Mumbai- Pune- Mumbai 3- a review and a rant

Let me begin by acknowledging that criticising is much easier than creating. Also whatever I write ahead is based on my own biases, experiences and world view.

So, Mumbai- Pune- Mumbai 3 released yesterday and having waited for it with so much excitement we watched it on the first day itself. I will keep the review per se short. It is simple- amazing cast, top-notch acting, nuanced direction, set designs, costumes almost all technical aspects of film making quite spot on. The dialogs are witty, funny and the comic timing of all the actors is amazing. Three actors in it have my (and almost of all maharashtrians) immense respect namely- Prashant Damle, Rohini Hattangadi and Mukta Barve. All three of them are institutions in themselves.

However the movie seemed stretched, especially the second half could have done with a lot of editing. I am no trained professional and have nothing to do with movie making but as an audience it is the current Marathi movie scene that has improved my understanding of cinema a lot. Having said that, all that I say may be complete bullshit but what's life without bullshitting right? So yes I found the pace of the movie slow and a lot of unnecessary melodrama. Maybe the negatives stood out because of the expectations from the calibre of the director Satish Rajwade and the talented cast and crew.

MPM has become a brand and successful commercial sequels is a novelty not just in Marathi but even Bollywood. So yes, all credit to the people involved. But the essence of the series, especially the first film was the whole Mumbai-Pune debate. Agreed it was always a love story but it stood out because of the thread of this age old debate running through it. The first movie was exceptional- taking place over one single day with just two main actors, wearing the same clothes throughout the film, no villians, no melodrama and kick-ass dialogs, direction and acting. The second one diluted the effect due to increased casting, complexities and lesser Mumbai-Pune stuff. This third one has almost done away with the original thread of the debate. There are hardly a few references and that makes it just a love story between actors having some good chemistry, but we have enough of that already! The climax was super stretched and as a happy ending was very much expected the suspense and drama didn't make much sense.

 I am sure it would still be a much appreciated and commercialy successful movie. Now this much was the goodness in me and what comes next is the rant! So beware!

My main issue with the movie is its straight one-sided approach to "procreating". Basically, when the protagonist couple don't want kids they are selfish, lazy, irresponsible and the whole generation is berated along with instant dislike by parents and in-laws accompanied further by tons of emotional blackmail. As soon as the couple is okay with procreating the family dances on their own heads! Suddenly there is an outpouring of love and praise and care. I understand they want to cater to a larger audience and are reflecting what prevails in our society (at least I am sure about the Maharashtrian clan). But shouldn't a movie helmed by an intelligent director with several talented, intelligent people try to move beyond the accepted norm? Can it not be commercial but at the same time thought provoking? Do the makers have so little confidence in their talent that they can't move beyond playing to the gallery?

 Coming to this whole procreation hoopla; it boils down to "Live and let live". But then this concept is hardly accepted in our society. What career one must pursue to be labelled successful, the whole  fucking definition of success, the concept of happiness and its varied forms, who one should get married to, if one should have kids, how many kids, how many times to change their diapers, which school to send them to, what career should they pursue, who should they get married to, how many times should one ideally poop, pee or sneeze; every single fucking choice is dictated by the society and especially the so-called well-wishers.

I have spoken more on length on this choice thingy in earlier write ups -

Jajwalya abhimaan- (https://snehakarle.blogspot.com/2018/08/jajawalya-abhiman_18.html?m=1)

Dodaddlydo- (https://snehakarle.blogspot.com/2015/07/dodaddlydo.html?m=1 )

Safalta ki vyakhya-
(https://snehakarle.blogspot.com/2016/12/safalta-ki-vyakhya.html?m=1)

Man I am obsessed with "choice"!

I would focus on the procreation topic here. The main thing to understand is having children is a huge, life changing decision and the only people involved in it should be the prospective parents. Even if the whole clan pledges support and help; the ultimate physical, emotional and financial responsibility is on the parents involved. So totally logically if or not to have kids, how many to have and anything else related to their upbringing should be a completely personal decision. Yes, the experience and wisdom of the elders is definitely useful but the word is "guidance" not "do- as- we- tell- you- to- or -you -don't- deserve - to- live - you- pile- of- shit". There are several factors involved in these decisions.

