“Ma, is breakfast ready? I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” Samyuktha clambered down the steps to the dining table. “Behave like a lady Sam,” chided her father Rajendran, as Sam stuffed a few pieces of toast down her throat and washed them down with a glass of milk. “Bye Ma, Pa, I’m off to school,” she shouted as she rushed out the front door. “Hold your horses, young lady,” her father looked up from his newspaper, “What’s the big hurry? It’s not even 8 yet.” “Gotta rush Pa, Amma will explain.” Rajendran looked in askance at his wife Hema, who heaved a big sigh in reply.
Samyuktha, or Sam, as she insisted she be called, was their only daughter. Though her parents were overjoyed by the birth of a girl after two boys, they joy was tempered by the fact that Sam was a true tomboy in every sense of the word. The precocious 12-year-old would not even be caught dead in anything remotely feminine. Getting her to wear a dress was like flogging a dead horse. The only concession she made to acknowledge that she was of the female species was to grow her hair, as Hema simply refused to allow her pre-teen to chop her gorgeous tresses, which she always wore in a ponytail.
Hema had had to use the carrot-and-stick approach to coax and cajole her daughter to care for her hair and let it grow to its present thick and luxurious length. She had to resort to every trick in the book, ranging from bribes and threats to tears and blackmail. Shopping for clothes usually ended with Hema buying Sam a pair of pants while wistfully exclaiming, “I wish you would at least try on that pink dress.” Sam’s standard reply was, “Amma, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride and I’d have been born a boy.” End of discussion. My hair is my mum’s hobbyhorse, Sam would often tell her friends, to which Hema would retort, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth Sammy, most girls would kill for hair like yours.”
“Well, I’m waiting,” said Rajendran, startling Hema out of her reverie. “Sam is entering a beauty contest. Her teachers will be selecting one girl from her class to represent her school at the inter-school level. She’s been going early to Sheela’s house everyday to practice her walk and try out costumes.” explained Hema. Sheela was Sammy’s best pal. “But that’s wonderful,” exclaimed Rajendran, “She’s finally discovering her feminine side, so why the long face?” Hema shook her head, “There’s a catch to this whole situation. She wants to cut her hair as she thinks it will make her look trendy and more in line with the latest styles.” Rajendran took a more practical approach, “Get off your high horse, Hema and look at the bright side of things. Her hair will grow back. For now, be happy she’s finally showing interest in being a girl.” Hema finally realised that she had been putting the cart before the horse and resolved to get her priorities right.
That evening saw an ecstatic and breathless Sam run up the driveway, “Amma, Appa, I’ve won. I’ve been selected to represent our school.” Hema smiled indulgently at her daughter’s exuberance, “Slow down Sammy, take a deep breath and tell us the whole story.” “It was a one-horse race as far as my class was concerned, but at the inter-school level I’ll be the dark horse. I have to start preparing for the big day, Amma. When are you taking me to the parlour so I can get my hair cut and styled?” Sam continued. Hema knew she could only take a horse to the water, but not make it drink, so she reluctantly agreed to accompany her daughter to the hair dresser the following day.
Later that night, Sam was indulging in a bit of horseplay with her brothers who were teasing her mercilessly for entering a beauty contest. “Phone for you Sammy,” interrupted Hema, “Sheela on the line.”
A few minutes later, Sam’s subdued announcement, “Ma, I don’t want to cut my hair,” stunned her family into silence. She continued softly, “If I do, it would amount to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Sheela said she overheard a few teachers discussing the outcome of today’s competition, and one of them said she heard it straight from the horse’s mouth that it was my hair that tipped the scales in my favour. The judges felt that it made me look more graceful and elegant.”
Hema smiled and realised that her “hair-raising” plans were back on track!
My take on life, a canvas to paint my thoughts, pages to pen my feelings, an outlet to give vent to my creativity... I write not for the sake of writing, but because I cannot "not write"...
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL WITH ANGEL
She’s not a permanent fixture in
my life – she comes and goes randomly. Though I don’t miss her when she’s gone,
I rush into her arms the moment I see them outstretched towards me. When she’s
around, I know I’ll get to go out more often, take in the sights and sounds of
the neighborhood. I know she loves me because – there was this time a few
months ago, when we had just returned from a long trip and the food was under
all the boxes, bags and other paraphernalia that filled the car. I was hungry,
and she ran to dig out my lunch, not caring that in the process, her precious
laptop (I know she treasures it cause no matter how much she loves me, she never
lets me touch it) tumbled to the ground. She ignored it, choosing to feed me
instead. I let her know how much her gesture meant by nuzzling her face – the
look in her eyes told me she loved me.
I saw her again a few weeks ago.
This time, she was hesitant to hold me and I wondered why. I soon realized that
she was not well, her leg was hurt. I wanted to comfort her, but I did not know
how. In spite of her disability, she opened her arms to me. I turned away, but
not before I saw the hurt on her face. My sister explained to her that I was
sulking because she did not take me out as she usually does during her visits
with me. But she was wrong! There was a reason for my distance – I knew that if
she held me, she would hurt more. I wish I could tell her that, make her
understand – but I’m just 14 months old, and unfortunately unable to put my
feelings into words yet. If I could, I’d tell my Perima just how much I adore
her!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
FRANKLY SPEAKING....
