A.R.Ts (129) - DDLJ and why it doesn't stand the "timeless romance" test for me

Come fall in love, it said. And I fell. Not in love. But for the film. Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.

I loved DDLJ when I first saw it. It was warm, fuzzy and full of life. At a time when my generation was celebrating rebellion, the movie made conformity fashionable. Not surprising that a large cross section of people could relate to the concept of seeking permission for marriage - after all, we are a society rooted in the "Yeh Shaadi nahin ho Sakti hai" mindset. The film transitioned effortlessly from the snow to the sarson ka saag, gave us some memorable songs and dialogues (Who has never said –Ja Jee Le Apni Zindagi), created a hit star couple, and even etched itself in the original Mount Titlus. Earlier this month, it completed 1000 weeks of screening at a popular Mumbai cinema hall.

But the reality is that I can't sit through a DDLJ today. Shahrukh Khan as Raj appears stupid and silly, even bordering on intolerable, with his prancing around with a tray in the wedding, or sitting with the ladies in the kitchen, desperately trying to impress the grandmother. Kajol as Simran agreeing to get betrothed to a man in India - when she hasn't seen both India and the man feels alien. Amrish Puri as the patriarch who left India to seek economic liberation, but refused to break free of the shackles of regressive social norms comes across as hypocritical. The entire wedding sequence appears farcical, designed with the sole purpose of showcasing Shahrukh as the ideal son in law.

So I ask myself, what is it that makes a love story timeless?

When I think of a timeless love story, I think of Bridges of Madison County. The story of the lonely Italian farm wife and the vagabond National Geographic photographer makes my heart ache every time I read it. There are scenes from the book that creep into me each time I think of love. Their dance together. The dress she wore the evening of their first date. He clicking her picture before they parted ways forever. The letters they wrote but never sent each other till such time they died. The camera he left for her. Their ashes near the bridge.

I think of a timeless love story as something that begins where the pen ends. The only reason it can be told is because you have given up understanding it. It brings out the agnostic, as much as it stirs the romantic in you. The words fade into the background as you look for signs of love - the smells, the gentle brushing of the fingers, the heavy silence in the air, the anguish of wait, the sweetness of hope. A timeless love story keeps you unfulfilled, and a little restless may be. Almost like that’s how it’s meant to be. You suspend all judgment and become a partner in the journey. There are plenty of answers, but no questions. The ending is a formality you couldn't care for. Often, you end up travelling further with the characters, creating your own versions, your own endings.

Love is the clearest at its unexplained best - a line I borrow from Rumi. And that's what makes it timeless for me.

So yes, with the predictability of a slow train between Virar and Churchgate, DDLJ didn't make it to my timeless movies list. But it did three things for mankind. Make that four. It made you want to fall in love. It made you want to travel Europe through Eurail. It made you want to celebrate Karwa Chauth. And it made you want to sit with your lover on the terrace at midnight and whisper sweet nothings. Actually make that five. It also made you want to own a cow bell. Six - if you count the number of parents who ended up naming their son Raj after the movie.

If you have a favourite timeless romance, watch it (or read it) once more before the year ends. I did that. And as I welcome 2015, I am with Franchesca and Robert, who are finally with each other, sipping brandy by the fireplace, growing old together.

A.R.Ts (128) - My Round up of 2014

Year ends make me restless. About all the things I didn't get done. The unfinished notes on my IPad. The exercise regime I never followed. The deadlines I missed. Another year that I didn't chase my dream.

I have often wondered if mine was a life that got lost in translation. Semantically correct, but never fully understood. The words were right, but the meaning never got conveyed. The feeling gets intensified when the year is closing in on me. Almost like I should've actually been somewhere else. Doing something else.

2014 was a year where I added a couple of years into my life. Maybe it was the catching up for all those years I tried stalling the onslaught of the much dreaded mid life. The white hair became more stubborn in their refusal to hide. The balding scalp kept scheming to let me down in my Instagram moments. My stylist exhausted her recommendations for volumnising shampoos and bouncy haircuts.

I perfected the art of schmoozing around in a party with a single glass of wine all night, convincing everyone that it was actually the third. From the conversation to the flat stomach - I learnt to fake it all. I could auction off the innumerable power point presentations I made, and feel miserable about their worth in life.

I gave up on balance, and gave in to trade offs. For every night I partied, there was a morning of a missed long run. For every vacation I took, there was a pile up of emails that cracked me. I weighed, I chose. I survived. Friendships became a little like that mulled wine - a concoction of flavours running deep, the sweet fruity tones overpowering the mild bitterness, the mixture simmering steadily beside me, keeping my spirits high, as I went about my life.

My relationship with Time was tumultuous and violent. We were both at our infidel best, me - busying myself with distractions when he was all there for me, and he - failing to appear when I needed him the most. Like that couple who desperately needed each other, but weren't willing to offer any commitment or loyalty to the relationship. It was my biggest heartbreak.

