Chalo lekar apni Tobu Cycle. Welcome.

When Gold Spot was the zing thing, Rabbit was a sythentic gum, Pepsi Cola was flavoured ice in a little cylindrial plastic bag, Made In India was a hit song, Kachh-limbu was the kid who was weak at sports, Chacha Choudhary's brain was faster than a computer and Mithunda was a hero....that was the time I grew up in...the 80s and 90s.

This blog is basically a compilation of my childhood days, a lot of which is inspired by articles, blogs, web sites, forums, music and photographs of the 80s and 90s that I have been come across over the last couple of years.

I've been reminded of so many interesting tidbits of those times and always thought of putting all those memories down in one place. This is the beginning of what I hope becomes....well i don't know what....probably just a trip down memory lane, to start with.

Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.
-The Wonder Years (TV Series)

This blog is..

... a compilation of memories and tidbits of the era me and many others grew up in (Also with a little bit of the present thrown in).

I have deliberately left out Doordarshan serials and advertisements at the moment since it is a very vast subject. Probably will have something about that later. For now, there'll be just links to sites related to DD.

I can't seem to link this site to my blog. Anyways... you MUST visit this one :
coganettoyilrotflmao!! It's hilarious!

I stumbled upon a blog by none other than Rahul Bose! Yes the Indian actor Rahul Bose. And I found this lovely post on Bombay. Being my birthplace and my second home, I always have had a soft corner for the city.

A Paean To The City Of My Life - Rahul Bose
Welcome to Bombay. The city of schizophrenia. Where God and anti-god reside. Where the air is free, but the ground is not. Where every opinion has an equal and opposite opinion.

Read the rest here: Rahul's Blog

Mahanaaz

Cafe Mahanaaz, one of Pune's oldest and the last few Irani cafes left in the city, shut today. I have no particular attachment to Mahanaaz, in fact no attachment at all. But today as I sat there on the steps with a grey empty space at the back, the shutters half way down and talked to the manager, I couldn't help but feel immensely sad and began to miss the place I hardly went to.

Memories. That word must have featured a hundred times in our conversation. Until today, I never imagined that one tacky cafe and a coupla oily veg samosas can bind people from all classes and all backgrounds. But today, when the manager told me about the old lady from Kothrud, the MLA on his way to Bombay and the group of journalists -- all of whom came for their last cup of chai and samosa at Mahanaaz on it's last day --- it made me realise how something as unobvious as Mahanaaz brought people together, people who would have never crossed paths otherwise, had it not been for this Irani cafe.

As he spoke with tears welling up in his eyes, reminiscing about an era that was now coming to an end, I too felt nostalgic. Nostalgic not just about the restaurant, but about the unkempt but so very personal commercial establishments of the years gone by, which are now making place for the swanky new multinational chains that satisfy your every materialistic whim and fancy, but won't have the token fat old Bawa uncle chuckling away and telling you about his son going to phoren land for studies.

When Naaz (another old Irani cafe) shut some years ago and Barista took it's place, I wrote a short essay for college about that....about bidding adieu to cutting chai at 5 am and saying hello to sipping on cafe latte topped with whipped cream while street kids stare at you through the intimidating glass windows. And I got an A+ for it.... "When you feel strongly about something, it shows," said my teacher.

Now, Mahanaaz is shut. Adidas is gonna take it's place. And I guess I will write about it again...... about bidding adieu to the dim-lit old cafe round the corner where Uncle wants to know how come you're done with college so soon today, and saying hello to the glare of the tubelights from the swanky new store and trying on shoes you can't afford while street kids stare at you through intimidating glass windows.

Patience.... & Peters

If you visit this blog and are waiting for updates or.... like moz says, "have me under the radar"... please hang on! I have a lot going on that's keeping me distracted and I promise I shall be back very soon.

In the mean time, go watch some Russell Peters. He's coming to Bombay end of the month!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPn34sUCpd8

Malaysia - Part 1

In the past ten years there have been at least ten plans of a vacation abroad. With relatives spread all over the world, there have always been doors wide open for me in different continents. But for some reason or the other, these plans never saw the light of day.
So I was pretty kicked this month when I finally got my passport stamped and was ready to take off to foreign shores. And I'm glad the first foreign vacation happened now, because everything from organising to funding was done independently. Yup I paid for my own trip from my own (meagre) savings, except the shopping part which my parents generously funded :-)

Writing about the whole trip will take ages. So here are the Highlights:

Holiday alone
I’ve always wanted to be on a holiday all by myself at a far off destination. And I’m so glad I finally got to do it. The first three days of my trip at Genting were with Tan & we had a blast. The remaining three were at KL where I was alone and it was an awesome experience.
It was absolute bliss, being miles away from familiar surroundings, with no fake smiles, no irrelevant small talk and no routine. I didn’t need to acknowledge anyone nor did I need to ignore anyone. It was just me with the person I love most in this whole wide world – myself!
I can’t forget the hilarious bird show I watched at the KL bird park. I found myself guffawing like a six year old everytime Chico, the Brazilian macaw did his cool tricks like riding a bicycle on a tightrope, playing basketball etc. and I went nuts with laughter when the white macaw began ‘dancing’ to a Kylie Minogue track and just wouldn’t stop!
I often crib about wanting to get away from the daily madness that constitutes my life and getting some peace of mind. I found that at a garden in KL which I visited in the middle of the afternoon when it was totally empty. For an hour or two I just roamed about in absolute solitude, with not a soul in sight….just thousands of flowers all around and a clear blue sky above. Moments like that help put life in perspective and make you think about how, while existing, we often forget to live. Or as WH Davies would say – “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”

The flight
Was awesome. Free flowing wine, videos of all the stuff I wanted to watch – Family Guy, Malcolm in the Middle, Kaiser Chiefs live in London, Austin Powers Goldmember and that travel show which used to come on Discovery or BBC hosted by Trey and music from all the new albums that I wanted to hear – Rhcp, Pearl Jam, Jack Johnson and more. The people on the flight were quite sad, but I had enough entertainment so was satisfied.

The first train ride
The ride was great, comfortable and an awesome view outside. What happened once the train stopped was complete insanity. At our destination station, Tan & me got off the train in an absolutely delirious mood caused by finally being in Malaysia. We got on to the escalator on the platform to take us to the next level. As we went up, I checked my little handbag to see if I had anything. Tan asked, "What happened?" I replied, "Nothing. Just checking if I have my passport & stuff. Don't wanna forget anything." Five seconds later, Tan shreiked... "OUR BAGS!!!" We had left our luggage in the train.
As the train began to leave the platform, Tan screamed at the platform-man-in-charge.. "STOP STOP!!" The poor guy, had no clue what we were screaming about. In fact he didnt even understand English. But I think our frantic gestures made it clear that the train had to be stopped. So he signalled for the train driver to stop. And Tan & me went speeding down the escalator. Yes, an upwarding moving escalator... so you can understand the sheer redundancy of that... but we managed to reach the bottom. We rushed in to the train and towards our bags. Only to realise that we were rushing towards the MIRROR image of the bags! (in our defence, the windows & mirrors in the train are sparkling clean. even a reflection looks real.) Once we realised that, we did a quick turnabout, ran towards our bags, yanked them off the shelf, jumped out of the train with a million thank-yous to the bewildered platform-in-charge. And then we laughed till our stomaches ached.

The First World Hotel at Genting
Crazy place. Rainbow coloured walls, 6000 rooms, a token number system for check in, a lobby that replicates a jungle and everything from a giant tap to gondolas and even the statue of liberty as part of the interiors --- it’s as though a bunch of entertainment parks threw up inside the hotel! But I must say that their administration is brilliant – dealing with nearly 15,000 guests daily is not a joke.

The language
Most words in Malay are really easy to pick up. I imagine that there are primarily three rules that must have been followed while making the language:
1) They took the English language, read it out to some lazy kid who landed up writing the words as they were pronounced and voila, you have half the Malay script ready! Hence there are words like komplex (which means complex), stesen (station), ekspres (express), buku (book), kraf (craft), teksi (taxi), farmasi (pharmacy), bas (bus) and komputer (computer). Such words reminded me of my sister’s dictation tests in primary school. She always came home with red crosses all over the page. Now I strongly believe she must have been Malay in her past life.
2) They took some hindi words and changed a letter or two, meaning remained the same. So we have words like tandas (which means sandas, i.e, toilet), cuti (chutti) and selamat (salamat)
3) And then there are just words they picked up from Hindi & English and gave them their own meaning. So the word air means water, susu means milk, anda is you and bandar is city.

Pretending to be a different person
I always wanted to be in a new place and pretend to be someone else. I finally got a chance to do it in KL. Since I was alone for those three days, I often got asked by cab drivers and other random men at shops and restaurants if I was traveling alone. While some of them were just curious, it was obvious that others had different intentions for asking me about my status.
So I made up all these fake answers to their questions.
Q. Are you alone?
A. No I am with my fiancé and brother (For the record, I neither have a fiancé nor a brother)

Q. Why are they not with you?
A. They are sleeping at the hotel room so I thought I’d just step out and do some sightseeing while they nap. OR They are joining me. I’m expecting their call any moment. (blatant lies)

Q. Is this your first time in KL?
A. Oh no I’ve been here a couple of times before. My brother lives here. I know this place quite well. (more lies)

Q. Are you a student?
A. No I’m a journalist (true). I’m in Malaysia to do some investigation for a story I’m working on (false).

Q. May I pay your bill? (Some loser tried to hit on us with this line)
A. No we have to show our bill to our company for refund. (This answer didn’t even make sense, but we managed to kinda ward him off with it)

The cabbies
Each one was quirkier than the other. The first cabbie was Bob Loh, a really helpful fellow who took us to Chinatown. He’s a real estate negotiator. And he gave us tips on how to bargain at Chinatown. One of the important ones was “If you quote a very low price for something, thinking that the shopkeeper will never agree to it, and if the shopkeeper does happen to agree, you better buy the thing. Because if he agrees and then you say you don’t want to buy it, the shopkeeper will get angry and shout at you!”
Then there was another chatty one who took me to the bird park. He asked me, “Why all Hindi girls (I assume he meant Indian girls) like to travel alone?” and then he went on to give me an example of his previous customer, a girl from Bangladesh who was also traveling alone. I guess he didn’t know that Bangladeshi girl is not same as ‘Hindi’ girl. Nevertheless, he was a very well-informed guy. He had heard of the bomb blast in Mumbai and wanted to know what the current status was. He also wanted to know whether they have repaired (not replaced, repaired) the train that blew up.
Another one that took me back from the bird park to the hotel didn’t know English. He spoke precisely four sentences to me:
Where you from? (the usual question), Do you sing? (which actually meant, Are you Sikh?), That is my friend (pointing to a man on a hoarding) and…. You have a long nose (!!! I was totally taken aback with this. A random cabbie commenting on my nose! And it isn’t even that long!)

