Happy Living

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Filmi Chakkar

This is for all the critics and detractors who always thought Bollywood titles were very unrealistic. They merely convey facts of Indian celebrities. Dont believe me? Read on...


Laloo Yadav and Rabri Devi: Bunty Aur Babli

L. K. Advani: Paheli

Atal Bihari Vajpayee: Kunwara Baap

Sachin Tendulkar: Chota Chetan

Saurav Ganguly and Greg Chappell: Main Khiladi Tu Anari

Manmohan Singh: Mr. Bechara

Sonia Gandhi: Main Hoon Na

Chandrababu Naidu: Kaun

Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan: Bade Miyan Chote Miyan

Natwar Singh: Kyun Ho Gaya Na ?!

QED.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

E-mails and Females


E-mails are meant to be screwed up. Read on…

Back on campus, during my undergrad days, my friend Krithika and me had a strange bet. We vowed to attend ever single class of Control Systems class. Ahem! Yeah, it was crazy. For me, it meant just another way to milk treats from my friend.

Anyways, it was an unusual morning, it was raining heavily in the desert land (BITS Pilani, rarely witnesses rains). I reached the classroom early enough to escape the downpour. I chuckled to myself “She is gonna lose it again !”
Braving the downpour (and also very generously giving a lift on her cycle to a junior friend) she entered Con Sys class like Mandakini in “Ram Teri Ganga Maili”
Not to forget the intent gazes she got from the very few male members who attended the class. Needless to say, she savored every bit of that male attention.

Another one of those this-is-hydraulic-pneumatic-block-diagram-to-signal-flow-system crap followed. And the class ended.

A senior friend walks down the aisle of benches to tell her she might catch a cold, given the conditions. They are what we know as “very close but just friends” type. And to this Krithika expresses her gratitude rather ‘e-mail’ishly.

In BITS, we are all given e-mail ids that follow the pattern fyyyy*** where yyyy is the year we were given admission and *** stands for our id #

So her id happens to be f2001612 and her senior’s f2000*** (id # concealed for whatever reasons)
---------------------------------------------------------------
From: f2001612
To: f2001***

Subject: Rain Drain
Body:

Hi S,

I was so drenched and wet. I went back to my room and changed into dry clothes. I think am catching a cold. Thank you for your concern…

Regards,
Krithika
---------------------------------------------------------------

Pat comes the reply

---------------------------------------------------------------
From: f2001***
To: f2001612

Subject: Re: Rain Drain

Body:

Who are you? Why are you behind me? And why are you giving me your personal details?

---------------------------------------------------------------

Krithika is blinking…And am rolling on my bedside dying out of laughter. Apparently, she mailed to her senior’s id # but to her own batchmate (instead of year 2000, she typed to 2001)

She apologises and again pat comes the reply.


---------------------------------------------------------------

From: f2001***
To: f2001612

Subject: Re: Rain Drain

Body:

Don’t think too much abt what happened in the P

---------------------------------------------------------------

P ? I suggested P must be meaning ‘pants’
Krithika hurled a pillow on me! Then we discussed…Maybe rain is called ‘P’ for short.
Didn’t make sense though. Puddle? Process? Path?
Finally we concluded it meant ‘Past’

Monday, October 10, 2005

English to Hindi

Scene 1:

Friend: Shucks! Can you take this? The Hindi version of “Dunston Checks In” is titled “Ek Bandar Hotel ke Andar”
Me: I can take that. Handle this. “Murdho ki Kahaani Ek Bacche ki Zubani”
Few seconds of roaring laughter…
Me: Don’t even try to guess. It’s the Hindi counterpart of “Sixth Sense”

Scene 2:

My dad and me have this fetish for English movies. One day we very enthusiastically enter a nearby cinema hall to catch the then latest Bond flick “Tommorrow Never Dies”

No loud cheers. Hardly any people around. Never mind
70mm screen, Dolby surround sound. Titles roll and a background narration follows

“Peechli baar humne dekha….”

My dad’s mouth went dry.
My instant reaction “What the…”
Hoping against hope, that it was some Hindi trailer…It was not exactly our favorable day! No wonder, there was no crowd.

Moral of the story: Always, find out if the English movie is in English and not in Hindi before getting tickets.