Let us look at some case scenarios-

1) the couple wants a kid and as soon as possible post their wedding.
2) the couple wants a kid out of wed-lock
3) the couple wants a bunch of kids (in a country with no restrictions on it)
4) the couple wants to have a kid or kids but in their own time
5) the couple wants to adopt
6) the couple is undecided
7) the couple wants a kid but are not emotionally and/or financially ready
8) the couple wants a kid but one or both of them has some medical issue
9) the couple wants a kid but they have no support system
10) the couple does not want kids because they are happy and complete as it is
12) the couple does not want kids because of population and environmental concerns
13) any god-damned thing the couple wants

These are the scenarios which I could think of with my limited brain capacity. There can be tons of more scenarios. The point is each of this scenario is valid, there is nothing let me repeat absolutely nothing wrong in any of these scenarios. The couple involved may have a-z reasons on whatever is their decision. Procreation is not the only reason why human-beings are put on Earth and don't we have enough procreating already?!? I am not advocating any one or more of these scenarios; all I am saying is their is no one correct path. No one can know what any person is facing be it parents, siblings or friends. It is only the spouses staying together who understand their situation. Any and all options based on the general flow of the society, what the relatives would say, what their life situation seems to you by interaction and/or through social media are bull, horse, dog, cat, bird, dinosaur shit combined and rotten together.

Coming back to the movie, as stated earlier it glorifies producing kids like a ton of movies before it has be it in any language. It emphasizes and keeps reiterating the generally accepted social stand on procreation. Again like I said before, one can have a commercial movie without pandering to the majority view. Take Muramba for example- it was a commercialy successful Marathi movie made for a family audience with both young and old artists but despite of all of it; the movie was bold enough to put premarital sex in it. It portrayed a relationship between the protagonists in the manner it is closest to today's youngsters. ( Check my review of Muramba here- https://snehakarle.blogspot.com/2017/06/muramba-movie-review.html?m=1)

 There are many more such examples from the modern Marathi cinema landscape. Bollywood is way behind compared to the kind of Marathi films that are being made. Maybe I am disappointed because of these increased expectations. Maybe you who is reading this will feel why is a movie such a big deal. But whatever said and done people get influenced by art be it books, music, sculptures, paintings, movies or any other form. The kind of art that dominates a particular period reflects the society of that period as well as influences and shapes it. When the art form is a movie made by a much respected director and having senior influential actors, it has even more responsibility as to what it is saying. MPM3 could for example have shown another couple, a family friend perhaps who are deciding to adopt or not have kids at all and have a discussion about how that too is normal. This is just what my limited brain could think of, I am sure there could have been thousand other ways of doing it. But instead we have a couple who has decided not to have kids at the moment, who are first emotionally blackmailed by none other than the family gynac, who are further lectured on and on by the saas sasur dadi pita mata, looked down on as disappointments and made to change their decision by emotional manipulation. It has definitely made life much more difficult for couples who have decided anything other than the norm.
This was the much watered down version of what I really wanted to say because I can't jot down as many pejoratives as flashed in my brain last night. 

eulogy for my dearest mi4i

farewell mon amour
you tolerated me for 4 years
inspite of the drops, cracks, swims, throws
you bounced back everytime

but now you have lost your 'mobil'ity
your 'smart'ness can't help you anymore

you had become an essential part of me
so much so that i have been zombie walking since the last few days
i even gave up food and water, in my imagination
trust me dear friend i tried my best to revive you 
but i guess you just wanted to rest 
you did live a glorious and fruitful life

you were so smart that i never used you as a phone 
but as a camera, a kindle, a laptop, a notepad, a recorder and so much more 
you adapted smoothly from 3g to 4g without being a 'gi't  
you 'app'lied yourself to all the apps
your wifi helped me high five my friends
i hid behind your keypad and emojis as i communicated with the world via messages


i used your global viewing system more than your global positioning system
i saw the world through your 13mp lens
and oh how lovely you made the world seem
i was screened from it by your screen
stripped off your shield it seems uglier and harsher


i quite dishonestly took all the credit for your work
friends and family showered me with praises for my so called photography skills
i was sought out at functions to click 'posed' candids
but you never uttered a word of dissent 
you were so good at towing the line of the current government 


you had a lot of 'bez'zazz with your ultrathin bezels    
14cms tall, weighing only 130gms,
your slim sexy body gave me the motivation to complete those tiring walks as you propelled me with inspiring music
your 'beauti'fy mode would give the much needed beauty to my self in 'self'ies 
you would be' burst'ing at the seams filled with my burst mode photos
but you never complained, just gently slowed down to remind me to take a breather and slow down myself
you were made in china like every other object in the world
but i embraced you like hakka noodles
just like them you comforted me in difficult times
you were my trusted sounding board as i recorded
poem after poem in my short stint as a perfomance poet
you taught me by example to keep working on myself just like you did with updates
you didn't leave me high and dry either
even on your death bed, you made sure all my data, contacts, photos, notes are safely backed up in fluffy, happy clouds


everytime i see a cute lil bird or a new bloom in our balcony, or a funny shaped cloud 
my hand automatically reaches out for you
everytime i see a quirky line on a vehicle or an old decrepit structure
i miss you 
everytime i cook or eat something, anything
i miss you
everytime i get dressed up or have a good hair day
i miss you
it has been just 5 days since i lost you to the smartphone heaven
but it feels like an eternity


always remember no one else can replace you
the new one may come boasting of more megapixels or optical stabilization or wide aperture
but you did all they could with such a humble nature
i apologize for not having the potential to write you a worthy eulogy 
you were much more than i ever deserved

rest in peace my love.