Malaysia - Part 2

Spending the night on the streets/at the railway station
It was a long long night and I don’t want to elaborate. We were in KL and missed our bus back to our hotel in Genting (Genting is an hour away and there was no other way to get to there except for that one bus, because the alternate mode of transport, the skyway, was closed).
What followed was a whole night of hotel lobby-hopping, lounging on the steps outside the Petronas at dawn, sleeping at the railway station until finally we caught the bus back at 8 am in the morning. We nearly cried tears of joy when we finally lay on the soft mattresses and clean sheets.


Hard Rock Café & DB8
Another of my wishes was fulfilled in KL – going to a Hard Rock Café. Ok so this one was miles away from the original American ones but it’s a Hard Rock Café nevertheless. And I sat under an INXS guitar! The night we went there, there was a band from Philippines performing. Kickass band called DB8. They played Greenday, U2, No Doubt, Hoobastank’s new single… and they were damn good! I have never enjoyed covers so much!

Artificial beauty can be stunning:
There’s this Oasis song Little by Little which has this line that goes “True perfection has to be imperfect”. Every time I hear the song I think to myself how true that line is and how strongly I believe in it. But in KL I realized that perfection can be fascinating too. Pretty much all of Kuala Lumpur’s beauty is man-made. The Petronas, the lake gardens, the insanely massive malls, perfectly landscaped patches everywhere, trees of the exact same height planted in absolute straight lines……it was all so artificial, yet so stunning. While I’m all for natural beauty, I think artificial beauty has its own charm too. All that perfection does get scary, or seems to be too good to be true… but yet, it is quite captivating. And coming from an absolutely imperfect city where even one meter of decent road does not exist, KL’s flawless infrastructure was a refreshing change.

Shopping for size:
Getting stuff in my size was a bitch in KL. Everything was so miniature! The average shoe size was 3 or 4 so obviously when I walked in with my giant feet asking for a size 7 or 8 they all just stared at me for a minute and then went in to check (for courtesy sake) and came out saying “no size no size”. I did manage two pairs of shoes with great difficulty, but neither was among my first choice. I did have better luck with clothes though. Luckily I’m of the average universal size… but I did have to dig through piles of XXS tops and 23-waist jeans to get to the ‘larger’ section which had clothes for me. This is the first time I have bought clothes that only belonged to the L and above categories. I can’t imagine the ordeal that the actual large size women (by Indian standards) would have to face while shopping there.

Getting home:
The journey from Bombay airport to my home in Pune was one of the worst experiences of my life. My advice to everyone – NEVER ever take the KK Travels airport transfer. However fancy their website seems and however much they try & impress you on the phone, do not fall for it. It is absolutely the worst and most torturous journey ever. I usually don’t lose my temper very much, especially not at strangers, but this journey made me go ballistic.

With that out of the way, homecoming is always bittersweet – I love coming back to my house, my family, my friends and my bed. But I hate the feeling of the end of a vacation and getting back to grind.

Picking the denner


This rhyme has been stuck in my head for a day now:

Aada paada, kaun paada
Mamaji ka ghoda paada
Aam paam phus
Ghode ne maari dhus


This was one of the rhymes used when picking a denner for a game. We'd all stand in a circle and one person would say this rhyme while smultaneous pointing at every person in the circle. The person that the rhyme ended on would be out and the last man standing would be the denner.

I'm really amazed at how these strange topics for these rhymes come up.... I mean c'mon... a farting horse...who thinks of stuff like this!!

And there were more:

In pin, safety (pronounced at seph-ti) pin,
In pin out
Out goes the safety pin
In pin out


Eenee meenee myna moe
Catch a nigger (whoa...political incorrectness alert!) by the toe
If he cries let him go
Eenee meenee myna moe


There were more that I can't recall at the moment. If you know any more please put them up in the comments.

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And this rhyming business also reminds me of this other stupid thing we used to say. If someone was wearing a particular colour or said that he/she like a certain colour, it would be followed by the rhyme corresponding to that colour:

Blue blue, chaddi flew

Yellow yellow, dirty fellow, sitting on a buffalo

Red red, susu in the bed

Green green, beauty queen (inevitably every girl chose green as her favourite colour whether she liked it or not)

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Radio Ceylon & Gopal Sharma

How many of you remember Radio Ceylon? I don't... I was born too late. But I have heard a lot of people talk about "radio in those days" and Binaca Geet Mala. I recently got a chance to interview Gopal Sharma -- one of the very popular voices on Radio Ceylon. Here's the bit I wrote on him (some of the 'feel' has been lost in editing, but the article did evoke responses from readers so I'm happy with it :))

Gopal Sharma Ka Namaskar

Radio Ceylon is often associated with the very popular Binaca Geet Mala hosted by Ameen Sayani on the Hindi service of the Sri Lanka-based radio station. But another name, which drew millions of Indian listeners in the 1950s and 1960s to tune in to programmes on South Asia’s oldest radio station, was that of Gopal Sharma.
Listeners of Radio Ceylon’s Hindi service in that era would remember the daily morning transmission beginning with his popular greeting, “Aawaz ki duniya ke doston, bhaiyon aur behenon ko Gopal Sharma ka namaskar. Subah ke theek 7:30 baje hain, aur ab hum shuru karte hain...”
The self-proclaimed ‘conversational announcer’ presented several programmes on Hindi film music, including Kal Aur Aaj, Ek Aur Anek, Meri Pasand, Pasand Apni-Apni, Khayal Apna-Apna, Sandesh Geetawali, Sargam, Ye Bhi Suniye, etc. Sharma was in the city recently to anchor the Umad Ghumad Kar Aai Re Ghata, a musical programme based on the monsoon seasons and it’s manifestations, held here on Tuesday evening.
Sharma, who was recruited by Radio Ceylon in 1956, gives full credit for his success as a radio announcer to actor Balraj Sahani. “I came to Bombay from Meerut to act in films and make a name for myself,” says the 74-year-old. He joined Balraj Sahani’s theatre group. “But Balraj convinced me to give up the film line and join radio because he said I had a good voice and command over language.”
Known for his 'pure' Hindi — Sharma coined the phrase ‘Shubha Ratri’, the Hindi equivalent for ‘Good Night’. An English language announcer, Jimmy Barucha, teased him that Hindi did not have proper substitutes for English greetings, so Hindi-speaking people always used ‘Namaste’. “I thought about it and finally a novel idea came at 4 am. I directly translated ‘Good Night’ to ‘Shubha Ratri’ and it became a universal greeting. Even the likes Amitabh Bachhan use it now,” Sharma recollects.
With a career full of many interesting anecdotes — ranging from the history of Radio Ceylon to a special programmes that he toiled to put together — Sharma plans to share them with his fans in an autobiography he hopes to release in December. “I am currently writing a book on my experiences and propose to publish it on my 75th birthday in December,” he says.
Talking about the popularity of Radio Ceylon over the government-run Akashwani, Sharma says, “The information and broadcasting minister at that time had banned film music on Akashwani and wanted to promote shastriya sangeet (cultural music) only. I agree that cultural music is important, but this kind of music needs to be understood in depth, to be appreciated.” “Also, at Radio Ceylon, we had the liberty to make our own decisions. But that freedom came with a strong sense of responsibility. I have often said that at Akashwani, the strict rules and policies clipped the wings of many able radio announcers,” Sharma avers.
Sharma’s opinion of the current breed of radio announcers (or RJ’s) is far from positive. “Many of them are irrelevant and often annoying. At times they can get disrespectful too. The problem is that there is no logic and ethic of broadcasting. The sense of responsibility is also low,” he observes.
He suggests that there needs to be proper training of radio announcers and, like democracy, “broadcasting too should be of the people, by the people and for the people”.
His advice for radio announcers all over the world is to be natural and talk as if one were conversing with the listeners. “I have often seen that people sit in front of the microphone and suddenly put on a different style of talking. In my experience, style will one day become stale, but a natural flow will never.”


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And here's a response I got from one of our readers...

Nostalgia Rules!
Aditi (my surname withheld) on the voice of yesteryear’s radio truly evoked a bout of heavy nostalgia. For those who were brought up on a diet of Gopal Sharma, Ameen Sayani, his brother Hameed Sayani, Shivkumar Saroj, Ahsan Rizvi and the guitar maestro Brij Bhushan Kabra — each of whom was an icon in his own right — radio today is a feeble replica of its original self, much like the remixes of yesteryear’s music! We would just as much miss breakfast for Purani Filmon Ke Geet or Aapki Pasand, before trudging off to school. The weekly Engelbert Humperdinck special was pure champagne, with Radio Ceylon’s best RJs taking the mike, chief among them being Vijay Correa. RJs today are a clutch of yuppy teenagers who bring to the mike the obvious insecurities of youth, which shows in their jockeying when they make impolite, ill-mannered and often immature remarks about people and stars in an effort to gain oneuppance over the others. I would suggest that (name of my workplace withheld) should do a series of features on radio’s greats such as Lutika Ratnam, Surajit Sen, or V.M. Chakrapani of All India Radio. Many of these legends are no longer alive — Melville de Mello and Roshan Menon among them — and it would be a great walk down memory lane for those who yearn for the good ol’ days!
— Vijairaghavan

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Stay Tuned

I know I have not updated for a while now... but stay tuned, lots coming up -- about an RJ from the Radio Ceylon days and my awesome Malaysia expedition.

Soon!

Older?

Of late I’ve been feeling rather old and outdated. Feeling like I’m still stuck in the last decade while the world has moved on (And I don’t like looking at this blog because it just confirms the feeling :-))
A b’day card from my colleagues saying “Happy birthday to the YOUNGEST member of our team” did kinda cheer me up. But in an office full of aged people, it’s not too hard to be the youngest. (If any of my colleagues read this, I didn’t mean YOU…you ofcourse belong to the younger lot)

Maybe it is post-bday blues. Or perhaps because it’s that time of the year when the videshi friends come home for holidays and we talk about the “old times”. Or probably the fact that my dad happens to know more about this generation than I do!

