Murderous Murder 2

Ludhiana: 8^th July, 2011. 9: 00 pm onwards-

Mampi on whatsapp (hereafter referred to as WA) with cousins from Jaipur: Garry. Its been a while since u said – “Bhabi ji ki jai ho.” Make me smile. Say that.

Garry (on WA from Jaipur to Mampi): Bhabiji ki jai ho. Howz life, hubby, and kids?

Mampi: Same old life, same old man, same old kids. Going to see Murder2 today. (remember readers, this used to be our routine? Friday night – movie, however rubbish it might be.. remember?)

Garry: Okay, Delhi Belly?

Mampi: Seen.

Garry: What a comedy, nahi?

Mampi: Oh yeah.

Garry: Whats the show time today?

Mampi: 10:45 pm

Garry: (Suddenly wakes up) Haha, the old man is fitter than all of us…whats going on with Ajj da Masla (Remember folks, I have been doing a TV show for the past few months on the good old boring DoorDarshan? This is what he is talking about)

Mampi: Will do one next week (Dear readers, don’t forget this)

Twist in the story: Garry’s sister, Gunnu joins us in the conversation.

Gunnu-Oye how are you?

Garry-I am your older brother stupid, tameez naal gall kar.

Gunnu-Oye, I m sitting two feet from you and you decide to shout in the chat?

Mampi-LOL

Gunia-Bhabhiji how is the Qatl Dwitiya (Murder2, sweeties, Gunnu is really funny.)
Mampi-Yet to start

Gunnu-Apna dristikon hume awashya bataiyega,

Mampi-JI Medem

Gunnu-Beta Raabart tum kahan ho?

Garry-Yahin hoon sambha.

Mampi-LOL
Garry-Bhabhiji, u alongwith kids?

Mampi-WHAT?

Gunnu- Beta Raabart, its an aedult filym. No kiddies.

Garry-(the gentleman that he is) Ok Bhabji, enjoy the movie. catch you later, tell me how the movie was.

Mampi-(5 mins into the movie now) Ppl are whistling (Emraan Hashmi is back to his old ways-the bijness of kissing and garment removal but I don’t reveal it to them)

Gunnu-Aaye haye seetiyan baj rahi hain Raabart beta chalo naachna shuru karo

Mampi-(forgets about the movie)- haha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha

(by now there is this gory murder sequence on the screen and I am beginning to feeling sick.)

Mampi- Horrible movie, folks.

Gunna-Tai tai phisssss, Raabart, beta nachna band kardo, bhabiji ko movie achi nahi lagi.

(and somehow my laughter is out of control when I read this. On the screen the girl is struggling to survive, I am fighting hard to control my callous laughter. )

Intermission.

People around our seats are looking with a great sympathy at Mahesh. Secretly they are happy-for it is the other man who has a mad wife. I suddenly look like a pervert, laughing uncontrollably, albeit silently. My forehead crinkles, my breath stops-I cannot control it when I laugh so hard. Rabart dancing in front of us, and ppl whistling, the image still haunts.
Intermission continues. And I prepare to run out of the hall, the supremely composed Mahesh sits there stoically, sagely commenting- it is a lousy movie. I give him an I-told-you-so look, (I had looked up the reviews in the evening) giggle and quickly descend the stairs.

And promptly I rush out of the hall. My laughter is so intense that I don't think I can walk on ramp. I feel like rolling on the ramp laughing. I dial Gunna’s number, I have to talk to her. I manage to find a seat in the waiting area and laugh my head off for the first one minute of the call. “Okay okay, what happened, you wanna talk about the movie?” Oh she thinks I need a catharsis. “No silly, I wanna thank you. I was sooo under the pressure of the movie. And you guys made me laugh.” And then I go on to tell her what an anti-climax the WA conversation was.

But for them, the movie would have been unbearable.

I go inside the hall, movie begins again. I know what Emraan Hashmi will do. Now that he has done enough of the kissing wissing for one movie, he will do the needful with the social service also. (But who told him long hair go well with social service?)

Garry: Is the movie at least a one time dekho?

Mampi: No beta, don’t go to watch it. Not even if someone else sponsors the ticket.

Garry: Is it that bad?

Mampi: Yes, even if they sponsor your popcorn and cold drink, decline politely.

Mampi to you all – surely give it a definite miss. It would have been more appropriate to call it Murder of the Audience 2011 instead of Murder 2. The only redeeming factor in the movie is Prashant Narayanan who I hated perfectly in the role that he did full justice to. Girls who are drooling to see another six packer in Emraan Hashmi, please hold your royal drool back, he shows these packs only in posters. Bibi Jacqueline has really pushed the limits as she claims, but she still remains unimpressive. Its not that I missed Mallika who I recently discovered has been posing with her tongue stuck permanently somewhere in her hard palate.

But I loved the time out. I call it counting my blessings.

Delhi Belly

Candid, funny, raw, hilarious – is how I would describe Delhi Belly. The posters had promised Imran leading a group that I thought was saving the world from the likes of Amjad Khan and Amrish Puri and Prem Chopra. But it turned out to be different. It was absolutely funny-even shocking at times. In fact my moment of enlightenment came when Mahesh whispered the truth in my ear during the DK Bose song. He was wary of watching it in English/Hinglish. "Yaar, it wont be fun," he said when it began. But within the first five minutes of hearing them speak, you feel –yes, Indian- English/Hinglish whatever you call it, has arrived. And then the movie begins to shake your sensibilities, it makes you laugh, it scandalizes you and at the end of the movie, you get up from the seat saying, “Oh I loved it.”