Jajawalya Abhiman (जाज्ज्वल्य अभिमान)

P.L Deshpande fans would immediately recognize this term from the hilarious ‘Punekar, Mumbaikar ki Nagpurkar’. In this, PuLa suggests that to be a true Punekar one should have ‘Jajawalya Abhiman’ in something, anything. This is one of those Marathi terms to which any English word won’t do justice. But it roughly translates to a burning, unreasonable, disproportionate and excessive pride in something.

When I read about Pune having topped the list of most livable cities I was reminded of this term.
No no, this is not another opinionated write up about the Mumbai-Pune (or Bombay-Pune) debate. But it just made me think that “jajwalya abhimaan” is no longer a trait of any particular city. It is an illness that has reached the DNA of most humans and it is spreading like wildfire.
There is nothing new in what I am saying. This must have been written, discussed and spoken about by far greater minds than me but I just felt like talking about it in my way.

Think of this term in context of the events unfolding around us, the daily newspaper headlines, the conversations with friends, the coffee machine discussions with colleagues which soon turn to arguments. I find the root of most current issues in this ‘excessive pride’. When pride grows like a cancerous tumor spreading throughout you, dictating who you are, extending its tentacles to others around you it gives rise to ‘groupism’. This doesn’t stop here. The love child of ‘excessive pride’ and ‘groupism’ is ‘judgement’. Once this devil makes an entry it is only a matter of time for
‘Jajwalya abhiman’ to destroy humanity.

Take the 9 o’clock debates on news channels, wherein about 7-8 people shriek and shout at the same time, speaking over each other and the anchor shouts louder than them all, from the top of his lungs and liver and spleen and kidneys. Each of these shouters belong to a particular group, which has a particular agenda, opinion and principles and every individual in that group has a disproportionate amount of pride in these principles and opinions. As they feel what they are saying is the right thing by corollary what the others are saying ought to be wrong.

The inhuman mob lynchings, cow vigilantism is excessive pride in the Hindu religion- or rather the Hindu religion as per the wilful interpretation of that mob. The opposition to end the practice of ‘triple talaq’ by certain Muslim groups is the same excessive pride in their religion as per their willful interpretation of the Quran. Almost all the riots, murders, bombings that have happened in the name of religion are due to this pointless pride. Terrorism be it of any origin emanates from this excessive pride in one’s region, religion and beliefs. That is the reason why terrorists consider themselves patriots or revolutionaries.

What’s with the ‘Make America great again’ slogan?! Nothing but extreme pride, the sentiment ultimately leading to the cruel immigration policies and the many other foolhardy policies of the Trump government.

Let’s consider the crimes against women- the trigger may be anything but the origin is in the extreme pride in masculinity which leads to the belief of women been the weaker gender who can be treated anyway they want. If a decent guy tries saying something in support of women he is put down by saying “han ja tu bhi haathon mein chudiya pehenle” Feminism is used as a curse word, something one should not be afflicted with. The effect is on both genders with beliefs like ‘Mard ko dard nahi hota’. This excessive pride for a gender which is deeply entrenched in our society makes and shapes the demons who ultimately don’t even spare babies.This same pride leads to female infanticide, skewed gender ratios and all its repercussions.

The whole nautanki of reservations, on the face of it comes from injustice towards or the needs of a particular caste but dig deeper and what it is, is nothing but excessive pride in one’s caste which leads one to believe that certain things are his rights by virtue of belonging to that caste. Just like casual sexism, casual casteism can be seen in everyday conversations; remarks like - “hai kobra mhanje kanjusach asnar”, “maratha na, maaz asto hyana”, “deshasta beshista” and so on. Favoritism and prejudice based on religion and caste are both largely prevalent. The reason for caste still being a major factor in marriages is this “jajwalya abhiman”. Honor killings is the direct result of this.
 Such divisive boundaries are not just restricted to Hinduism. Muslims have their own Shia versus Sunni pride and further subcategories, Christians have the protestants, roman catholics, orthodox and so on.


In this age of global citizens we are still waging wars on boundaries and nationalities. I, by no means want to demean the army, one has to be careful nowadays on how one's words may be interpreted and God forbid you say anything about the country or its borders you are an anti-national who must be packed off to Pakistan! All I am saying is having a balanced sense of pride of one's own country, a sense of belongingness is but natural and it is a matter of duty to protect this land to which one belongs. The people doing this duty for us deserve the top most respect but let us not use them as a reasoning in every argument about the country. Having a feeling of belongingness in one's mind and being a responsible citizen is no longer enough, one has to tattoo the love for their country on their foreheads, get an orange tan and raise slogans against “the others”. On the other end we have those with excessive pride in their adopted surname and viewing themselves at the helm of affairs by the mere reason of been born in a particular family.