--Deleted the rest. Found it boring. ---

The Wonder Years

I think this is a perfect time to write about a much-awaited topic – The Wonder Years, a popular TV show in the 90s. It is a perfect time because tomorrow is Fred Savage’s (Kevin Arnold) birthday! And mine too! (Yes, I share my birthday with him! yay!)

Most of you must have watched the show so I needn’t elaborate on that. So I’m just gonna talk about some of my favourite episodes, in random order:













1) The first episode where Kevin finds out that Winnie’s brother Brian is killed in the Vietnam War. This is also the episode of Kevin and Winnie’s first kiss. I liked the juxtaposition of the two strong human emotions – love and sorrow.
The Vietnam war is a paragraph in our history books for most of us. The episode made me think of the impact of it on lives of children in America at that time. And in this case, the war creates a turning point in Kevin Arnold’s love life.

2) When Paul, who is usually a pathetic basketball player…pathetic at all sports in fact…. is selected in the basketball team and Kevin isn’t. It reminds of the kind of jealousy we used to go through in school when a close friend you thought was not good at something, gets it, you don’t and you have to pretend to be happy for him/her when in fact you are quite annoyed and often land up bitching about him/her to a third friend.

3) When Kevin finds out that his hippie sister is cutting school to hang out with her other hippie friends, sing songs etc. I like any show/movie/book/music about hippies in the 60s : -) I even wanted to be one, once upon a time, and actually sulked for two whole days after watching Woodstock 69 on TV because I was not born in that era.

4) In earlier episodes Kevin is shown to not like his strict Maths teacher Mr. Collins. In this one, Kevin is doing badly in maths and starts taking extra lessons from Mr. Collins to do better for an upcoming test. After a few days Mr. Collins tells him to start working on his own because he is busy with some appointments. Kevin’s pissed off with him because he feels betrayed and purposely does badly on the test. Next day, Kevin finds out the Collins is dead. And his test paper is “mysteriously” missing.
You just have to watch this episode to feel it.

5) Getting the driver’s licence and the pain of parallel parking. I began to like this episode only much later. When I was learning driving, the one thing that I just could not do was parallel park. And every time I had difficulty with it, I thought of this episode.

6) The last episode. Everyone wanted Kevin and Winnie to end up together. But they didn’t. They grew up, and grew over their childhood love. And it’s something that happens to a lot of us, has happened to me for sure. If ever there was a perfect dialogue to end a TV series, this one would be it:
“Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back, with wonder.”

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I like the way certain relationships were portrayed in Wonder Years. Like the ones between:
Kevin and his older brother who beats him up but also saves him
His sister and dad who suffer from a problem of generation gap, but at the end of the day, she still is daddy’s little girl.
Wayne and his dad, the only man that obnoxious Wayne is afraid of. At the end of the series when the dad dies, Wayne is the guy who takes up his father’s job.
Kevin and Winnie – friends, lovers, enemies, friends, lovers, enemies, friends….

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I have always wanted to make the Indian equivalent of Wonder Years. One day when I am rich, or I find a rich producer, I will make it. And then many years down the line some young girl will write about MY show in her blog :-)

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The Wonder Year’s theme song “With a Little Help from My Friends” by Joe Cocker is in fact a Beatles’ cover. The first version I heard of this song was Joe Cocker’s live version on my dad’s ‘Woodstock 69’ tape, before Wonder Years came to our TV screens. Then heard it during the closing credits of the serial. And finally, heard the Beatles’ version, which I like best.

Another reason why I liked this show so much was because many of the popular songs of the 60s and 70s that I love were played on each episode. I searched the net and came up with some of the songs that we heard on the show:

Turn, Turn, Turn - The Byrds
Blackbird - The Beatles (Beatles are the best)
Riders on the Storm - The Doors
Sealed with a kiss – Bryan Hyland (I LOVE this song)Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye – Steam (I love this one too)
Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross & The Supremes
My Girl - The Temptations (I can’t imagine anyone NOT liking this song!)
You Are So Beautiful - Joe Cocker (I think this was the song played when they show a flashback of little Karen with her father…really sweet)
Blowin’ in the Wind – Joan Baez (I really like her version of it, though I’ll always be partial to Dylan)
Scarborough Fair –Simon & Garfunkel (another one I LOVE)
Stand By Me – Ben E King (This song is one of my all-time favourites)

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The mention of Stand By Me reminded me of this one night in Bombay when we'd gone for Malhar the Xavier's college fest.
In the middle of one night, rather very very early in the morning, we'd eaten at Bade Miyan's and for some reason we decided to WALK back to our room at Cuffe Parade. So here we were, a bunch of us, walking in the middle of Bombay roads at some strange hour, when S decided to start singing! So she started of with Stand By Me and I seemed to be the only other one who knew the lyrics to it, so I joined her. Both of us went berserk singing Stand By Me on the top of our voices! And one of the Xavier's guys who was with us, decided to accompany us on the "Darling Darling" part. So you had both us girls singing the song & suddenly a very enthu male voice joining in at the Darling Darling part.... and we went on & on with that. It was hilarious! And needless to say, a lot of fun!

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Energee flavoured milk

Today on my way to work I saw a sign outside a tapri that said "Energee Milk Served Here"!! (will try and get a pic & put it up here soon)

I was a big fan of this flavoured milk when I was a kid. And I thought it wasn't available in Pune anymore! So evidently I was overjoyed when I saw this booth with the sign. I think I'll go check it out & see if they really serve Energee. You never know, it may be a sign left over from the 90s :-)

I HATED milk as a kid (still do). So when I first found out about Energee being served at my new school in Bombay, I wasn't too thrilled. We got a bottle of Energee & 2 Parle biscuits every short-break. But since I used to get dabba from home, I was more than happy to skip the milk+biscuits.

Until one unfortunate day, I forgot to get my dabba. I was starving, hadn't had breakfast and lunch was another two hours away. So the only option left was the free milk and biscuits.

The thought of pineapple flavoured milk totally grossed me out. But I had mastered the trick of drinking any kind of milk.... hold your nose, gulp it down as fast as possible and quickly drink lots of water. Unfortunately I had misjudged the size of the Energee bottle. While I was half-way through, I realised that I couldn't hold my breath any longer. So I had to let go of my nose and suddenly a the taste of the milk hit me. It wasn't bad!

I couldn't believe it! This milk... tasted good, filled my stomach and was good for my health? Wow!

Since that day I drank the off-white colour pineapple flavoured Energee every short-break. One day I found a brownish colour Energee bottle in the crate and out of curiosity tried it. This tasted even better than pineapple!

It was coffee-flavoured and besides tasting good, it also gave us the kick of drinking "coffee" in school... made us feel all grown up. (At that time coffee wasn't as popular as it is now. So drinking coffee was a big deal). But everyday there were just about 3-4 coffee Energees so only the lucky early birds got it. As soon as the short break bell rung, I used to race down to the stairs to get hold of coffee Energee. And I was lucky quite a few times!

Two years later I left that school and ended my daily affair with Energee.

With Barista, Nescafe and other assorted coffees running through my blood stream, I doubt I'll ever be able to like coffee Energee again. But I will remain ever grateful to Aarey for introducing me to the first milk I ever liked!




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Another contribution. This time from Ganesh, a Dasan & Nutramul boy

Do u remember in those days there was a brand of bubble-gum in the market called NP??? Well, my mum wasn't a big fan of the mess I cud make with gum, so I was allowed to have it very rarely... Anyways, everyday on my way back from school (my hand clasped tightly in my mum's, good kid that I was), I'd see all these trucks on the road, and guess what, every other one would have 'N/P' painted on its sides. And of course, I put two & two together... How I would torture myself with thoughts of truckloads of my favorite forbidden treat within arm's reach, the drivers blissfully unaware that they held the key to an eight year old's happiness... I guess I developed my love for the smell of exhaust fumes around the same time... Man, I was a screwed up kid... :))
PS: N/P stands for National Permit, just in case u didn't know.

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Vada-pao.
(Nothin....Just thinking of it)

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Germany out of the World Cup!!!!!!!!!
I have never jumped further out of my seat as I did when Italy scored that second goal.

Yesterday

It's my birthday in a week. I turn 23. I have no problems about turning older. But I specifically don't wanna be 23... I just have a thing against prime numbers. Nevertheless, whether I like it or not, 23 I shall be.

Every year around this time I unconsciously begin to look back over my life and however cliched this might sound... I do think over the many lessons that life has taught me.... and the many that I have refused to learn :-)

So this post's gonna be about something that stood out every year over the past 23 years. Must warn you, it's gonna be fairly senti. Also, I might be a year off here and there, but the facts are perfectly correct.


1983 July 9: I landed on Earth.
Breach Candy hospital, Bombay. No electricity. My mother in intense labour. My father trying to pacify her with Santa-Banta jokes. In the midst of it all, I was born.
Twenty-three years later, July 9 becomes the most awaited day of the year.... the day of the World Cup 06 finals. Sigh.

1984-1986: I walked this planet
Strangely I have no personal recollection of those years. Except that on my 2nd (or was it 3rd?) birthday, I began to walk. Yeah, I gave my parents a birthday gift on MY birthday. Sigh.
Also, sometime in those two years, we moved to Pune.

1987: A new member
My sister was born. In spite of the amount I terrorise her, she still is the only one I would give up my life for in less than a fraction of a second. (She doesn't know this so please don't tell her otherwise she'll make sure we get in to a situation whereI have to give up my life.)

1988: Child genius? Not quite
I represented my school at a 'memory game' championship. My parents thought I would turn out to be a child legend. Sigh.

1989: Huh
I was totally spaced out for this one year in school. I had no clue what was going on.I cannot recall anything substantial. Though I do recall that this was when I got my first taste of punishment in school. I was often made to stand out in the corridor for reasons that I again, cannot recall.

1990: This doll is broken
This was about the time I got really frustrated with my sister because she wouldn't talk. So I told my mom to take her awaybecause "I wanted a talking doll! This one doesn't!" Also, during one of her baby tel-maalish sessions I thought I'd help out with the 'excercises'. One tight slap later, I realised that twisting a baby's arm behind their back is NOT an excercise.