No intermission? Thank God I had bought my popcorns and coke bfore the movie started. An Aamir Khan at the end of the movie dancing to a stupid song was lovely. This song and dance sequence is a bit overdone actually, they could have managed with a shorter one too. And in the whole of the movie, I kept wondering if it is the same Shehnaz Treasurywala who had bloated par limits and had turned to television in her fat avatar? If she is the same, how did she manage to thin down so wonderfully to squeeze into the Singapore Airlines uniform? I have to know, just so I can thin down a little bit to fit into my own clothes from a year back. Sigh!

Imran’s onscreen chemistry with Poorna Jagannathan as Maneka, the hanging cables and wires overhead, the metro train going past a dusty Delhi road, Kunal Roy Kapoor’s poo act, Vir Das’s Ja Chudail number, Vijay Raaz’s unique act, they all fit into the kaleidoscope of the Belly of Delhi. Swear words abound and double meaning dialogues attack you with a vengeance.

But you HAVE to watch it to experience the stink of innards of Delhi.

And I must mention that this was the one movie that I loved after Dev D.

just...

Broke

Threadbare

Nude

ਿਕ

ਕੋਿੲਲ ਦੀ ਿਤੱਖੀ ਹੂਕ

ਵਾਲੀ ਕੂਕ ਸੁਣ

ੳੁਹਨੂੰ ਦੱਸਣ ਨੂੰ ਿਚੱਤ ਕਰਦੈ-

ਕਮਲੀੲੇ

ਮੀਹ ਮੰਗਣ ਨਾਲ ਨਹੀ

ਬੱਦਲ 'ਕੱਠੇ ਹੋਣ ਨਾਲ ਪਿਆ ਕਰਦੈ

ਤੇ ਬੱਦਲ

ਆਪਣੀ ਮਰਜੀ ਨਾਲ ਈ 'ਕੱਠੇ ਹੋਿੲਆ ਕਰਦੇ ਨੇ

The Rite of Passage?

She is entirely dependent on you. Does not know how to manage her long hair. Brings her damp clothes to you to ask, "Mom, is it dry or not?"

Now your 13 year old is out on her own, for ten days, on an NCC camp. She has to fend for herself, decide for herself and manage on her own. She is due to make a PPT presentation on the second day of the camp. She is comfortable with the topic already given. They change the topic on the spot-about 6 hours before presentation time. She is visibly upset. She calls, "Mom what do I do?" (Thank God they are allowed cell phones). You tell her to talk to her incharge. She doesn't want to, for she thinks it is a cowardly move. You are busy in your college function where your stay is mandatory. While sitting there, you google the stuff, call her and give her the links because her incharge's internet connection on his computer is too slow to download the stuff from your email. She somehow manages to sew the pieces together. Calls you about an hour prior to the presentation. "Mom, does my voice look like I have been crying?"

What do you do?

The Evening

He was once an officer with the State Transport Department and speaks reasonably good English. He lives in the Vridh Ashram of the Gurudwara Rara Sahib near Ludhiana. His world is limited to a bed and a window. He is very possessive about his corner but he has never seen this world of his. When we wanted to move his bed to clean beneath it, clean the window, and to dust his surroundings, he insisted that he had been keeping 'his' area clean. But my girls wanted to clean the entire dorm which was badly stinking of urine, vomit and faecal matter.

The girls took half a day to clean the dorm, shake and make the beds, scrape the floor of all the dead skin and other matter that seemed to have been there forever. When this man came back, he was upset that we had moved his bed. I apologised and offered to set his bedding right. He strictly refused to allow me to touch his bed.

He said, I will make my bed myself and would see what all is missing. (The girls had only put someone else's quilt on his bed which he apparently didnt like.)

She is from Calcutta. Her name was Kamla and now she has been renamed Mukhtiar Kaur....what all has changed for her?? Has a few sons and daughters - all 'happily married'. I met her first when I visited them one day prior to Diwali last year. I think I have a special connection with Bengalis. I locate them or they locate me...somehow. But this was the most unlikely place I would find one. Her bed is in the middle of the big

dorm that houses women inmates of the ashram. The moment she saw me today, she extended her hand in recognition and we exchanged a hug. Then she was all smiles. A small frame, shining eyes - half her words incomprehensible. (I have not learnt Bangla. Mental note- I should learn. I am sure I was a Bengali in my last birth and would be one in my next too. Mahesh, please make the necessary recommendations for yourself to dear God...the story of seven births you see.). Mukhtiar Kaur didn't want me to go away. She likes her current place of residence. I wanted to go meet other women also. So she let me go. My girls sang with some old women, gossiped with others and laughed with many. What would Kamla sing? Perhaps only I would be able to bond with her Bengali songs.

These are the son-in-law and the little grandson of this cheerful person. The moment we set his bed right, he invites them in. He hands over his share of biscuits and fruit to the kid. The tall old man rushes to the langar hall to bring kheer for his guests. Guests? The little man seemed to be on an outing. I teased him about gobbling up

his Nanu's biscuits. And I wanted to tell him to do exactly this to his parents when their turn came. He would, even without my training, I am sure he would. There is a saying in Punjabi, I dont know how you translate it into English, "The knots you tie with your hands will have to be opened with the help of your teeth." Will this young man in the middle and his wife one day have these beds as their worlds?

Will he, too, one day pose with a painful smile for some teacher from a college?