Speaking of being ‘packed off to Pakistan’, there’s this excessive pride regarding one’s festivals as well, I recently read a statement posted on some random group on facebook, it was written in Marathi and roughly translates to- if you have a problem with water wasted at dahi handi, the loud noise at ganpati don’t stay here, pack your bags and go off to pakistan till Shravan ends. So basically, it is assumed that loud music, water wastage and tharki dance are part of tradition; if I care about the environment, water wastage, noise pollution and such it automatically says that I don’t respect those traditions, festivals and further due to this assumed lack of respect I can no longer be termed a Hindu and thus so very logically I must be packed off to Pakistan. (do imagine a face-palm here)

Believing in and following traditions religiously and enjoying them is not enough, one has to  judge people who don’t follow these traditions. This other group is no better, it  consists of people with their own rationale but rather than been satisfied with the personal reasons, they end up judging the former group for being too typical! It is like an unwritten rule that if you belong to a group you have to look down upon the other groups and in principle always oppose them.


This excessive pride is not just related to the country but trickles down to states, languages, cities, even districts and villages. In South India, many either speak English or their mother tongue but most do not respond to Hindi even if they understand it. This has changed considerably over the years though.  It is a different discussion altogether if Hindi really should have been made the national language, but now that it is so one may expect people to accept it. When someone not well versed in English lands up in such states and realises that people aren’t responding to the national language, what is the fella supposed to do? Taking this example in Maharashtra too the ‘sons of the soil’ as they call themselves insist that all official communication be in Marathi. So don’t try and correct a wrong but birth another wrong to counter it, oh so logical!

 To give an example close home, the Mumbai- Pune debate is quite passé, the one more popular here is the Pune-PCMC debate. In Mumbai, we have the Western, Central, Harbor debate. Region wise pride is quite rampant as well- “amhi dadarkar, Dadar is the father of mumbai”, “we are the Soboites and you all are so categorically middle class" (to be read in the Maya Sarabhai tone), “Borivali, oh my you live in jungle”. Pune has its own battles- “Peth is the real pune”,  “Kothrud is about the only decent place here”, “We are from Viman nagar and we so yo we don't even know PCMC exists.” This may all seem funny and too trivial but the excessive pride starts taking root from such trivial stuff.

I remember in school there was this fokat ka pride in being from an English medium school, looking down on the vernacular medium students while the convent educated are laughing on the regular english medium ones and now there’s international boards and stuff in the mix! We even had school bus company loyalties and an enmity between different school buses. Speaking of childishness, there’s the vegetarian versus non-vegetarian debate. The ever-so-proud non-vegetarian would say, “kya ghaspus khata hai bakri hai kya tu?” while the vegetarians would retort with, “Shiv Shiv, paap lagega you hurt innocent animals”. Topping this childishness is the sports related pride and the consecutive debates be it about different sports or teams within a particular sport or individual sports people. The scale of support the Indian cricket team gets is something the soldiers can only dream of because excessive pride for the Indian cricket team translates to excessive pride for the nation and that as we established earlier is a prerequisite if you don’t want to be packed off to Pakistan. (one of these days I must ask the individuals saying this to act on it, would love to see them tottering around for the official proceedings).

I have to talk about the art world- the writers, the poets, the painters, the sculptors… I don’t mean to say everyone in this category is how I am going to describe them. In fact I have friends, family and near and dear ones who do not fall in the below description. But I have also seen a lot like the ones on whom these observations are based. So the main condition in entering the artsy club is to look down upon who they deem as commoners, you know, non-creative types. If one has a regular 9-5 job, is happily married with kids, respecting traditions and society’s rules, not raging against anything, not rebelling then he or she is just too banal to exist!

In the quest of not wanting to fit into any stereotypes, the artsy type itself has become a new stereotype - you must have a pet topic to rage against society, you must be a rebel, you must think of yourself as been misunderstood by the society at large, you must either be bald, have freakishly colored hair (i soon plan on this), have a long ass beard, wear khadi, smoke like a chimney, criticise anything and everything that is mainstream such as popular bollywood songs, listen only to the maestros, look down on the regular bestseller readers as one should only read the classics, snicker at people not aware of western music, oh the list can go on! Things mentioned in this list are not wrong per se apart from the snickering and looking down part, but instead of been an individual choice the excessive pride of been outside the mundane has made them into a new stereotype.