1991: Search
I'm not sure about the year, but I think this was the time when my parents thought I'd been kidnapped by my maidservant. She'd taken me to play at the nearby park. Till 8 pm, there was no sign of our return. My parents freaked out and scouted the whole city for us. Found us at the maid's friend's house where she was sipping chai. We still don't know whether the maid genuinely forgot the time or whether she was in the midst of plotting a scheme with her friend to hold me ransom/sell me off.

1992: The big city
We moved back to Bombay. It was a bizarre transition. A HUGE city, new friends, a co-ed school, living in an apartment 8 floors above the ground, Bollywood film shootings and a brand new concept of 'art and craft period' at school which was pure torture.

1993: The big bad city
Bombay riots. Like any other kid my age, I was happy with school being closed and exams cancelled. On the other hand, the half-baked facts I heard from friends, family and television about terrorists, Muslims, bombs and 'bad people' confused me at first. The confusion soon turned in to fear when I saw the bombed Centaur hotel at Juhu. That's when it hit me, something'bad' was going on.

1994: Nothing like in Enid Blyton books, but nonetheless, awesome.
I went to boarding school. Another bizarre transition. School being my new home, new friends, rules, discipline....nothing like the Mallory Towers I had imagined!

1995: Saaro Chhe
Ahmedabad. I spent my vacations there. One of my favourite cities in the country. The Drive-In, Chills Thrills and Frills, mozarella pizzas, gujju thaali, the water park, women in knee-length swimsuits, snake park, wild navratri nights, early morning horse-riding....I definitely wanna go back for another vacation...but not while Modictator rules the state.

1996-97: Home away from home
My life was Boarding School. Too many incidents to list here.

1998: Angry young women
We 'went against' the principal. Voiced our opinions rather dramatically. Got suitably punished.

Somewhere between 98 & 99: Shhhhh
Plenty of secrets

1999: Who am I?
This was the year my dad claimed I began "finding myself". Six years later and I'm still looking.

2000: Best friends... and then more.
Love happened. And then began a long, crazy and the best rollercoaster ride of my life.

2001: Hard day's night
12th standard. I can't believe I survived that.

2002: By Me
My first byline and first pay cheque!

2003: Ticket to ride
Graduation. B.A. (Psychology). It was a feeling of freedom mixed with confusion, optimisim with uncertainity and sadness with relief as we broke out of the shackles of a protective college life and left behind what were some of the best years of my life.

2004: The Capital
Delhi. A city I love as much as I hate. Distance made the heart grow fonder. But being out of sight also made me out of mind. I gained some, I lost some. I have no regrets.
This was also the year I had worked at a call centre (and hated it) and wore an eye-brow ring (which I miss now)

2005: Mummy, mujhe naukri mil gayi!
My first full-time job. It's funny that precisely a year earlier, at a college entrance interview I said, "someday I wantto work in this organisation". Had I got selected in that interview, I wouldn't be here. More often than not, things work out for the best.

2006: The long and winding road
Here I am, nearly 23 years old and I have a whole lot of growing up to do. But I'm not complaining. I have an awesome family, super cool friends, a good job, people I love and people who love me back, and all the comforts of life that one needs. There is a long way to go, a lot of things to do, before I can say that life is complete. Yet, I have this urge to do and say everything as quickly as possible. Because, as I was telling a close friend yesterday, you never know when it's too late.

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I cannot believe Brazil will not be in the World Cup finals. It was a shocking, fascinating game.

Being 20-something

Ash sent this to me. I relate to nearly every line! Am I really going through quarter-life crisis??


Being a twenty-something

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like.
You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.
You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.
You look at what you are studying or your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing. Or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.
Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.
You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.
You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better.
Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you're doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.
Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.
You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just>like to be a contender!
What you may not realize is that every one reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out. Its called "Quarter-life Crisis."

Nursery Rhymes

Read this report in the paper a few days ago:

Twinkle Twinkle banned

I'm just shocked! How can you let kids grow up in this world without knowing Twinkle Twinkle and Baa Baa Black Sheep!??

I'm so glad we didn't have to go through any of this idiotic fundamentalist behaviour.

I fear to imagine what nursery class be without Mary had a Little Lamb, Hickory, Dickery Dock and Humpty Dumpty!

I still know the words to nearly every nursery rhyme we learnt then.

At home, I was very popular for singing I'm a Little Teapot with actions. Every time guests would come home I'd entertain them with:

I'm a little teapot, short and stout.
Here is my handle, and here is my spout.
When the water is boiling, just hear me shout
Tip me over and pour me out!
(with actions)

The funny thing is even though I did all the cool actions, I didn't know what a tea pot actually looked like. I had seen it only in books. C'mon we made tea in a steel bartan, not a Teapot!

Then there was this other nursery rhyme which went:

Where is Thumbkin, Where is Thumbkin
Here I am, Here I am

I remember this coz every day after he got back home, my dad would sing Where is Aditi, Where is Aditi (or my sister's name) and we'd reply Here I am, Here I am.

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Isn't it hilarious how nonsensical these rhymes were. Take for example:
This old man, he played one,
He played knick knack with his thumb,
With a knick, knack, paddy whack, give the dog a bone
This old man came rolling home.

WHAT does this mean??

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Anyone remember this rhyme/song

My Bonnie lies over the ocean, My Bonnie lies over the sea.
My Bonnie lies over the ocean, Please bring back my Bonnie to me.
Bring back, Bring back,
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me.

I didn't know the words to this song till much much later in life.
This was my version of it until I found out what the lyrics actually were:

My money lies over the ocean, my money lies over the sea,
My money lies over the ocean, Please brain bag my money to me.
Brain bag, brain bag
Brain bag my money to me, to me (I thought 'brain bag my money' meant something like 'post/courier/mail my money'. Damn, I had wild imagination!)

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I will also never ever forget this terrible Marathi rhyme called Sassa Sassa. It was a torture learning it. Since no one in my family spoke Marathi, I wasn't familiar with the language at all. So I had a very tough time when we had to learn this in school. My Marathi teacher was a bitch who hated non-Marathi speaking people. So she didn't care to help me at all. My parents couldn't help me much coz they didn't know Marathi either. Finally it was my maid who helped me get through the ordeal. She made me repeat it a million times, I still haven't forgotten it. My pronounciation though, is as screwed up as ever.

Sassa Sassa, Disto kasa
Kapus* pinjlun, Theolahay jasa
Lal lal dode chaan, lahaan sheput mothe kaan
Paala khaun, fugto tun,
?????? dhaavto dhum.

*Kapus in Sindhi means shit. Ha ha!

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I hated Rock-a-bye baby because it ends with 'Down will come baby, cradle & all'. The falling of the baby upset me.

I also hated Georgie Porgie, Pudding and Pie because Georgie kisses girls in that. That was the age when boy kissing girl was so gross!

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But I loved.. and still love...this one:

What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice,
And everything nice,
That's what little girls are made of.

What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails,
And puppy dog tails,
That's what little boys are made of.

Boys are stupid! If you agree with me, go here and throw rocks at stupid boys.

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Trivia: Twinkle Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep and A,B,C,D are sung to the same tune.

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The way Argentina whopped S&M's ass was awesome! SIX goals to nil! England, on the other hand, should have had a similar result when playing T&T. But they sucked. They looked like stupid butterflies, fluttering all over the field. I so hoped that T&T would win just to show the Brits that playing like crap is not allowed in the world cup!
(I still love you Beckham.... muuah!)

Phantom Sweet Cigarettes!!

Sorry for the bad quality pic

I KNEW I'd find this somehwere! But I didn't think I'd find them in my dustbin! (Ok before you go ewwww... I have separate wet & dry garbage bins and picked this up from the dry garbage bin which is not icky dirty)

Sadly the cigarettes were over. My sister smoked the pack before I got home and left me scrounging in the dustbin. But I had too... this dabba will soon be a collector's item and when it is, I will sell it for a million dollars and live off the money for the rest of my life one a beach in Goa...or even Hawaii (dreaming is allowed ok!). The packaging hasn't changed at all since the last 10-15 years!

This is also an 'educational' dabba. The rear part of it (not shown in pic) has a Letter Grid which looks like this:
S L E E T
N R A I N
O U I C E
W H A I L
F R O S T

And you have to spot these words:
Snow, Rain, Ice, Frost, Sleet, Hail.

These mint cigarettes were so cool! I remember going home one day & telling my mom, "Ma I smoked a cigarette today!" As she stood there staring at me wondering what would be the WORST way to respond to this, I said, "Arre Mamma, phantom mint cigarettes" and laughed like I had pulled the wickedest prank ever!

And if that wasn't enough, I'd also put 'lipstick' with the cigarette and bug my mom by parading in front of her with bright red lips. (The cigarette butt was red in colour and if you put some spit on it and then rubbed it on your lips it seriously looked like lipstick)

We got such kicks out of 'smoking' and putting 'lipstick' in school!

Trivia: Phantom ciggies are non-veg. The gelatin is of animal origin. So all you vegetarians... here's another thing you CAN'T have!

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I also found this in the dustbin

Rabbit Synthetic Gum. Btw, both the gum & the cigarettes are manufactured in Pune! For once in my life I'm proud of living in this city.

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Anyone watched the Aus-Japan match? What a match. Ozzies kicked ass in the end! Three goals in the last 10 mins! It was so crazy! M, celebrating?

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Googlism

Totally irrelevant to this blog but so hilarious that I had to put it up. $am did it and I couldn't stop laughing so did it too.

Here's what to do:
1. Go to www.googlism.com
2. Enter your name in search box for hilarious results.