Back home after a really tough work week, I put my feet up on the bed, and ask Mom, "Can I be happier with less?" She is quick to answer with a firm "Ofcourse yes. When I was working I bought two saris a month. After I quit, I didn't buy a sari for two years." There is no sense of sadness or longing as she says it. On the contrary, there is a pride, one that comes with making tough decisions, and having the patience to see them bear fruit.

I say good night and switch off the lights. There is something very comforting about a mildly chilly winter night, when you are in your bed huddled in your soft-as-butter blanket, willing the cold away. The darkness allowing you to embrace the choices you made. Enveloping you in its warmth. Reminding you that you gave it your best. Happiness, sadness, right, wrong, less, more - it all blurs into something bigger and hazier, something that doesn't want to be touched, felt or even named. I could have called it Life. But not yet, it's telling me.

And that's when it strikes me. Maybe my life wasn't lost in translation after all. I just need to stay the course. A little longer.

Happy New Year, my lovely readers. I hope you read this and remember to keep going. And I want you know you have kept me going though this year. To many more. Amen.

A.R.Ts (127)

Once upon a time, there was a shyness about saying I Love You.

It took a lot to say it. At first unsure. Tentative.

Then slipping it in slowly. Waiting for the reaction.

Wondering if it was ok to say it.

Wondering if you said it too soon.

If you ought to wait till the relationship thawed a little.

If it was the right moment.

If you had screwed it up.

A heartbeat thumping as you said it.

The ground beneath your feet breaking away.

It's different today. You say it as easily as you would say Good Night.

Take care. Sleep well. Good night. Love you.

Easy. Effortless. Even casual.

Sold in bulk, with heavy discounts, gone is its exclusivity.

You say it to a parent. You say it to a friend. You say it to your kids. You say it to someone special.

Many times publicly. No childish nervousness.

Sometimes as a matter a habit.

Not expecting a reaction. Not longing to be heard.

Just a phrase. A tag.

It was never so easy.

Sometimes I long for it to become difficult again.

I long for that struggle.

Laced with excitement.

Layered in intimacy.

I want it to be a whisper.

That tingles my nerves. Makes my throat dry.

That you strain your ears to hear.

I want it to be just you and me. And the difficulty of saying it.

Filling up our hearts. Drawing us closer. And keeping us together.

A.R.Ts (126) - Lessons my Dad doesn't teach me, but i learn from him

Don't make dinner plans for tonight, says Dad. His eyes have a spark I haven't seen in a while. His college friend of 50 years is coming to stay with us. And we are all going out for the big fat Indian dinner.

They met 52 Years ago. In Presidency College, Chennai. Statistics Major. Class of 1964. I saw the pictures this time. A nearly torn vintage picture fashionably cropped and sepia toned, neatly fitting into a glitzy IPad Screen. Their playground. The place where it all started.

After graduation, Dad moved to Mumbai to join a large public sector organisation. His friend moved to the US. They are poles apart. He - tall, well built, tennis playing, beer and scotch drinking, almost half American gentleman - who enjoys tapas with his Spanish son in law. My dad, the lanky Tam Bram, who thinks jeans is too western a garment for him, and whose pallets have not experimented with anything beyond paneer mutter.

The house is set to welcome them. The bowl with the idli batter is unceremoniously dethroned from its place in the kitchen. Replacing it are Muesli, brown bread and orange marmalade. "They may not be able to have dosa idli every day," says Dad, at his understanding best. The bathrooms are checked for toilet paper adequacy. All the beds have fresh sheets. The schedules are chalked out. What foods to cook, which friends to meet, what shopping needs to be done, and what places need to be visited.

They don't hug when they meet. There is barely any touch actually. And yet the intimacy is palpable. The plans unfold one by one. The conversations don't stop. They laugh, they tease, they fight. "I think Modi is more hype than action," the friend dares to say. The hot blooded BJP in my Dad mouths a few unmentionables. They have a heated argument. The friend is excited about the tennis court in the complex. Dad takes him there as if he was taking a child, finds him a partner and a racket. While the friend plays, he takes his morning walks. They come back together and sit hungrily on the breakfast table. Every day a new delicacy is dished out. Dahi wada. Freshly made halwa. Kulfi. After three days of an ascetic life (read no non veg and alcohol) the friend craves beer. Is it such a must for you, chides Dad gently. Not really, but must you make such a fuss about one beer, he retorts with a twinkle on his eye. Dad is not so amused. I step in and order the beer. Two Kingfisher Ultras, I say. Dad wonders why I order two when the friend asked for one. One for the road Dad, I want to say. But obviously I don't. The beer arrives. Lest Dad rushes into the kitchen to fetch a steel tumbler, I pull out the beer mug and pour the beer. Saying Cheers, I hand it over to the friend, steadfastly ignoring all those glares Dad was casting on me.