Bonds are broken- relations, friendships because of this excessive pride towards anything. Groupism keeps growing and ‘live and let live’ has become a thing of the past. If the other isn’t harboring burning pride about the same issues, doesn't share or agree to one's opinion he is a moron and needs to be distanced from.

What if we refrain from parking our fat asses in any group?
Would that make us any less of the social beings we are supposed to be?
Why can one not have a firm opinion or excessive pride for any given topic and be just neutral or have an opinion which sees both sides of the coin?
Such individuals are termed indecisive, without a stand and further without a spine to take a side and revel in it. Because the rest of us take excessive pride in’ being part of the majority group which has excessive pride for their respective subgroups.’ (phew!)

On re-reading this I realized at some places I have used “us”, other places I have used “them” without even realising I am doing it. So I belong to the group of smart asses who think they have figured this all out and don’t belong to any group or have excessive pride in anything but they actually do.

Why does this happen? I am not an anthropologist or any logist for that matter to know it. But I think the innate need of man to belong to a person, a family, a community gives rise to groups. Nothing wrong in the concept per se but the problem starts when the number of factors on which groups can be formed keep increasing. It is not enough to be proud of one’s country, but one has to be proud of one’s religion, caste, region, state, city, area, housing society, floor, flat number, room in the flat, side of the bed one sleeps on well you get the point. The stuff one gets excessively proud about can be attributed to parental influence, the kind of environment you grew up in, the neighbors and childhood friends that you had, your teachers, the kind of literature and art you are exposed to and so on. So not having excessive pride about anything or not belonging to any of the subgroups seems good in theory but is actually just a utopian concept. Can we try to train ourselves to lessen the pride, to not judge and to let live?

I offer no solutions, I am but a mere observer who has a lot of time on hand to write this. So I present to you this observations with jajwalya abhiman of my Lenovo laptop, jajwalya abhiman of Google docs, jajwalya abhiman of my maratha fingers which typed this, jajwalya abhiman of the cool Moshi breeze I am experiencing, jajwalya abhiman of Pune, Mumbai, Bombay, of Maharashtra, western India, India,  South Asia, Asia, the Eastern and Northern  hemisphere, the world, the earth, the inner solar system, the solar system, the Milky way galaxy, the Milky way subgroup, Local galactic group, local sheet, Virgo Supercluster, local superclusters, observable universe and the Universe!

I will leave you with something my sister-in-law recently shared with me (could not find out who actually wrote this to give credit) -

“Mitti se, 

 mitti par,

 aur phir mitti mein.

 toh phir ghuroor kis baat ka?”

मंत्रमुग्ध करणारी हिरवळीची ती नयनरम्य वाट,

झिजलेल्या चप्पला तुडवतात नित्यनियमाने.

कष्टांच्या काष्ट्याची गाठ घट्ट बांधलीय नियतीने,

सुरकुत्या बनून जणू हिर्वळीतला खडतर

प्रवासच गोंदलाय कपाळी.

हिच पृथा 

हिच पार्थी 

हिच पार्थीवी

हिच परिशी

Confessions of a Misoshopist

Confessions of a Misoshopist

(Of XXL, Discounts and Holes)

It all started with the ads leaflet which comes with TOI, you know the one that's named ‘Pune Times’. (sounds like the lame cousin of Bombay Times) But it has no pretences, it quite honestly states albeit in a small font that it is an 'advertorial, entertainment industry promotional feature'.
So basically an Ads Paper.

      This PT which wants to be a BT but is actually an AP (still better than the one with the extra A) was full of monsoon offer ads; the usual copy repeated year after year- 'it's raining discounts', 'magical monsoons', 'monsoon dhamaka', 'monsoon mania'  with the graphic of colourful umbrellas.

      I unlike the stereotype regarding women and our love for shopping don't like it that much.
To sum up the reasons- I am too lazy to push my ass out of bed, go to a crowded mall, push and shove my way through racks and racks of clothes, feel guilty about my obesity as they design clothes mostly for starved people, then go on to try the clothes I picked in the stuffy room after standing in a long ass line and feeling extremely gareeb at the end of the ordeal! I also dislike shopping because I don’t think I deserve anything new as I consider myself the scum of the earth! But anyone and everyone who knows me has heard and read enough about the self-hatred so I won't dwelve on it here. Nonetheless, I couldn’t escape the lure of the discounts as my miserliness tops my laziness and self-hatred.

    Contrary to another stereotype - my husband loves shopping and as soon as I told him about the monsoon discounts, the man started going on and on regarding how few clothes he has and the need to upgrade his wardrobe! The guy believe you me, has double the number of clothes than me! I just don't understand how many blue t-shirts a man can wear. They are all blue for God's sake!

