sign over our heads asking us not to be so over-enthu in going to the movie, he did everything else. I mean, if torrential rain, closed cinemas, sold out shows and lack of food cannot dampen our spirits, what can.

In common with all Rajni movies, we expected too much and this time, we did not get what we bargained for. So Enthiran, for us, became E(zhn)thu run (get up and run). Perhaps if we hadn't been sucked in by the hype, if we hadn't gone through all that trouble to watch the movie, we might have enjoyed it. Perhaps.

P. S.: Couldn't help but wonder, how many tonnes of Botox would the lead pair (or should I say trio) have consumed?

PDAs and a desperate plea for help!

I suppose I would do well to clarify right upfront that this post has nothing to do with those new-fangled devices called PDAs, the ones that become obsolete the minute you chuck a truck load of hard earned cash in order to acquire them. What this post is about is public displays of affection. Don't get me wrong...I'm no prude. I enjoy the sight of a loved up couple as much as the next guy. In fact, I would even go as far as saying the act turns me on a notch or two.

Having established that, there are still some displays that are too much for me to handle. Having to deal with the couple involved often brings out a long dormant animal in me. More so when said canoodling happens in the morning rush. With all my thoughts focussed on tasks to be accomplished that morning, how many clients are going to be blowing a gasket or two, with me being at the receiving end of the explosion, the last thing I want is to have to deal with a couple who can't stay away from each other, their bodies inter-twined snake like and the air that we breath not even trying to come between them, for there are no gaps.

The most discomforting part is the role I am forced to play in this sordid affair, having to go where air finds it impossible to go! It seems unfair that in order to listen to some music, one has to spend 5-10 minutes separating right ear bud from left.

Mr. Right H Phone and Ms. Left E Phone may be having an affair, but that doesn't give them the right to seek the pleasure of each others' company every spare minute of the day. If a human being were to behave in such a manner at their place of work, they would be searching for a job faster than you can say, "What ho!". Not headphones, they can canoodle with impunity, impervious to people or objects around, children or adults.

I can virtually see my readers nodding in agreement, for they have, I am positive, had to deal with the frisky couple on a daily basis. I ask you, how do you manage to keep them apart? This is a plea from a man who is fighting a losing battle, a call for assistance, a wounded general calling for back-up...help me keep the left and right earphones of my headphones apart, untangled and available for use as soon as I take them out of my pockets. Thank you.