Remembering the 80s !!!

Its been a while i have written on Hindi Movies... I was reading a few blogs yesterday relating to this Hindi Cinema. Now, I speak the language filmeese quite fluently too, and wanted to add my 2 cents on this topic. The 80s in Hindi movies were, to me, "different" aka "hatke". I grew up watching Dharmendra bashing up alleged dogs and Jeetendra inadvertently advertising detergents for their sparkling ability. So I just reminisced abt movie moments from the 80s that faded from silver screen and lest they fade from common memory, this post was made:

1. The bad father-in-law: I can't believe that the heroine's father is no longer the villain in Hindi movies. Remember the 80s when every movie had the heroine's father indulging in all sorts of notoriety. The fallout between the hero and his damsel would always take place when the hero accused the heroine's father. The heroine would then shun the company of the man who pointed a finger at her dad. But soon she would find out from a secretly heard telephone conversation (I guess cell phones killed this concept) that her dad was indeed an animal (read darinde) and all peace would be restored. The part that used to shock me the most was the calm demeanor of the girl in the climax when her father would get killed. Very disturbing. But now they are gone. Hmmm!

2. The multi-colored smoke bomb: I don't know how many of you remember this one. It used to be a stock moment in 80s daku-based movies. They had these bombs that would explode and there was no fire - just a lot of multi-colored powder that would be shown. If you can't remember what I'm talking abt, try imagining a scene where the hero is riding his motor bike (yeah, cars were expensive then) through a series of explosions - none of which remotely hurt him, coz none of them were explosions in the first place, but just red-brown dust instead.

3. The two-villain-vamp dance - Remember vamps? Not the Helen-who-we-all-know vamp BUT the 80s "dance in mini-skirt shaped saree" and "appear in only one cheesy dance" vamps? And they always had two villains (one of which was always Ranjeet) who would suddenly join in for an impromptu shake-a-leg move. Karan Arjun was the last movie where this stock situation was used before killing this trend. Why why?

I can just go on and on and on - the helpful dog, the "sister who gets married to a bad guy and hence hero cant beat the sh!t out of her husband", the evil munim-ji (played by Kader Khan) who was both a comic relief as well as the villain's right hand (literally) man - but I have work to do now. So peace!

And now you are Pissed Off!!

Ok! A word to the few women who read this blog - you'll probably NEVER come back to read it again. I'll miss you all. And just to let you know - this post is not supposed to be gross AND you can ask your male friends that.

I've been wanting to write on this topic for a while now, but it's just that work and other stuff kept me busy. I wanted to write abt the phenomenal tension in a men's urinal. Seriously! I've never been to lady's urinal BUT from what the ladies tell me, it's supposed to be well compartmentalized; a place where individuals get the privacy they need; a place that I believe even plays host to some very interesting conversations. In contrast, men's urinals are a very disturbing area. Read on!

For starters, men have to stand and get their business done. So this is what you do. You face a wall and wait and wait ... and then you get done and then you run (not before washing your hands though). This period, when you face the wall and do your stuff is nerve wrecking. You have to either look at the wall or look down. Now obviously it's better to look into the wall. But I don't have to explain that, if you do this pretty regularly, it gets quite monotonous. Come on, you can't just look at the wall and not think of anything. Every man, I believe, has his special bathroom thought. My thoughts normally include tunes of songs (not Hawa Hawa) or finding patterns in the tiles of the walls. I'd be happy (actually NO) to know what other people think abt.

The next big thing is to avoid any kind of eye contact. Any kind. As men, we are taught to think that nobody else is in the bathroom when we are finishing business. Unlike women, we don't socialize in the toilet. It's never "Hey man, what are you doing here?" for us. However, every now and then, the moment gets the better of you. You hear the new entrant enter and you give a quick look. Under normal circumstances, the new entrant too is careful to not make any eye contact. BUT on a highly chance driven instance - EYES DO MEET! And then ladies and gentleman, you get the most awkward smile exchange ever!

The final thing that I wanna discuss on this issue, is what many might consider gross BUT I have to say it - it's the peeing sound. Some are noisy pee-ers, others like to be discreet. Yet others are situation driven i.e. when left alone they go on a roll BUT in the company of others they learn to control the volume. What is really disturbing is when two people land up next to each other, in an otherwise silent zone, and the only sound they hear is ... you know what. Can you imagine the amount of judging that can go on? "Is the other guy thinking that I'm too loud?" ... "Man! He is soo loud. Does he have no control?" "Wow! He is really quiet!" ... and the likes.

There's so much more that can be discussed on this topic ... but I don't want to piss you off any more :)

Ctrl + S Private Ryan !!!

For the few kind ones who enquired, I've been amazingly busy with my lumberyard office and will continue to be busy for the coming few weeks. So my posting habits may become more irregular. Blah blah. Yanyway! Blogging is a good relaxation and let me indulge in it a lil bit now.

Think abt this. One of my dear friends is walking the arranged marriage route. But you know what they say - "arranged marriages are so passe". Nobody agrees to having an arranged marriage these days. They're all like "oh we met over the net and then we fell in love and then we married" - all in 30 days and under the constant regulation of doting mothers and over-inquisitive aunts :)) Yeah sure! Yanway, like always, I digress again.

Wouldn't it be nice if like most computer applications we could have a Ctrl+S option for relationships? This very dear friend of mine is doing the whole "My name is so and so and my favorite actor is so and so" followed by "what are your future plans" followed by "I'm doing this because my mother asked me to" routine - aka the "babu steps to arrange marriage". It's the first time he's doing something like this, and boy does he feel the pressure. You spend 12 phone calls just to reach the comfort level where you can finally tell her "You know what, I'm a graduate student and I frankly don't make as much money as you think I do" and the next thing you know is "Accha, I don't think this thing is working out bhery well. So let us be just friends." So my friend wants to know - what then? Will he have to start afresh again? Start from scratch? Again call up some random stranger and say "My name is ... I went to school in ... My father has a blah blah figure salary ..." I feel for you dude. I seriously do. The Ctrl+S option would make it really cool where you could save definitive romantic states and the next time around just start from there.

Save romance. Save love. Save a poor graduate student's marriage dreams.