    

    Oh, completing the hat trick of stereotype breaking, I have no idea about colors other than the basic ones. When I hear friends talking about fuchsia, ebony, coral, amaranth, salmon and so on I just nod my head with a smile as we often do to feel inclusive. (‘Coquelicot’ I kid you not is an actual orangish color as google mata told me! Just try pronouncing it, not in front of kids though.)
Another thing I can’t get my head around is the type of material. I understand the basic ones like cotton, silk, wool but the rest be it corduroy, brocade, fleece and so on  I just don't get it. Silk is supposed to be silky to touch right?!? Then what the hell is cotton silk? A salesgirl once showed me something made from ‘organza’. What’s with all these sexual references first the coquelicot now this! Let’s not forget all those styles and patterns - off shoulders, cold shoulders,empire lining, peplum, gypsy, smock, cossack (are we still talking English?). I remember the empire lining trend when that is all you got anywhere making life really difficult for us large-bosomed women. It is this stupid tight line just below the breasts making them look even more humongous than they already are and making you stoop even more than you already do! Currently everyone is wearing stuff with holes on the shoulders! What’s up with these holes?!? They started making an appearance in jeans, then below the neckline, the waist and now the shoulders! Even the plain old jeans have styles like skinny, distressed, boot-cut and pedal pusher and what not. The holes in them have progressed to full grown tears, called ripped or distressed or something. Why would you want to pay for new clothes which look worn out and old and torn, the kind of clothes my mother used to give to the bhangarwala in exchange for some good old bartans! I wouldn’t be surprised if she exchanged my brother’s brand new ripped denims for a kadhai.

To sum it up my fashion sense is such that the term “power dressing” for me means AB’s costume from “saara zamana haseeno ka deewana…” But as the malls are filled with only the current trends you have no option but to go with the flow (especially when you seek discounts).

     So there we were at Westend mall, me with a ‘kill me now’ expression on my face and Adi with a ‘I am going to Disneyland' expression on his. On some previous visit ages ago the Shoppers Stop counter guy had convinced us to buy their membership card, so we thought chalo ispe aur discount milega plus the store is on one of the lower floors. My shopping philosophy is ‘to expend the least energy possible’, therefore even with the elevators and escalators I had no intention of going to the top floors. I hesitated at the entrance rethinking the whole thing after seeing the hordes of people inside. Why do so many people need so many clothes? Those goddamned Adam and Eve should never have eaten that apple and got all self conscious about nudity! But, the 50% off and 70% off danglers pulled me in.

      The guard offered us a look of ‘aa gaye paise udane’ while handing a netted sack to dump our choices in. To delay the inevitable the shop’s arrangement helped me. The sections near the entrance were for guys. Now this part I love - choosing clothes for other people because there is no evil judgemental voice shrieking in my head then. So I waltzed from one brand to the other, pulled out jeans and tees and casual shirts for my man and stepped on his feet quite subtly when his hand extended towards the blues and greys. At the centre there were arranged the clothes from the brand of an actor who supposedly can act, who never shot any chinkaras, and who never drove his car.
I not only didn't let Adi near it but said some stuff loud enough to make quite a few other people walk away from it (ya i am bitchy most of the times especially for topics je dokyat jatat (nothing can convey it as strongly as this marathi phrase)) oo brackets within bracket the advocate inside refuses to die…

          About an hour later, Adi waited patiently in the dressing room line, a jolly smile lighting up his face due to the high of shopping and a bag full of clothes that he held on his shoulders looking very much like Santa Claus. Women hovered at the entrance to the dressing room passage ready to arm twist their men into buying what they like, you know good enough for them to look at but not so good that other women look at their men! Adi as usual ended up buying much more than he needed by chanting ‘discount discount discount’ like some mantra in my ear.

        Now came the irksome part. Just looking at the vast area which the women's section occupied had me rooted to the spot. Taking advantage of the breathlessness I suffer from a lot of times, I tried faking it to convince navra to get out of there (when the fuckers anxiety and depression trouble you so much all the time they might as well help in certain situations). But I was caught out as Adi knows me a little too well, the insufferable sod! So there I was shifting those hangers looking for the dark colors hoping that they would make me look slimmer. Nine out of ten times the color or pattern I liked didn’t have a double XL (ya no point in hiding that, you all know I am obese.)  The poor X rating doesn’t have a good image vis-à-vis clothing as compared to you know where. To add to all the other confusions there are different sizing charts! So as per my limited understanding my XXL equates to size 18 as per UK standards, size 16 as per USA standards, 19 as per Japan, 20 as per Australia and 28 as per Wakanda! So depending on where the blasted brand is from the figures keep changing (though all of them are finally made in India or China). This is the information I have now thanks to Google but didn’t know on this shopping spree. So when one sales girl asked me if I am 16, I beamed brightly saying, “Oh come on I don’t look that young.” All credits to the poor girl who did her best not to laugh out loud.

