DABAAANG...

You shouldn’t go for this movie if you want to watch a movie which is-
- Sensible or
- Sophisticated or
- Emotional melodrama or a
- Thought provoking one.

Accept it. It’s a Salman Khan movie, a typical masala Bollywood entertainer. People throng the cinemas to see him abuse, deliver double meaning dialogues, grin with arched eyebrows, rip apart his shirt, dance like a git and definitely not act. Dabaang is no exception. It starts with a fight sequence, which has shades of his earlier movie Wanted and gives serious competition to Matrix. ;-) The movie then glides ahead with a banal plot spiced up with the dialogues and not to mention unlike other stars who need to act to liven up the words, for Salman all he needs to do is to keep a straight face and utter it in complete somberness. The jalwa ringtone was an intelligent addition and of course the Raybans too!

A two hour of complete timepass, a movie not to be recommended and even not to be missed. Songs are sweet and munni is already a declared superhit. You should watch the crowd erupt when malaika comes on the screen. Hard to imagine she is a mother of two. Hats off to her! Salman has come a long way from the boyish Prem in Maine Pyar Kiya to the Chulbul Pandey of Dabaang, but somethings remain unchanged, people buy tickets in black to watch him not act. He is a legend that way, absolutely no competition.

I think it’s a bit unfair that sordid dialogues of Omkara are hailed as serious, realistic pieces of art, where as the same is treated as cheap if Salman is starred. So guys and gals, keep no prejudices against our very own Robin Hood of Bollywood, because you may love him, or hate him but you undeniably can’t ignore him as he is A DABAANG KICKASS ENTERTAINER.

Yea that’s me!

It was all there, the signs, the symptoms but I wasn’t aware of it, not until I caught hold of this book. A book that reflected me completely, as I read and frantically turned the pages, the only sound that came out of me was “Oh God!! That’s so true!!!”. I am sure that is the reaction which my thousand other soul mates also gave. Yes! I am talking about none than the book “Confessions of a Shopaholic”. I had never thought myself to be one in spite of my friends always taunting me that I couldn’t go a week without shopping a thing. I had thought it was silly and of course I don’t shop stupid things. But as I read the book, a very repetitive familiar conversation (it’s mostly an argument) with my BF came to my mind. It doesn’t help that my BF is a complete opposite, he hates SHOPPING!! Okay, so we entered the mall and we are walking past shops and then we go inside a shop and here it how it goes:

Me: Isnt this top nice?
BF: Hmmm..yea…
Me: How would it look on me?
BF: I guess.. good
Me: (with a sparkle in eyes).. Woow.. it has my size also. You know how much I like green!!
BF: But don’t you have a lot of green already in your wardrobe??
Me: Yea.. But this is halter neck
BF: But you have a halter neck already!!
Me: But it isn’t greeeen… (Now I am getting really pissed with his lack of encouragement)
BF: (totally giving up on me) Fine buy it. I see no reason why you ask me when you already

decide to buy one. Plus sometimes I think you discover new reasons everyday to justify your
buy.
Me: Alright!! I am not buying.
With that I storm out of the shop
He follows. After sometime:
BF: You wanna watch a movie?
Me: No
BF: Lets have ice creams??
Me: No
BF: You had to buy an umbrella…
Me: Of course not!! I don’t need one.
BF: Ok… so are you going to sulk like this for the rest of the evening just because I didn’t want you to spend your money on that.
Me: What crap! I am not sulking!!
BF: yea you are not… know what.. lets go and buy that green top.
Me: I am NOT buying anything (adamantly)

He slows down , looks at me…and says…. . (with a smile)…

BF: No.. lets buy it. You would look really great in that.

Now am in double minds…hmmmm…..

BF: Really, that was a nice thing. Lets go and grab it before somebody else does.

That just did it, I dragged him to the shop, afraid that it would close down for the day. Panting and heaving, I just pull it out of the hanger and gave it at the counter. (Without trying it on… that was the height of desperation).

