Are my eyes deceiving me or is the Parachute oil bottle in the TV ad spelling “Advanced” as “Advansed”? :-)

बीस साल बाद

I cannot be counted among the fan following of yesteryear’s Hindi lead pair Vishvajeet and Wahida Rehman. But that doesn’t stop me from being a fan of 2 of their movies – Bees Saal Baad and Kohra.

I got a chance to watch Bees Saal Baad recently on the cable channel. The story is pretty straightforward. Kumar Bahadur (Vishvajeet), the last surviving heir of the Thakur family of Chandangarh, returns from London to his ancestral village after his uncle is killed. Apparently, the ancient curse on the family – owing to the shenanigans of Kumar’s grandpa – is intent upon destroying the clan.

On his first night in the ancestral home (haveli) Kumar is flummoxed by the doors opening and closing of their own accord and the same mysterious sound of a woman’s anklets that has drawn many of his male relatives to their deaths near the swamp. The plot is thick with suspicious characters like Mohanbabu (Sajjan) and the village doctor (Madan Puri). And the bumbling detective Jasoos Gopichand (Asit Sen) sees Kumar’s oddball servant Lakshman signaling to someone from the top of the haveli in the dead of the night.

Just when Kumar is having the time of his life, frolicking and singing with Radha (Wahida Rehman) - the daughter of the village medicine man (Manmohan Krishn) – a stranger is killed near the swamp one night – with Mohanbabu and the village doctor lurking in the vicinity. What’s more, the stranger’s body is found wearing Kumar’s clothes! And as if all this is not enough, an unseen woman sings at night driving people scurrying for their lives into the safety of their homes. Will the royal clan of Chandangarh end with Kumar’s death or will he be able to survive and put a stop to the ancient curse?

While the idea of a foreign returned man falling for a village belle sounds fantastic, it has served up as a very good background for movie’s utterly delectable melodious songs – सपने सुहाने लड़कपन के, बेकरार करके हमें यु न जाइए and ज़रा नजरोसे कह दो जी. And the hauntingly beautiful song that Kumar hears at night - “कही दीप जले कही दिल” puts a spell on you too. :-)

Do I hear some of you say that the plot sounds familiar? Bingo! It’s Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles” with an Indian twist :-)

I was in a hurry but I needed to get one of my sandals mended – again! Maybe my mom is right – there is something wrong in the way I walk. But I like to believe that the pavor blocks - that the sidewalks are made up of all over the city - are the real culprits!

Anyways, so I barged into the first cobbler’s that I saw on the way. The guy took one look at my broken sandal and said “We don’t mend the broken thumb part of the shoe early in the morning”! I was so surprised that I didn’t even say “huh?” :-) I am positive I just gaped at him like an idiot - with my mouth open wide enough to walk an entire herd of elephants through. This custom might be universal in the cobbler world so I didn’t bother stopping at any of the other roadside ones.

It was evening when I finally handed over my sandal to another cobbler and stood up on one leg feeling (and I am sure, also looking!) like an idiot. I wondered for a brief moment if I should ask this chap about the custom that I heard about in the morning. But then, if by any chance he wasn’t aware of it, I didn’t want him giving back my sandal saying he doesn’t mend looney bins’ sandals (broken anywhere!) in the evenings ;-)

You know the feeling when something sticky - like e.g. glue left over when you have pealed the strip off something – is clinging to your palm and you just can’t get rid of it, no matter what you do? I am feeling exactly like that after reading “The White Tiger”.

I am ashamed to admit it but there is an element of snobbishness in this. Though I wasn’t born with the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth, I was blessed enough to be born in an upper middle class family – one that doesn’t frown upon a girl child, if I may add. So make it doubly blessed! My education, though not an ivy-leagued one, was in some of the best schools and colleges in Mumbai. So I don’t have any first-hand experience of the kind of life that driver Balram has led in what he calls the Darkness. Touch Wood! Therefore, like many of my class, I have sympathy but not any real understanding of his life and struggles.

This sympathy is exactly like that glue. There are moments, not many I must admit, when I am reminded of his city of identical shops selling stale identical stuff, where children run amok, where water buffaloes occupy prime space in front of the homes and where people don’t have a choice but to accept their lot in life. There are moments too, when I think about how corruption is threatening to be part of our normal lives.

There are several ways to get the actual glue off my palms – soap bars, liquid hand wash or clawing it away using nails as the last resort. But there is no way I can get rid of this sick helpless feeling that seems to have clung to my very soul – despite my stance that the circumstances cannot be the justification for Balram to kill his employer. I cannot do anything to improve the lives of so many who need help and I can do zilch to stem the rot of corruption that’s eating away India’s future. And you know what the worst part of this all is? I cannot get rid of this feeling that it is people like me and you who should do something about it. I cannot say it’s the politicians’ job and shrug it all away. That’s making me mad as hell.

Try as I might, I simply cannot get this glue off me :-(