        The stores are mostly organised enough and have clothes arranged as per size to make our lives easier but as we as a society are averse to public discipline, customers just keep anything anywhere and so there is that lonely barbie sized top amidst the hulk sized ones and vice versa. After awhile i just started asking the salespeople around to help me pull out the double XLs.
If I refused to try one of their choices, they would coax me with kind words saying “ma'am you are not fat at all, you are just healthy.” Now I am quite aware ‘healthy’ is a euphemistic word for you ‘old fat cow’ but nonetheless the ego boost made me try their suggestions on.

      Oh and then came the dreaded dressing room line. Looking at the dressing rooms bursting at the seams, I was totally coming apart at the seams. (get it? get it?). By the time it was my turn at the trial room, I had lost all interest in sizes and patterns and styles and discounts and clothes and life.
I somehow gathered whatever energy was left and stepped inside the small and stuffy room where the fans seldom work and which remind me of Circuit’s dialogue from Munnabhai MBBS “Bhai yeh toh shuru hote hee khatam ho jata hai”.

          The aversion to public discipline and basic etiquette is seen here as well in the form of clothes left on the hooks and on the floor by the previous occupants. So amidst all the mess I somehow manage to undress and dress. Oh that fucking dressing room mirror crushes whatever is left of your self-esteem. It is so close in that small room with harsh lights that it shows you every pimple, wrinkle, spots, and all those other annoying things on your face and a magnified version of all your tyres!

         I had ended up picking up some tops with shoulder holes because most of them had it.
While trying the first one, twice I ended up with one hand through the arm hole and the other through the shoulder hole, cursed a lot and finally got it on the third try. There was no way I could step out to show navra how it is looking. The hate beams emanating from the eyes of the waiting women would have turned me into dust right away and not been part of the Marvel universe I can’t be resurrected. So there I was alone and sweaty surrounded by clothes in that room fit enough only for Ant-man, with the judgemental voices in my head ever so loud. But I had promised myself to choose at least a few of the ones we had acquired after so much struggle.

           After the struggle with the holed tops was an all black one which I was quite sure I wanted to buy. I could figure out the neck but the hemline was diagonal and ended up with some narrow strips. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what they were for but thought chalo yaar black hai fit ho raha hai I will just cut off the strips later. A friend explained the next day that I am supposed to tie a knot with those strips. Aren’t knots supposed to be hidden inside clothes, the ones you tie of the good old nadas?

         Then there was this green top (bottle or olive or light or grassy no clue) looked simple enough, I almost felt like I could deal with it. My head popped out of the right hole so did my right hand but they had forgotten to make the arm hole for the left one! I had concluded it to be defective but on removing it again I realised there was a weird hole down near the waist area. What the hell is going on with the world? I wore it again all the necessary body parts coming out of all the necessary holes and voila i actually loved my reflection (not myself that would be a little too much) the displaced hole had given some beautiful crease like pattern and actually made my kambra look a wee bit closer to a kambar. I have learnt now this kind of sleeve is called ‘Batwing’.

       There were a few more with all the holes in the right places so I  breezed through them until this one which the navra had selected (*&#$^@*). This was a dress on top of a dress, God knows why he wanted me more layered. One is supposed to put the arms through the hidden armholes of the inside dress and then through the outside armholes, then play around with some hooks on one side which by itself was a baba ramdev experience. After that struggle the layer above is supposed to be draped and the fucking knot made an appearance again. The outer layer was to be tied with its other part again on one side. On the first try I couldn’t hook the inner one and just ended up tying the knot so my entire front was exposed, the second time one arm came out of the outside layer, the other from the inside layer leading to one of my breasts popping out. After two more tries and a lot and I mean a really hell lot of curses I finally got it right! But then I felt bad about the curses because it again turned out to be something which could give the illusion of shape to a shapeless person.
Well if that is the end result the struggle was worth it but I am still not sure if it is called a wrap dress or a faux wrap or a flip dress or something else.

       At the bottom of the heap were two plain Polo tees looking like good old friends, no frills.
Just tried them on for size and decided i would definitely buy those two. When I told Adi about them, the man laughed like he never had making everyone go still for a moment and stare at us.
In between the spurt of laughter he told me that I had tried on his tees, the ones I had myself selected just two hours ago. All those knots and hooks and holes had definitely fried my brain!
But after all that struggle I could buy clothes of brands like Vero Moda, STOP, Frattinni, Zink et al, brands which I never even look at. Seriously I have never entered a Zara or Vero Moda showroom.
I just feel too gareeb to even go in and my hyper anxious brain imagines all the people inside pointing and laughing at me as I stand their with no clothes on! So thanks to this monsoon discount thing I have clothes of these high and mighty brands (ache din??)  I am thinking of not cutting of those price tags because they have the original price and the brand name. I can start a new trend wearing the price tag as an accessory! Well if holes can rule the show then anything is possible.