After a couple of minutes, I was the proud owner of a gorgeous top and I couldn’t stop smiling and so couldn’t my BF. Then out came his statement:

“You know I never like shopping, but to see you doing it is the most pleasurable thing on this earth. You just sparkle when you do it”
Me: Ahem. Thanks. So whats the plan for tomorrow…. Lets go to BANDRA.
BF(a stern look): No ways!
Me: (with a smile) I was kidding!! Lets go eat something……

It goes on and on, with shoes, novels, bags!! But after reading the book, I consciously became aware of my habits and decided to slow down my spree. It did help!

I am very happy to say that I haven’t shopped anything in the last month…. (But mentally, its running… rains are here, jeans are out, nice khaki shorts would do, a stylish windcheater too…) Well thinking is fine as long as I don’t spend money…. (wink)…..

Nostalgic Reminisces

It is not even a week since you left but we can’t wait to meet you. It seems as if a phase of our life has gone with you. We know it will never come back. The laughs we shared that no one else found funny, the incessant encouragement we gave each other, the pep talks, the night endeavors… the list will never end. How can we forget the eventful weekends which started at noon intercepted with afternoon chiwda, tea and JAB WE MET and ended in showing our days shopping.

It is difficult for me to imagine my life without you girls. I got them all from both of you, the strong support, the unconditional love and the three-year long friendship. We saw misunderstandings, jealousy, bitter fights around us but it amazes me, except for a couple of misunderstandings, we have sailed through together and stronger like never before. People have tried childish pranks in vain to create rift between us. I think of it now and smile… poor them…. Imagine! seeing us together all the time.

Our favorite hobby these days is to watch our old crazy photos and videos and relive the long gone moments. I miss your sane and mature advice, our “analytical” discussions and not to miss the ghost expeditions. Ammu keeps on murmuring her “I miss her a looot” quite too often to my discomfort. You were the only one who could handle her.

Time is supposed to heal the deepest wounds and void , but the void left by you can be filled by you and only you in our lives.

Quoting Westlife( an edited version suited for us ;))

“every moment,
we shared together,
was even better,
than the moment before,
If every day was,
as good as yesterday was,
then we can't wait to relive those moments again”

MISS you A loot… Tania, Tanu, Tanleeee, Tan....

The CooK

The worst side effect of staying out of home is the junk food that one involuntarily gorges upon. And we (read it as the roomies) were no exceptions to it. In order to amend our habits and be healthy, we decided to go on a bai hunt spree. After a couple of misfortunes------------The first cook was too eager to make parathas, and we had parathas of everything that was there in the kitchen: dal paratha, mirch parataha, aloo paratha , gobi paratha, peas paratha..thank god we didn’t have rice paratha!!! Finally we got fed up of parathas and we chucked her.The second cook was another specimen who used to grace our kitchen thrice a week or so. This female was too eager to get married and she dumped us. After a lot of interviews and mental churning sessions, we got settled with our current cook. Little did we know at the time of hiring her, that she would be the topic of our daily night gossips? Initially we were quite happy with her for a number of reasons- she came cheap,she used to come regularly, used to do whatever we asked her to do and then we realized that it stopped right there. She actually did “whatever we asked her to do” nothing more and nothing less. A simple statement of “Plz make 6 rotis” had dangerous repercussions when we ended up having only rotis and no curry. Our house shifting made it worse because we lost our cleaning bai and we appointed her for the same job as well. Now we had to carefully instruct her about everything which was actually quite nerve racking as human brain is usually fogged when you are right out of bed. Hell broke loose when we discovered some spoons missing, tiffin broken, stale food lying in the fridge for a week and hardly eating anything other than potatoes and capsicum!! Anyways we put up with her for 5 months complaining, cursing, pulling our hair but never ever searching for a replacement. We started analyzing her every move, never have we spent our brain so much in office. Her monotonous high pitch voice and her zombie walks were unbearable. One of our conclusion was maybe she is a victim of autism. That explained her blank expressions and her immunity to our scathing remarks. Better late than never, we finally had a round table conference to bid her adieu. Now all pleased with our decision, we are waiting for the day to relay her the information. It’s a different matter that the day keeps on getting postponed but am sure it will come soon and we will breathe a sigh of relief. Signing OFF….and Eagerly waiting for the D-Day aka Mahayudh………….