Here are mine:
aditi is mrs (NO I'm not and don't intend to be! Liar Google!)
aditi is not in great shape though (Ok Google does tell the truth sometimes. Bitter truth!)
aditi is much much more than just a model (She is the ultimate role model)
aditi is a lot like microsoft (Except that I don't have hotmale)
aditi is readying the production of several highly anticipated motion pictures for a projected 2001 release (still in pre-production stage. postponed to 2021)
aditi is heaven (I like Google)
aditi is one of them (where 'them' means 'the coolest people on earth')
aditi is the heaven (again! thanks!)
aditi is the national organization for south asian dance in britain (I knew it! With my super cool moves I am now a national organisation!)
aditi is so modern (yeah she is!)
aditi is over forever (No way! I'll be back!)
aditi is still confused about her feelings for her lover (Hmmm....)
aditi is not a traditional toy company (Definitely not)
aditi is a nice gal and her beauty is ultimate (:-))
aditi is to marry houston engineer hermant rai (ok firstly, there's no way I'm gonna marry an engineer. And secondly, no way am i gonna marry someone named heRmant)
aditi is set out to rule the film world (absolute truth!)
aditi is a typical homely maharashtrian woman (absolute lies!)
aditi is different (in a good way)
aditi is considering securing a pg degree in cosmetology (whaa??? am i???)
aditi is not affiliated with any formal national organization (except for the 'National Organisation for the Coolest People in the World)
aditi is married (NO I am not and don't intend to! don't you get that? now buzz off!)
aditi is looking for venture capital funding (I don't understand venture & capital.. but yeah i am looking for funding. any offers?)
aditi is a study in contrasts (I like that!)
aditi is blim blim (ok. whatever that means)
aditi is enthusiastic about her wedding (which is to take place in her next life)
aditi is putting on a show next week (entrance fee is million pounds per head)
aditi is a student based in delhi (this data is 2 years old)
aditi is a 30 (minus 8)
aditi is a goddess from india (fall at my feet and worship me NOW)
aditi is found dead (in the arms of johnny depp who then revives her with a kiss)
aditi is a cheetah (ok this is getting weird)
aditi is the daughter of lalit and pimmi (ya try convincing my mom that she is 'pimmi'!)
aditi is conflicted (spot on!)
aditi is shy but mischievous little girl (have heard that a lot so must be true)
aditi is finally allowed her big moment and you find out that she simply can't act (yeah coz I will MAKE the film not act in it..bozo!)
aditi is not at all sure she wants to be married to hemant (actually, she is absolutely confident that she doesn't want to marry him)
aditi is left a substantial inheritance by her former music teacher malhar kamat (I have seen this film! Damn what's the name?? Tabu in it)
aditi is off having love affairs (Absolutely and completely true!)

90s dance music

Went out last weekend (after ages!) to High Spirits (Pune). For those who haven't been here, the music played there is really fun.... A medley of songs all the way from the 70s to the late 90s. And NOT the typical 'retro' set list of Mamma Mia, Eye of The Tiger, Summer of 69, We Will Rock you etc. This is the kind of music your parents boogeyed to in college and later, the songs that you danced to in school.

There are so many memories associated with many of these songs. But I'm just gonna keep this short and list out the songs we heard and leave you recall your own memories.

So here goes.. in no particular order (Also consists of related songs that I remember but might not have been played that night):

The Sign - Ace Of Base
It's a Beautiful Life - Ace Of Base
This is the Rhythym of the Night - Corona
Mr. Vain - Culture Beat
What Is Love - Haddaway
I Like to Move It Move It - Dunno who it is sung by. Last heard in the recent animated film, Madagascar.
Another Night Another Day - Real McCoy
How Bizzare - OMC
Some song by Snap (I Got The Power group)
Sweet Dreams - La Bouche
Be My Lover - La Bouche
Freed from Desire - Gala
Cotton Eye'd Joe - Rednex
Big In Japan - Freddie Mercury
Tribal Dance - 2 Unlimited
It's My Life - Dr. Alban
The Nighttrain - ?
I'm a Scatman - Scatman John
Boom Boom Boom - Outhere Brothers
Here Comes the Hotstepper - ?
Gonna Make You Sweat - C&C Music Factory
Runaway - Real McCoy
Total Eclipse of the Heart - Nikki French
Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle) - Outhere Brothers
Ooh Ah Just a Little Bit - Gina GW
here Do You Go- No Mercy
Saturday Night - Whigfield (remember the dance?)
Informer - Snow

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Trivia1: Indipop singer Piyush Soni (who has been mentioned elsewhere on this blog) was one of the inspirations for the BMX-stunts rage in the 90s. I think he had them in his video.
Trivia2: The tune for the Hindi song Amma Dekh (featuring Jackie Shroff) was lifted from the brit song On A Ragga Tip by SL2.

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Out of context, but the way Germany's going, it looks like they're gonna win this match against Costa Rica. Just scored their 3rd goal. Rooting for neither... but gonna go watch the rest of the match now! bye
*Germany won, 4-2

Watching Films

I watched a lot of films as a kid and I need one whole post just to tell you about How and Where I watched them. (This is MY blog so you have to read whatever I want to you to read, whether you like it or not)

I loved films. And the one place where I have had the most fun watching them, is Gujarat. Yes, the state which is now BANNING films.

Ahmedabad, where I spent two years (four vacations, to be precise, since I studied in a boarding school), had a Drive-in theatre in the early/mid 90s. That convinced me, that when it came to films, Ahmedabad was the coolest city to watch them in. Coz a drive-in theatre at that time was something straight out of an English film! Even Delhi and Bombay didn't have one.

So. Every vacation we'd watch at least two or three movies at the drive-in theatre. The first couple of times, we went as a dignified family. The four of us nicely sitting in the car and watching the film from INSIDE the car, silently sipping on our respective Lehar Pepsis. That practice was quickly ditched as we realised how ridiculous we looked in a place full of Gujjus. If you've been in a public place with a lot of Gujjus, you'd know what I mean. In case you haven't, let me explain:

First things first. Wherever Gujjus go, they go in a BIG group. A minimum of six members have to be present before an outing is undertaken. Next, all members of the group have to be close together at all times, yet, speak in manner which would make you believe that they are at least a kilometre away from each other.

Now, at the Drive-In. Five cars there meant a full house. Because each car, except mine, would have an average of ten to fifteen members in it. And if you thought 10 people in one car was a lot, consider this: the car STILL had space for chairs, durries, cameras, wheel-chairs, pillows, pets, prams, babies with maid servants in tow and of course, food enough to feed an army. This, mind you, was to watch ONE FILM. Before the film began, all these items would be arranged around the car and the whole family (and extended family) would prepare itself to watch a film. Just watching them set up camp, was a sight in itself. The first time, it scared the hell out of me. But I soon began to enjoy this pre-film entertainment session.
Disclaimer: This description is not meant to be offensive. I love and respect all Gujjus, except Modictator.

Soon, my family too picked up this grand picnic-style method of watching movies. We roped in couple of friends every time we went to watch a film and always carried at least one dabba of something to eat. I don't think we could ever match up to the Gujjus. But we sure tried.

I watched some great films at the Drive-in theatre. Bombay and Roja are the ones I remember at the moment. Actually, they're the ones I'll never forget watching. Especially Bombay. I hid behind my car for nearly the entire second half. I was shit scared. I actually lived in Bombay during the riots and at that time, I didn't quite understand what the riots were. For me, it was something because of which we got holidays from school. But when I watched the film, which, for the first time showed me what the riots really were, I was very scared. Just knowing that I had been in that very city when those very events were taking place, frightened me.

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Gujarat was also the place where I watched my first Hollywood film in a theatre. Before that, all Hollywood films I watched were on cassettes borrowed from a video library or at school (At boarding school, we watched a film every weekend).

The great film which began my Hollywood-films-in-a-theatre experience was While You Were Sleeping (Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman). Theatres in Ahmedabad (where I lived) didn't show English films at that time. So one night we travelled all the way to Gandhinagar, where a new theatre had opened up which screened Hollywood films, and watched While You Were Sleeping.

We also saw this film in school, which set off a Bill Pullman craze. All the girls had a crush on him. And even those who didn't, me for instance, said they did just to be part of the whole rage. Soon after, he acted in Casper, which made everyone love him even more. And then Independence Day. That was all we could take of him and the Pullman-mania soon died down.

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I was in a boarding school where every weekend we'd watch a film. When there was a good film coming up, every one would be on their best behaviour throughout the week. Of all the million punishments that we were subjected to, 'No Sunday Film' was the deadliest of them all. No one wanted to bear the wrath of a sadistic prefect (there were many) who was waiting for just any chance to declare "No Sunday Film!" so we'd act like perfect angels (atleast when the prefects were around).

Jim Carrey films were a favourite among us. Ironcially, his film was the one that caused the school matron to put a ban on Hollywood films, which she felt were not suitable for innocent(!) minds like ours.

Liar Liar was the doomed film that led to the ban. The explicit scenes and sexual innuendos were enough for our old God-fearing Catholic matron to blow her top. Also, the fact that most of us actually enjoyed the film, didn't help at all. The next weekend she said that SHE would pick out the film. Poor thing didn't know a shit about movies and landed up getting us one where the actors said the word 'Fuck' more times than Reshammiya says 'aaja, aaja' in Ek Baar Aaja (which is 75 times, by the way).

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Which is the film that you've watched the maximum number of times?

Among Bollywood films, I've seen Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar 15 times. Forrest Gump is my most-watched Hollywood film. And the film I've seen the maximum number of times in a theatre is Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.

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Check back soon for another post just on Films (without details of How and Where I watched them)

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First Guest Contributor!

Ashwin sent me this mail:

Remember the times...
1. Kids who went to coaching classes used to be weak in subjects?
2. We would pick out our favourite coloured Poppins from the pack?
3. Porwal was the only cycle brand for kids, and Street-Cat and LadyBird were cycles for the older boys and girls?
4. The time when Ganapati 'drank' milk in Pune (crazy times, awesome fun!)
5. Mumbai-Pune meant 6-8 hours in the winding ghats?
6. People actually went to Lonavala as an occassion?
7. Probably unrelated to the general flavor of your blog, but : we used to read Enid Blyton and wish we could have picnic lunches in the woods with scones and ginger-ale (and Timmy and maybe some pixies for company) ?

Send your contributions to the yahoo id mentioned in post no. 2 of this blog

A Poem

I loved writing since I was a very little. Specially poems and short stories.
I recently found a big blue book of all sorts of interesting stuff written by me when I was 8, including poems, stories and even a short play. Here's a sample of my writing:

Transcript:

I wrote this poem bymyself (yeah! no plagiarism) on 14-1-91. Aditi tandon 8 years. III A

Mister Sun
Good Morning Mr. Sun. How did you wake so soon?
You drove away the stars and darkness and the moon. (i LOVED to rhyme!)
You go to sleep when it becomes night
And I know what you're doing is quite right (the know-it-all Aditi)
In the morning you wake up the sleepy heads, to brush thier (ya, that's how I spelt it) teeth and comb thier hair
But first get up from thier beds
Now I say Good bye Mr. Sun, next time we'll have some more fun. (Definitely. I'm sure Mr. Sun had fun listening to an 8 year old narrate his daily schedule to him)

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Miscellaneous

Some more fascinating stuff....