Scene 3:

A queue near the mess counter in our hostel. A Southie standing ahead of me turns to ‘bhaiyya’ and religiously says “Maggi bhaiyya” [Gimme a plate of Maggi]
Bhaiyya: “Banana hain” [I have to prepare it]
Southie: (replies instantly) “Banana no, maggi…” [I want no banana, I want Maggie!]
Bhaiyya: (continues) “Banana hain…” [I have to prepare it]

We allow the confusion to continue and savor the hilarious moment

Period

Wednesday, October 05, 2005


Imagine this…

You ask Osama Bin Laden “How was your birthday?” and he says “I had a blast”

You ask George Bush “Whose your current favourite among Indian supermodels?” and he says “Katrina (Kaif)”

You ask Dev saab (Dev Anand) “What is your forthcoming movie title?” and he says “18 till I die”

You ask Shakti ‘sting’ Kapoor “May I come in?” and he says “Aao! (Andar )Aao!”

You ask Advani “Whose your favourite character in Aladdin and magic lamp tale?” and he says “Jinnah (Genie?)”

Monday, October 03, 2005

Celebrity Children

I know its October…And there has’nt been a single post in Sept :-(
Sept 5th, particularly, is long gone. Well, if it still didn’t occur to you, why Sept 5th of all the days, I give up. It was teachers day !

Just curious. How the celebrities of today had been as young kids in a classroom?

Students to teacher: Good Morning teacher !
Preity Zinta & Saif: Salaam Namastey teacher !

Sachin to teacher: Teacher, can I go for an ad shoot during recess ?

Ganguly to his benchmate: Haar kar bhi jeetne waale ko baazigar kehtey hain !

A friend to Anil Ambani: What is your favorite song?
Ambani: Paanch rupaaiya baara aana…Maare ga bhaiyya na na na naaaaa…

Salman Khan: Teacher, can I go to out and recharge my cell phone?

Teacher to Mallika Sheraawat: Is that your handkerchief?
Mallika: No its my school uniform.

Kareena to Shah Rukh: Hmmm, you smell good !
Shah Rukh: Lux, aur kya?

Teacher: What is 2+2 equal to?
Amitabh Bachchan: Eight
Teacher: And why is it eight?
Amitabh: Umeed Se Dugna !


A few more additions in the offing…Till then happy living :-)

Monday, August 22, 2005

Presenting the ‘Picture Dictionary’
Visually appealing and for the easy understanding of English vocab…




Plagiarism

Taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own
(Eg: Call it copying, stealing, or procuring illegally. Anu Malik does it all and doesn’t even worry about copyrights. He might be against music piracy but definitely supportive of lifting tunes without worrying about a legal term that sounds like ‘Copyrights’
But must say the man is finally giving us some fine tunes lately that he claims to be his own)




Vampire
Corpse that sucks the blood of humans
(Eg: Veeru paaji’s “Khuthe kamine main tera khoon pe jaunga. Need I say more?)





Poaching
Illegal hunting
(Eg: Media’s favourite punch bag. Salman Khan, known more for his ‘bare-all’ stunts than his acting prowess. He was the man behind making black bucks more popular than Starbucks.)

Jilted
To deceive or drop (a lover ) suddenly or callously.
(Eg: Only that in this case its Sallu who is the jilted one (courtesy: Aishwarya). The victim.)

Obsession
Compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.
(Eg: That’s right. Salman is always preoccupied with making phone calls. He just cannot get over the obsession. Methinks, somebody should inform him about Skype. That could save a lot of his money draining into phone bills)

Truly, a man of many words…







Verbose
Using or containing a great and usually an excessive number of words
(Eg: We all know how when Mr. Mahesh Bhatt speaks, we are at a loss of words. That’s because he is using up all the words you may later find in the dictionary while you refer to make sense of his long-winded extravagant speech. His inability to speak in plain words will even raise the dead from their graves.
Same goes for jargon, clichés etc.)




Stammer
To introduce involuntary repetitions and pauses into one's speech
(Eg: King Khan’s favourite pickup like ‘KKKKKKiran….’ Or his staggering, stammering laugh…that reminds you of a racehorse)

Thursday, August 04, 2005

A baby’s gotto do what a baby’s gotto do!