       The last stop is at the cash counter where you stand in yet another line. The cash counter guy generally has the expression ‘dekho kaise chutiya banaya discount ka board lagake’. As he punched in the items one by one we realized two of our items which we had thought are on 70% discount and congratulated ourselves for getting a steal were actually up to 70% with the up to written in extremely small font at some corner of the board hanging high up from the ceiling. But now we really wanted to buy them after the entire battle we went through so we just pulled out our card whilst simultaneously calculating the month's budget  and working out what expenses we would need to cut to balance this day out. Out of the door with bags in hand (paper ones off course) we told each other no more expenses this month, no movies, no eating out, nothing. We then spotted the Tea Trails opposite beckoning our parched throats with those lovely ice teas. Then Adi's phone pinged with the notification of the weekly mails by bookmyshow reminding us of the week's new releases and we just looked at each other with his thumb hovering over the screen.

- Sneha Karle
 July 17, 2018

some creatures are crawling under my skin
i don't know how they look but i can feel them
i can hear them too
they are in my ears and brain and all over my insides
they keep shrieking
they keep scratching
then my fingers become numb and then my toes.
they make me paralysed
but they are cruel they don't numb my mind
they want me to feel them to hear them
my insides are bleeding
i can smell blood all over me
but they are smart
i don't look wounded
they don't leave marks
the doctor says that the soft cushions between my vertebrate have degenerated
he doesn't know that they kick at my spine
eat away what they can find
they are not visible in his x-rays and scans
i can't hold onto things now
flowerpots glasses my phone
i can't grip them for long
the creatures they dance in my hands making me shiver and shake
the doctor says breathe deeply
he can't see them settled in my lungs
blocking my sinuses
they are in my veins
they are on a mission they hiss
they are pushing all my organs against each other
they want me numb and lifeless
but noone should find out about them
so they push at my cheeks from inside
and stretch my lips
now i am smiling......

The Artist

Art is in our everyday life, why not search for an artist within the people we live with, work with, interact with. 

When everything is artistic and everyone is an artist automatically mundanity vanishes.

Speaking of art and artists there is this one person in my life who thinks he is not an artist.

When asked about what he thinks of art and I will quote him here-

 “Ghanta art, aplyala kuthe kay samajata. Meaning I don’t get any of it.” And then he marofied a bollywood dialog -

“Apun public hai public…kisiko bhi kuch bhi bol sakta hai…Jispe apna paisa vasool nahi, uska dabba gul…” 

 But well the point is he thinks he is not an artist, he is just mundane, ordinary, pedestrian and quite happy to be the public. So as a really good wife it is my solemn duty to prove how wrong Adi is  about this as well!!

You say you are not an artist.

But, breakfast in bed today morning was art.

Ordinary or mundane would be making a delicious omelet with all the right ingredients.

 But adding cashews and basil to it and decorating it with a naughty ketchup smiley that mister is art. 

You say you are not an artist. 

But, those butterfly kisses you shower on every inch of my body make my toes curl and my soul sing. Lovemaking mister is art.

You say you are not an artist.

But when I change the bedsheet, our king size bed looks like a homeless person

And when you do it, with military precision corners folded, sides tucked in, no creases, no lines, it truly looks worthy enough for a king.

That mister is art.

The Bollywood twist on bhajans, the obsession for excel sheets and maps,

the shaky photos you click, those neatly folded clothes,

those stick notes on the fridge telling me to go win the world,

 your soothing forehead kisses, the bone melting hugs,

putting up a straight face as I force you to watch my romcoms,

 putting up a straight face as you eat my experimental cuisines,

putting up a straight face as I chat away with my ex,

 pulling out funny faces to drag me out of the dark depths I so often vanish into,

 your stories, your mimicries,

getting my friends of over 25 years to love you more than they love me,

your ability to see qualities in people which they don’t even know exist,

your filminess, the awful moonwalk, the awe inspiring mithun dance, but my favorite is how our souls tango together.

Nothing about you is ordinary or mundane. You bring order to my chaos, madness to my boredom, calmness to my anxieties. That mister is art.

Shaping a statue out of soil, transforming a blank canvas into a mesmerizing painting, injecting feelings in words. That’s all artistic right?

Well how about shaping and molding a person,

transforming a negative person,

 injecting your joy in them,

 how about keeping a smile not just on your face but in your heart despite destiny punching you so hard time and again

 how about filling the world with your kindness, your vibrancy, your positivity, your charm.

 That mister is art.

So considering you are an artist now and I am part of the public let me tell you something- snoring tonelessly every fucking night is not art!

 Apun public hai public kisiko bhi kuch bhi bol sakta hai.