8-year old Aditi had an Identity Card:

For what? Beats me.
Maybe there were bars where we hung out. And we needed to be 8 and above to have a pint of milk. Sometimes these 6 year olds would sneak in. Then they started keeping check. So we had to have identification. This was also used as identity proof when I got my tricycler's licence.

Trivia: Notice the signature on the identity card? I had the same one till I was 16.

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Mallika Sherawat isn't the only one who likes him. I loved Fido Dido (of LEHAR 7Up fame) and collected everything which had him on it. Here's a sticker:

Btw, does anyone know for sure how to pronounce Fido?
Is it Fee-do, like I pronounce it?
Or is it Fai-do, like Mallika Sherabust pronounces it

* $am says: Its fee-do...not fhy-do...im guessing no one had the balls to correct mallika.

I agree :)

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I was a cool MTV generation kid and I had a cool MTV wallet (or Music Purse as it says on the flip side. Which, btw, also has a Donald Duck pic in psychedelic colours. How hep.)

And that's not all folks, I had my very own personalised Visiting Cards too! Example:

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Comics - Part 1

Today I was passing by a roadside bookstall near Deccan Gymkhana and came across a whole stack of Chandamamas & Champaks (yes, that was a name of a magazine before it came to be used as a word to describe 80% of Wadia college crowd)

I never really read Chandamama. I found it too damn moralistic.

I'll try getting hold of a copy from that bookstall and putting up some stories soon. For now, entertain yourslef with one of the short stories I found on the net. Would be of special interest to those "foolish people" who forget to close doors.



Will try and get hold of a Champak too. Did you know that Champak was published by the same company that publishes Women's Era. Strange combination, no? Found a Champak cover on the Women's Era site:

I don't remember very much of Champak except for the fact that it had more pictures than words hence more popular with the smaller kids. And that it was available in Marathi as well. Those of you who remember Champak, was Champak the name of the mouse?

*Just found out.... the name of the mouse is 'Meeku' and his best friend is a rabbit named 'Cheeku'. Awwwwww!

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And found this in my cupboard!!

Tinkle was my absolute favourite. I loved it. I remember during all my Bombay-Pune (or Pune-Bombay) journey, I'd make my dad buy me a Tinkle to read on the train. I'd read all the short stories, like Suppandi (my fav!) first, and then read the longer ones. Of all the characters, I liked Shikari Shambhu the least, so read that story in the end. Tinkle those days used to cost Rs. 20-25 (quite expensive, for those times!). Now it costs Rs. 35.

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And now comes, the one and only, Chacha Chaudhary!




This guy needs no introduction. But just for kicks, I will post his formal intro as per the Diamond Comics site...
CHACHA CHAUDHARY : Every Die-Hard Criminal, Ruffian, Pick Pocketer, Small-time Goon knows for sure that it is better not to mess with that old man, wearing a red turban, walking with his dog, because he is none other than legendary CHACHA CHAUDHARY. With a brain sharper than a needle and faster than a super-computer, he can make the deadliest criminal bite dust. A man from Jupiter and his friend SABU, occasionally provides his extra-ordinary muscle power in CHACHA CHAUDHARY's frequent clashes with criminals. Darling of Indian masses CHACHA CHAUDHARY is adventure and laughter rolled into one.

And a little bit about his best friend Sabu from the same site:
Sabu : Ever met a friendly alien? Well, if not then do read about Sabu, in Diamond Comic's Chacha Chaudhary series. The man from Jupiter, a loyal friend of Chacha Chaudhary, Sabu helps him in all his encounters with evils. His towering giant like personality and his over-whelming strength, which scares off all enemies, will awe you.


Trivia: The latest issue of the comic is Chacha Chaudhary & Weera the Genius


All Chacha Chaudhary fans would be glad to know that Chachaji is considered an international superhero! Check out this site for details about Chacha and more on superheros from all over the world! Click on the India/Bharat link for trivia about Indian superheros like Captain Vyom, Shaktiman, Fauladi Singh and more!

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Also, a very interesting site that I remembered, thanks to Nithin:

www.vishalpatel.com

If you don't come out of that place laughing your guts out, you were probably born in China.

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Comics - 2

I HAD to have a dedicated post for my favourite cartoon strip... PEANUTS!!

I have been a huge fan of the comic strip even before I could read! I had a big book of Peanuts comics in black and white. And since I couldn't read, I used it as my colouring book.
Finally, when I did start reading, I read the book over and over again and thoroughly enjoyed it, though I didn't understand some of the humour...particularly Lucy's sarcasm. But when I did begin to get it, I loved it! Her sarcasm is precisely what makes Lucy my all-time favourite Peanut character.

I'd love to be like Lucy. But THIS test says I am Linus. Not bad. I like him too. Follow the link and check out which Peanuts character you are.



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When Star TV came to India, they used to have a Peanuts cartoon show. Since the channel followed HongKong (or some other south-east asian country's timings), the cartoons used to begin in India at 4 in the morning! In spite of constant pestering, my parents thought it was absolutely an insane idea to wake me up at such an odd hour to watch cartoons. But fortunately, my grandparents didn't think so :-) When I visited them in my summer holidays, every morning at 4 am, my grandad would pick up my sister and me from our beds and put us on the couch in front of the TV and turn on Star TV. Both us groggy-eyed kids would then watch Peanuts, Garfield and Animal Farm (another one of my favourites!). We were so dedicated! Now, I don't think I'd wake up at 4 am even if there was an earthquake, let alone to watch TV!


This was one of my favourite Peanuts series...

It was just a short while after my sister was born that I read this. In this series, Charlie Brown was thrilled about having a baby sister and I totally identified with him. I felt exactly the same way when I found out that I was going to have a sister...completely on top of the world!

For more Peanuts comic strips go here.

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For a creative writing session in college, we had to write a piece on a cartoon character in a contemporary setting. My topic was Charlie Brown in a Call Centre. I hope I can dig up that piece. It was one of the most fun assignments I've ever had to do!

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Games - Part 1

Recently, a colleague of mine said to me, "What the hell is up with kids these days! Why do they talk like techies? And what is with the toys!" Poor thing met his 12-year-old nephew the day before and the kid was trying to explain to him how a toy functions, in a language popularly known as "What???" I went to Crosswords recently & checked out the toy section....trust me, it's like a science lab. Things with names that I can't pronounce and sub-names which I can't read coz the font is bizarre, toys with 50-page booklets about how to use the toy and another 50-pg booklet to understand the earlier one and of course, Beyblades (which is actually a bloody lattoo!) based on which you have larger games like BladerJam, GRevolution....aargh!!

I am a bit frightened that with all these kind of techno-savvy games, which even I can't figure out (I should, given that my mental age is same as that of whom the toys are meant for)... all of this generation's kids are gonna turn out to be some kinda jargon-talking, brain-dead, over-paid, under-worked zombies.... i think they're known as software engineers? (no offence to my dear techie friends :-))

I would hate being a kid today. All bleddy losers. And I'm so happy that I grew up in the 80s & 90s where games made no sense and your success depended on how tight you were with the pakka-limbus. Though one thing that I guess was common....we too spoke gibberish. But ours was original and fun!

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This song probably began with Bombay kids and then spread to the rest of the country. I don't know what the purpose of it was, but we just sang it. And once I was part of a theatre performance in which a boy and girl enacted the whole thing!

Darling open the door, Darling open the door. Why are you angry so?
I'll take you to Bandra and show you my Sandra. Why are you angry so?
I'll take you to Dadar and show you my father. Why are you angry so?
Darling open the door, Darling open the door. Why are you angry so?
I'll take you to Dilli and show you my billi. Why are you angry so?
I'll take you to Agra and show you my ghagra (!) Why are you angry so?
Darling open the door, Darling open the door. Why are you angry so?

.....and you kept adding places when you thought of something that rhymed with it....

Another game where you kept adding lines as you thought of rhyming words was:

ABCEDFG
G se nikla Gandhiji
Gandhiji ne khaaya Peru
Peru se nikla Nehru
Nehru ne khaayi kaakdi, teri shendi vaakdi

It can either end here or you continue with...

Nehru ne maara Hataudi
Hataudi se nikla Pataudi
Pataudi ne maara sixer
Sixer se nikla Boxer
Boxer ne maari fight, teri chaddi tight

We were mean kids. Note how every such poem ended with an insult. But we were also very bad at being mean. What kind of stupid insult is 'hey your ponytail is crooked' (teri shendi vaakdi)?!

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Every girl in the 80s & 90s played at least one of these hand-clapping (they have a better name don't they?) games....

Aa beena, super sina, bing bong, lazy girl....
Uma Joshi ye ye ye, my mother she told me a sixty years ago......
Who stole the cookie in the cookie jar. I think no. 3 stole the cookie in the cookie jar.....
Aana banana, eating a banana, playing a piano....

(I can give the full lyrics to any of the above :-))

Come to think of it, these games taught us very good hand co-ordination. Of course, we learnt quite a few gibberish phrases along the way.

Ok, here's one thing that I've been trying to figure out since the day I began playing these games.... Who Is Uma Joshi???

I bet she's from Pune. Sounds very Puneri. If you happen to know Uma Joshi, tell her I said yeyeye.

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Games - Part 2

If you lived in an apartment or a society, all the kids would gather in the evening to play. Though you would play the same games at school, playing with 'building/colony friends' was more fun because you got more time than just the short-break or lunch-break like in school.

As soon as I got back from school around 4 pm, I would change in to my playing clothes, wear my knee-high socks and running shoes, gulp down my milk, crib to my mom that she should make chocolate milkshake like my friend's mom does, watch 15 mins of TV, show my school diary/calendar to my mom and promise her that I will surely complete all the homework that has been listed when I come back from playing....and then run down to play.