That’s Tommy Pickles’ punch line from Nickelodeon’s much watched baby toon ‘Rugrats’. Ever wondered what all those teeny-weeny newborn infants think of adults, how they perceive the environment around them. It’s after all a entering a big bad world dominated by adults. Is it chaos? Is it confusing for them? No wonder, we have movies dedicated to this theme. Remember John Travolta’s “Look who’s talking?”. And as if that was’nt enough, we had sequels to it…”Look who’s talking too”
What about you, yourself? (all that you can remember about your childhood). Each one of us did perceive things around us differently, partly because of what we heard our elders speaking or doing, or some other such influence and also partly because we invariably thought that the way we understood as babies was right.
As a baby, I knew that the earth was a globe, round in shape but I was of the understanding that the sky covers us from above and we stay inside the protected globe.
There were times I thought I would just clean up the sky of clouds so that the serene blue sky would come to fore. Hmmm, must say that I was not so ‘creative’ with my baby imagination. I atleast didn’t go overboard with my imagination. Wait till you hear what my friend’s baby cousin thought about rains. The little one was of the understanding that it rained whenever God was going to the bathroom! Gross!
Sometimes, kids ask you questions that can leave you dumbfounded. My tenant’s kid, barely 5 years old, was once in conversation with her grandma. She had just then returned home and was playing with her pet dog, Browny. The city was inundated by heavy rains for a week now and she was naively chirping “Its raining, its raining…Browny, why is it raining?” repetitively. Her grandma, in the meantime, was busy hauling the dried clothes from the clothesline, when the little girl asks “Naanama, naanama, what is today?” Grandma promptly replied “Ivvaala Saturday naanna” (Today is Saturday dear) For which the girl’s matter-of-fact reply was “If today is Saturday, then why did’nt I go to school?” Grandma was bowled! Meanwhile, the girl turned to her dog and spoke “See, Browny, Grandma doesn’t know. It is Saturday she says. That means tomorrow is Sunday!” And then she extended her song triumphantly “It’s raining, Its raining. Grandma doesn’t know why I didn’t go to the school today. Its raining. Its raining.”
My previous tenants had a son (Sampreet) who was in his first grade. Every Saturday, his grandpa who stayed a few kilometers away from their home visited his son’s family. Being aware of the regular visits and the timings of visit, Sampreet ritualistically, peeped out of the window that overlooked the sit-out, from behind the window curtains and announce (rather too loudly, that even we could hear him, staying upstairs) “Thathayya vochaaru, thathayya vasthunnaaru, thathayya vochesaaru!”. (grandpa has come, grandpa is coming, grandpa is here) And then open the main door, chuckling away at his victory!

Sometimes, children can put you in a spot! Of course, they do so unintentionally. A friend of mine told me how smart her young cousin was. He was fascinated by shapes and very good at identifying objects through visuals. His parents had taught him what a triangle, a square and some other geometric objects looked like. During one of their shopping sprees, the family had entered a ladies hosiery. The child seemed thrilled at something in display. He was very delighted at what he saw. He kept pointing to ladies undergarments on display and thoroughly enjoyed screaming in excitement “See, a triangle, triangle!”

As a kid, its really tough not to get influenced. I remember how troubled my mom was about me when I was so addicted to a popular Hindi serial on National TV that goes by the name ‘Udaan’. It was about a small-town girl who dreams of becoming an IPS officer. The serial showcased her efforts at the Police Academy while training. Aping her every move, I would crouch beneath the easy chair and trying to snuggle my entire body through the small gap between the supports (legs) of the chair. Then after having achieved that feat, I would hold the clothes hanger as a rifle and charge at my mom in the kitchen punching her behind (scenes that showed the serial protagonist boxing a sack).
Then climb onto the bed and jump with all my might as though I am jumping from a high-rise wall. And my poor worried mom would neatly fold a bundle of bed sheets on the floor near the bed so that I wouldn’t hurt myself while jumping down from the bed.
My mom tells me how she used to take me to a restaurant nearby the nursery because of my penchant for hot ‘gulab jamuns’ they made. As a child I was very impressed by a song from a Hindi movie in late 80’s and whenever the song would be played I would just stop all my activity and start dancing around. Of course, people were courteous to cheer me when I danced. But imagine doing so now! We would never even dream of dancing in public. Obviously, the child has no place for an emotion like embarrassment.
I m sure each of you have a childhood story to tell. There are lot many such episodes to tickle your funny bone. Watch out for a sequel to this piece…
Coming soon: ‘A baby’s gotto do what a baby’s gotto do’ – Part II