Now I’m no diehard Kamal fan but
I must admit the man’s got oodles and oodles of talent – I loved all his movies
except the ones that had a cascade effect of depression and sadness, like
Mahanadi. I also took exception to the way the second half of Vettaiyadu
Vilayadu unfolded, more like a sequence of thoughts lifted straight out of a
masochist freak’s mind rather than an in depth analysis of the workings of a
criminologist’s mind as he unravels a series of gory rape-murders - which is
why I reacted with skepticism to every news item and all the media frenzy
preceding the release of Dasavatharam.
After all the hype and hoopla,
the film is going to be one damp squib, or so I thought. Even when the first
few reviews trickled in from friends and family who had watched the movie, I
was reluctant to believe them when they said it was good. Only after I sat
through three hours of non-stop entertainment on a sultry afternoon inside the
cool confines of an air-conditioned theater did I admit to myself that Kamal
had outdone himself by weaving a masterpiece.
Of course, there were many things
in the movie that made no sense, especially the miraculous cancer-curing bullet
and the ten diverse roles – did Kamal want the world record so badly that he
went so far as to don ten kinds of complicated disguises? Some of the roles
looked like caricatures, especially the extremely tall guy and the old lady.
The 7 footer also had the worst diction possible, coming off most of the time
as slightly mentally retarded (the stiff layers of makeup contributing to a
wooden face with no expression at all added to the stupid look).
But when taken as a collective
whole, I walked out of the theatre feeling that yes, this is a good
entertainer, thanks to the excellent screenplay – while Kamal the actor did not
wow me with his ten different roles, Kamal the screenplay writer simply dazzled!
He’s done a wonderful job of identifying the common thread that ties all ten
diverse characters together and used it to hold the storyline in one cohesive
piece.
At the end of the movie, in spite
of having bravely endured Asin’s shrill voice in every frame, in spite of the
nostalgia I felt when I compared Dasavatharam’s Govind to Punnagai Mannan’s
Sethu (Oh, how handsome and romantic he was in that movie – in my book, Kamal
outdoes himself in romantic roles), in spite of some parts of the story being
so contrived as to fit in all ten characters, I was applauding the effort that
had gone into the germination, the conception, the gestation and finally, the
long-awaited birth of Dasavatharam. Sure, he’s indulged in a few excesses, the
most notable one being that of the self, but isn’t he entitled to do so after
his immense contribution to the world of cinema?
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
APPADI PODU ABHISHEK BACHAN...
It’s a sight as incongruous as a
penguin in the Sahara – Abhishek Bachan twisting and gyrating to the beat of
the hugely popular (if slightly old) Tamil number “Appadi Podu” from one of
Vijay’s movies (I think it’s Gilli but I’m not sure since he has a similar item
number in all his flicks). Now I’m the kind who hardly glances at the always on
television, but the combination of Bachan Junior and a dappanguthu Tamil song
was a strong magnet that glued my eyes to the TV against my will and made me
watch the ad just so I could see what the producers were trying to convey by
having the star contort himself into embarrassing positions.
This was hardly 24 hours ago, and
now, I only remember that the ad was trying to endorse some Motorola phone – I
don’t know which model, I don’t know what the connection was between the wild
dancing, the Tamil song, and the phone; all my mind can think of is – why on
earth would Abhishek Bachan do this senseless ad? But then, come to think of
it, most ads are pretty senseless these days – how on earth do people get away
with insinuating that a fair complexion is all that’s needed to breeze through
an interview and secure a job? How do consumers fall for the ruse that eating
food cooked with one brand of salt can make you a district collector a few
years down the line?
It’s not that I have a grouse
against all advertisements; in fact, there are some that are so tastefully done
that you want to watch them again and again any time they’re broadcast – like
the one for some gold ornament company where the daughter’s sad about leaving
for her new home after the wedding and the father jogs her memory about a
moment shared years ago when she, as a child, left for her first day at a new
school. The ad was not directly about the gold, but about relationships that
last forever, irrespective of time and distance.
But then again, is the ad serving
its purpose when you can’t even remember the name of the product that was being
endorsed in the first place? One brand that has managed to stamp its presence
firmly and deeply in the advertising field is Virgin Mobile – I loved the tongue-in-cheek
commercials that touched the fringes of hitherto un-chartered territory in the
history of Indian television. Sure, there’s an element of disrespect in them if
you delve too deeply, but you have to admit that the girl using reverse
psychology to get her way was a brilliant stroke of genius, one that made me
actually laugh out loud. The ad was subtle in that it flirted with the taboo
issue of homosexuality, an attitude I find refreshingly honest and acceptable
as opposed to the commercial where one whiff of a deodorant is apparently
enough to get women blatantly falling all over or jumping into bed with a
muscular hunk.
In a chauvinistic ad world that
opens career and matrimony doors only to women with fair skin and portrays a
convoluted relationship between casual sex and scent with absolutely no room
for companionship and love, I guess Appadi Podu and Abishek Bachan are not so
bad after all!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)