Like any other kid, I never wanted to be the denner. And lucky for me, since I was one among the only two girls in my group and I also had my cousin brother in the same group, I escaped giving the dreaded den quite often. Also, since the kachha-limbus were usually targetted for being the denner, I was often saved coz I was in considered to be closer to the pakka-limbu category.

Yeah we played all those kiddie games.... catch-and-cook, chor-police, hide-n-seek, vish-amrud, dabba-ispice, kho kho, l-o-n-d-o-n london, saakli, lagori, land and water, relay, langdi, hopscotch ....whew!

Why did these games have such weird names?
Catch and Cook. Where did the cooking part come in?
Vish - Amrud. In playing terms, vish meant squat and amrud meant stand. Do these words have any actual meaning?
Dabba-ispice. The 'ispice' part, I hear, is a variation of 'i spy'...
Saakli. This must be something played only in Maharashtra, coz saakli means chain in marathi.

Actually most of these were very Bombay-Pune games. Because when I went to Delhi for my summer vacations, the kids used to play something called Gallery and real sports like badminton! They even played on the swings and other equipment in the park! And there, there was no discrimination between kaccha limbu and pakka limbu...they didn't even know what that was. Come to think of it, even the pre-coming down to play session was a little different. These kids would get back from school, eat hot-hot parathas, drink Campa Cola and the girls would wear frocks to play. I always felt like a misfit, but after a couple of summer vacations, I managed.

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Dhappa and Time Please. These were two very important terms that all kids had to know while playing.

You gave dhappa to make someone out. (If you didn't understand that, you probably grew up in China)

And when you wanted to take a break in the middle of the game, you licked the back of your palm, stuck your arm out and said Timeplease (pronounced as Tam-pleez)
The Timeplease technique was often misused by smart alecs like me, who would take timeplease seconds before the denner gave us dhappa. So the out would not be counted.

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Besides the evening games, there were some that we played on Sunday afternoons or during the rains. Mostly board games and that sort.

There was Boggle, Scotland Yard, Guess, Housie, Indian verison of Monopoly and the Beyblade of the 90s...Trump Cards!

Among the Trump Cards, the WWF ones were the most popular where you compared cards based on rank, chest size, biceps, weight, height, no. of matches etc.
Hulk Hogan was rank no. 1 and Yokozuna had the most weight. My favourite Bret Hart Hitman was among the top 5 too. I liked him coz he wore pink :-)

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But much before Bret Hart, another hero of mine was someone who looked quite similar actually, except that he was blonde & didn't wear pink -- He Man!

Sunday mornings 8.30 am (?) -- He Man and the Masters of The Universe! I didn't understand shit of that show, but I still enjoyed watching it. And I used to call Skeletor, Skele-door!

Any one owned GI Joes? I didn't like them but had to bear with them coz my cousin brother always conducted these races between 2 GI Joes during which he shouted "Go G I Joe!" atleast 10 times. Stupid G I Joe never went anywhere except from one end of the table to the other.

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For every birthday, my parents would gift me something intelligent....either a book or a smart game like Explore India.

I loved board games. But, like most girls, there was a phase when I was crazy about Barbie dolls. I remember this one particular girl who used to give everyone a Barbie accessory as a bday gift...either a kitchen set, lawn accessories, vanity room set etc.
So we all loved her and always made it a point to invite her for our birthday (superficial people we were, no?).

After every bday party all the friends would gather around while the bday girl opened her gifts and then pester her with "Whose gift did you like the best?" It was a done thing in those days that you HAD to like your best friend's gift the most. And if you had two best friends then you had to say, "I like both these gifts equal."
Now, me and my friend made a pact. Since we both obviously liked the Barbie gifts the most, we had decided that those would be 'first' on our list and each other's gifts would be second.

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What I liked about birthday parties the most was the food and the cake. Mine always had fancy chocolate cakes, sandwiches, and other typical bday party stuff. And for the time that I was in Pune, Fram's ice-cream soda was always served at my party.

Birthday party games are another thing I'll probably write about sometime.

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Games - Part 3

And then there were games played inside the classroom, during class or when a teacher didn't show up.

Textbook cricket where the last digit of the page number decides how many runs you make (for example, page no. 57 means you made 7 runs, page no. 11 means you made 1 run). Usually the boys were big fans of this game. They also liked those cricket flicker books which you got with the Thumbs-Up contest. Wasn't much of a cricket fan so didn't like either.

There was also the ultra-girly game.... FLAMES (& a later variant, FLASHES) where F = Friend, L = Love, A = Adore, M = Marriage, E = Enemy and S = Sister.
Basically, the names of two people were written on a paper, all the common letters were cancelled out, the remaining number of letters were counted and then we would begin counting on the word FLAMES and keep striking out the letter when we reached that number and in the end the letter that was remaining determined the relationship between the two people. Once you got the hang of it, the method of playing FLAMES could easily be manipulated to get the desired result :-)

Another game was Name, Place, Animal, Thing where you had to come up with an alphabet and then write down a name, place, animal and thing starting with that alphabet. The marking system was quite complex, can't remember what it exactly was. The worst was when you got the letter E! Once was still ok, but when you got it for the second time, it was pretty shitty.

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Here's a 4th std. puzzle for you to solve...

Half circle full circle half circle A
Half circle full circle right angle A
What is it?


*Update: Someone has finally answered this! And correctly. Check the comments

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More classroom games:
Jolly where you drew a pen dot on your hand everyday. If you didn't have it then there was some penalty....forgot what it was.
Opps & Bats (oppingo-batingo). I don't remember the details of the game but it was something like when you stood up you had to say oppingo and when you sat you said battingo (or was it the other way round?) and if you forgot, you'd get punched.
Tippy-tippy-tip-top, which colour do you want. Too complex to explain.

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Music - Part 1

I was playing treasure hunt around my house looking for old cassettes that are stacked in various drawers and cupboards and came across a treasure trove of music tapes of the 80s & 90s.
As I stare at them, I'm suddenly taken in to the future where my gizmo-savvy, hip-hopping kid will take one look at those tapes and laugh his guts out. Actually, no need to go in to the future. I am that kid, laughing at myself. I can't believe I actually own a cassette which looks like this:

Please note: LOVE MAKES LIFE LIVE (Wonder how long it took the copywriter to come up with THAT)
Please also note: Aashiqui (Romantic Film).... yeah like we never would've guessed!

In the 90s we had cassettes like these, where soundtracks of two films were clubbed in to one cassette, making the buyer believe that he was getting more value for money...two soundtracks for Rs. 22, matlab gyarah rupay ka ek...that's a steal!

Btw, if you're wondering who those two lovers under the jacket are....they're Anu Agarwal and Rahul Roy. Yes, they actually existed once upon a time! After Aashiqui, Agarwal went on to act in Khalnayika (which had the infamous display-of-boob scene) and Rahul Roy acted in the big fat flop, Junoon.

And our very own RDB ka tapori turned NBA activist, Aamir Khan, was once a chocolate-hero who sang Khambe jaisi khadi hai, ladki hai ya chadi hai (Filmfare award for best rhyming lyrics?) to a very gussa Madhuri Dixit in Dil, the soundtrack of which is on side B of that tape.

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I also found this:

Sorry the image isn't to clear but for those of you have the cassette, check out the artowork! It's awesome for a '96 cover.

Yep, Bally Sagoo! The original remix king. He's still around, btw, creating pretty much the same kind of sound like he did when he remixed Chura Liya. The painfully boring Mistress of Spices has a token Bally Sagoo composition...an instrumental remix of Aapki Nazaron Ne Samjha. He was also the original bhangra-pop king. Much before Panjabi MC came up with Mundian To Bach Ke and spoilt the whole genre with that overplayed number, following which, Jay Sean entered the scene and made the once-cool bhangra-pop, totally gay.

So going back to Bally Sagoo's songs in the 90s, the videos too are memorable, unlike today's 'baby-doll' type formula-videos. There was
Chura Liya with that bold video of seductive man & woman in white chaddis
Aaja Nach Le with Meghna Reddy, the skinny chick who was among the first generation of Indian VJs
Dil Cheez Hai Kya with another 1st generation VJ, Suchitra Pillai
Mera Laung Gawacha with the very hot Jas Arora & very tall Deepti Bhatnagar, who went on to act in the most shitty B-grade films like Dulhan Banoo Mein Teri which I remember coz it had this horrible Ila-Arun type song to which Bhatnagar danced at some foreign locale, clad in some jazzy bridal clothes
The remix of Choli Ke Peeche which is clearly etched in my memory because it caused a big controversy when we were in school. For our 7th std annual day, these three guys from Shiamak Davar's classes were called to help us put up a performance. The innocent princi for some reason had total faith in them and didn't care to peek in at any of our practice sessions. Three weeks later when we put up a rehearsal for her, she nearly died of shock as we started gyrating to Choli Ke Peeche. Out went the kinda-hot Shiamak Davar-trained teachers & in came a short weird lady who tried to teach us a less 'sexy' dance, much less sexy...some hilarious traditional Koli dance (which literally was - step diagonally to the left, step diagonally to the right, go up on your toes. repeat)

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Talking about the first lot of VJs, I recall
Meghna Reddy and Anish Trivedi (who is now a columnist for Mid-day and also in to theatre) on Channel V Mangta Hai which was later hosted by Reddy only
Suchitra Pillai on Simply South
Danny McGill's Headbangers Ball
Nonie & Trey the cute chinky ones
Laila Rouss
Sophiya Haque to whom I am forever grateful for that show of hers which I think was called Sophie's choice or something, where I watched the Lucy in the Sky video for the first & last time
Malaika Arora and Tarun Shahani (who lived in my building) on that MTV show..MTV Grind, was it?... where a whole bunch of scantily-dressed ppl just danced on the beach for one whole hour. I can't believe a show like that even existed! We were a weird audience.
And these two came much later but were really funny.... Ranvir Shorey & Vinay
Oh and Uddham 'Meri bhais ko danda kyon maara' Singh!

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When, and how, did you first find out the full form of 'a.k.a'?
I found out in 1995.
How? Steven Kapur AKA Apache Indian.
I asked my cousin, "why does he have 'aka' (pronounced the way it is spelt) as his middle name?" and my cousin replied, "Idiot! It means 'also known as'!

The first time he came to Bombay to perform, all the older kids in my building got to go. I was too little to be going for a concert and that made me very sad. If only my parents realised what a big fan of Steven Kapur AKA Apache Indian I was!

Wine your body
Wriggle your belly
Dip and go down in a the new stylee
Wine and go up, wine and go down
Bubble and a rockca the new style around
You fe line it up, you fe wine it up
Do the boomshackalak till the dance hall full up

SK AKA AI redefined vocabulary. All the cool kids in the mid-90s greeted each other with a 'Boom-shak-a-laka' or a 'Chok There!'

P.S: Does anyone know how to upload mp3s on to the blog? I've got Boom-shaka-laka!

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Hey does any one remember the name of that Brit-Indian band....brother-sister duo....who sang the song I Am An Indian? (I am an Indian, from Bombay city, I am and Indian, so you bettah follow me, I am an Indian, from the bottom to the top, I am an Indian, something something stop)

Update: Noble Savages is the name of the band. Thanks Nithin

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Music - Part 2

Ok, now be honest. How many of you guys teased the girls by singing:

Aaja meri gaadi mein beth ja
Aaja meri gaadi mein beth ja

Long drive jaayenge
Full speed jayenge
Rukenge kahi na sanam
Gaana bajaana, Khaana peena
Gaadi mein hoga sanam
POM POM!

(The 'pom pom' part was the most fun!)

He was no gansta, he was no nigga, he wasn't even a brudda.....but he rapped and he was super cool....Baba 'Thanda Thanda Pani' Sehgal!

If you want to discover more about Baba, click here

That was the time when, god forbid, you were named Manjula.You would be harassed to no end with everyone shouting Manjula! in your face, inspired by Baba Sehgal's Dr. Dhingra song. (Couple of years later, the bane of being named Manjula continued, with the AIDS awareness campaign which had billboards all over declaring, Balbir Pasha ki regular sirf Manjula hai, par Manjula ke kai regular hai. Kya Balbir Pasha ko Aids hoga?)

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I wonder what the Indipop singers of the 90s are doing now? I saw Suneeta Rao and Mehnaaz recently in Bombay. It's true you know, you don't realise the value of something until it is gone. I looked at those two and thought how it would be so great to have the 90s Indipop music back, instead of Himesh 'Nasal' Reshammiya doing his bison mating call..... oooooo oooooooo ooooo.

Both Suneeta Rao and Mehnaaz had one song that I loved and one that I hated.
SR: loved Pari Hoon Mai, hated Kesariya
M: loved Mausam, hated Banoongi Main Miss India

More Indipop singers from that era (sheee, 'era' makes me sound so old!)
Shweta Shetty bolo na, johnny johnny joker!
Shaan & Sagarika they were pretty annoying as a brother-sister duo. I prefer them solo.
Biddu I remember him for two very good songs, Disco Deewane with Nazia Hasan & Boom Boom, which had the very hot Bikram Saluja
Ila Arun Vote For Ghagra! (that seriously was the name of her song)
Anaida her music was pretty much shit, but i liked the one Arabic song she did, Malu Malu, was it?
Colonial Cousins the best Indian duo ever
Suchitra Krishnamoorthy Dhoom Tara...that's all I remember of her
Stereo Nation Oh baby! Don't break my heart. I watched them live!
Stylebhai his name says it all
Piyush Soni the Chokra boy....chokra re chokra chak chak chak chak chokra
Anamika eeeeks! She was Himesh Reshammiya's master when it came to nasal-giri....Koi na dekhe meri cyaatwonk! The video for the song after Catwalk, was shot at Gera Plaza in Pune. Vikas Bhalla! I am kinda embarrassed of it now, but I admit I used to have a crush on him. He had good music ok! I liked the way he said 'awara' in his song Awara. Bas dhuan hai dhuan was also a nice song
Alisha Chinai. You can't forget Made In India. But can you remember Auva Auva? The Indian version of Video Killed the Radio Star? Chinai sang it..... Auva Auva, tumse hai tumse pyar!

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Music - Part 3

Maybe it's because I was born in Bombay, but I quite liked Bollywood films when I was a kid.

There were certain gems among the Bollywood songs of those days. I'll keep updating as and when I remember them.

One of the oldest I remember is a Mithunda song. (No, not I Am a Disco Dancer...though that was really cool as well!) I don't know what movie this one is from.
It had Mithunda doing ganpati-style dance...

Hava hava aye hava, khusbhoo luta de
Kahaan khuli haan khuli, zulf bata de
Ab uska pata de, zara mujhko bata de
Main usse milunga, ik bar mila de
Yaar mila de, dildaar mila de
Yaar mila de, dildaar mila de
(Not sure, but i think at this point he had that tapori scarf around his neck which he tugged at both ends while singing the last 2 lines)

Since I only remember the chorus, I scouted the net for the complete lyrics and actually found them here!

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Don't know how many of you remember, Deepti Bhatnagar, whom I have mentioned earlier, did a shit film with Mithunda! Actually two, but the one I recall is Ganga Ki Kasam, whose poster you can buy here for $10!

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This song came much later, but it is worth a mention -- Muqabala!

It had a cult video, with Prabhu Deva and his rubber body doing those funny dance steps.
Ok I shouldn't call them funny because we actually tried to dance to that song for some function in school. But we could manage only one step -- Squat. Do a pelvic thrust to the left and simultaneously flick your wrist in the same direction. Repeat to the right side. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Left. Right.

And talking about funny dance steps, another popular one was the chair dance that Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri did in Tamma Tamma Loge in the film Thanedar.

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Javed Jafri actually acted as a hero in films, once upon a time. I remember the song Julie Julie which was picturised on him and a girl wearing white and pink 'western' clothes. They were a makapao (Goan) couple in that movie so besides the clothes, the lyrics too had to reflect that. Hence....Humko Mary nai maangta, humko Lily nai maangta humko Sandra from Bandra nai maangta. To kaun maangta? Julie Julie, Johnny ka dil tumpe aaya Julie, tere liye chad jaoon sooli, tuhi to meri jaan hai, jaan hai, jaan hai...wah!
I loved this song.

While searching the net for the name of the film which this song is from, I came across this..... check out the entire site...has some really cool stuff from the 80s/90s

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More Bollywood songs from 80s/90s
Jadoo Teri Nazar which became a big joke in school when we changed the lyrics to Jadoo teri nazar, BADBOO tera badan
Shayad Meri Shaadi Ka Khayal If you sang this song when a boy was around, means you wanted to marry him
Hawa Hawai Sridevi as Miss Hawa Hawaii (whatever that means) in the fantastic film, Mr. India which had a cook named Calendar!
Om Shanti Om with Rishi Kapoor on the rotating circular stage. Choreography was class in those days!

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This suddenly struck me...remember cassettes of film soundtracks which had Song xyz on Side A and Song xyz (sad version) on Side B?
Now days it's Song abc & Song abc (remix/radio edit/Dj A's remix/Dj B's club version).

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Trivia: I remember reading somewhere, that popularity of film soundtracks increased in the 80s partly due to the 'cassette culture'. Lots of chhota cassette manufacturing companies came up in that time which made film music easily available and affordable.

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Paathshala (School, you illiterate!)

School days were fun. I wasn't one of those kids who was in one school throughout.

I went from Kiddie's Nook to St. Joseph's School, both in Pune. Then to Maneckji Cooper in Bombay. And back in Pune to St Mary's school (as a hostelite) and St. Mary's school (as a day scholar). I was lucky to have the experience of two different cities, co-ed as well as girls-only schools and also the experience of being in the hostel.

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June was the time for school shopping....time to stock up on new stationery, uniforms, bags, dabbas, bottles, hairbands, raincoats, shoes, shoe-polish and everything else that made you get in to the mood of starting a new academic year.

I was a very careful user of my stationery. An eraser would last me an entire year, colour pencils too were neatly sharpened and stacked in one box, I even had a collection of pencils. Also, I had relatives from the States who would get me all sorts of interesting stationery which I would collect. As a result my stationery shopping was pretty basic.... Natraj pencils and sharpner and occasionally, a compass box. Once I got a super fancy compass box for my birthday....it was one of those with a mini-piano on top and all these compartments which included stuff like scissors, magnifying glass, paper cutter etc. I was crazy about that box. The first day I took it to school, everyone wanted to play with it! But in our school, there was a snobby rule that only close friends got to play with your gadgets. So suddenly, everyone wanted to become the gadget-owners best friend! (sigh, so matlabi we were)

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As I mentioned earlier, I used to have a pencil collection which included all the fancy pencils that I got for my birthdays or that relatives from abroad got for me. I was very proud of this collection and had great dreams of entering record books and all. Until one day, when I was away at boarding school, my little sister discovered the treasure, sharpened all the pencils and used them up. When I returned, I was devasted to see that only 2 out of the many pencils remained. I was very upset and made a big deal out of it. Took a lot of coaxing from my mom and grandmom to forgive my sister.

I still have those two pencils with me as a memory of that pencil collection which one day might have broken records....

Dabbas/Lunchboxes and waterbottles were another thing that I loved to shop for. Every year there would be a craze for a particular type of dabba or bottle. And living in Bombay, the variety was as insane as the competition to get the best lunch box and waterbottle. My parents though, preffered to keep me out of the crazes, irrespective of how much noise I made mainly because I was quite careless with my dabbas and bottles. So I had a standard-ish dabba and a boring Eagle/Cello waterbottle. Once in a while though, my parents did indulge me. I was once a proud owner of a Squeezy Waterbottle much to the envy of many in my class!

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School time sweets: bulls eyes, jeera goli, churan in plastic packets, Phantom cigarettes (fav among kids coz we could then pretend we were smoking), chini mini whic was colorful sugar-coated sauf in plastic soft drink bottles, buddhi ke baal

BullsEyes:

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Gaalis. By the 7th or 8th standard, gaalis were pretty much part of normal conversation for many. Even if they weren't atleast we wouldn't get as scandalised as we did when we were 9 year olds.As little kids, since real gaalis were so scandalous, we'd distort the word so that it would sound like a gaali, but wasn't exactly one. So we'd say stuff like.. 'You Basket!' or 'You Asso!'

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I remember....on Orkut

Since many of you are on Orkut, a great place where you can find/discuss a whole lot more about the 80s/90s (Warning: very Bombay-centric)

http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=972&tid=1026648


Keep coming back to this blog for more!