It's Saturday now. The friend left on Friday. Crazy guy, says Dad, already missing his boisterous presence. Do you know he gorged on chicken and fish when we took him out in Muscat. And he drank up both the beers! I told you not to order two. It's ok Dad, I say, smiling. Reveling in his simplicity. Envious of the ease with which he has carried his friendships through the years. Wondering if any of my numerous Facebook and Whatssap besties will travel the shores to come and see me when I am 72 years old. I look away, lest he catches my forlorn look. But he is watching TV, rooting for Devendra Fadnavis. Scrolling through the photo gallery, I show him a picture of the two of them that we clicked. He looks at it briefly, smiles, and then goes back to the TV screen. Nostalgia is not his style. Be in the here and now. And give it all you have. I learnt something about relationships that moment. And for that moment, all the pictures in my phone faded away.

A.R.Ts (125) - Has the Blue Tick ticked you off?

Dear Whatssap User,

I know you hated me since the day you first saw me. There I was, blue in colour, appearing in all your messages, stripping you bare naked. With nowhere to run for cover, you stood exposed. You could no longer seek refuge under the "I saw your message very late" response.

Let me take you to a decade back when my more non intrusive counterparts ruled your life. You sent a message and went on with life. Irrespective of whether the message was sent, delivered, read, baked, roasted, or fried. If you wanted an urgent response, you would call. Occasionally, if you didn't get a response, you would wonder if the message got delivered in time. The possibility that your messages would not always be responded to in time, or even eventually, did not destabilise your life. And likewise for you as a recipient. You did not have to make assumptions about your relationships based on the various permutations combinations of "Sent but not delivered - must be in a no-signal area" "Received but not read - too busy". "Read but not responded within 30 seconds - I'm not a priority. "Read but not responded for two hours - Does not like me much". "Read but not responded for a day - Time to strike off the friends list".

Then what happened? A revolution led by a hooded teen prodigy decided that privacy is a thing of the past. Connectedness is in. Why wonder where your friends are and what they are up to when you can find out at the click of a button? And predictably, you didn't fight that too hard. In fact you were very easily wooed. You enjoyed the reach and access it gave you. You spent hours evaluating every picture of yours on a DP worthiness scale. You liked seeing the lighter (or darker) side of people .. in their pictures, their updates. You tracked their lives. You knew when they were online. You could even see them typing out your messages. You knew when was the last time they had checked their messages. Willy nilly you were lending yourself to a form of voyeurism, you of their lives, they of your life. And slowly you became a slave. A mild anxiety would come creeping over you when someone you saw online didn't respond to you. Likewise, that ever so subtle pressure to respond lest someone label you as indifferent or aloof. Never before had a simple text so much power to judge the depth of a relationship. Hot. Cold. Mild. Intense. Lukewarm. Icy. Intimate. Distant.

Then comes along me. Making all your labels official. Giving you less room to play around. Validating your faith, confirming your fears. Violating a space which you gave up long back. Making you a stranger to your own choices. Seemingly disrobing you when the fact is that you have left very little to cover. A nice easy target of outrage.

Stop spewing venom on me dear Whatssap User. I am not the problem. I am just the umpire keeping score. The problem is the slippery playground you play in. The playground of fragile relationships, instant gratification, real time access, diffused boundaries and blurring lines of personal space. And the reality is that it's too late to fix that now. Remember, if you want to walk in the rain, you have to enjoy getting wet. Otherwise pull down the windows and stay indoors.

Sincerely yours,

The By Now Iconic Blue Tick.

A.R.Ts (124) - Childhood habits that wont go away

I cannot share my jim jam biscuits. So I hoard them secretly and eat them when I am alone. "Selfish child", says my inner voice to me.

Red for me and blue for my sister. For years, I have been buying her the same clothes as mine, just a smaller size and a different colour. There are plenty other designs, styles and fits to choose from, but I always buy her one identical to mine. I refuse to erase those childhood pictures of us wearing identical clothes from my memory.

Don't do that, I tell myself, as I noisily suck the last drops of Pepsi through the straw in the bottle. But I can't stop. I blow out of the straw, into it, making empty noises, and forming bubbles that float around, amusing no one but myself.

Dad still reprimands me when I lie upside down on my bed and read a book in bad lighting. As a child he would tell me, "You will get glasses if you continue doing this." Now he tells me "I told you so."

I hate spoilers of any kind. And yet, every time I pick up a mystery novel, I flip over its pages to sneakily read the ending to see if I can fathom who the murderer is. It's a childhood reading habit that won't go away.

In the midst of a fancy buffet dinner, I develop an irresistible craving for hot rice, a dollop of ghee and some nice tomato rasam. I cannot attribute this to anything else but a deep rooted childhood fixation that soothes my soul. Especially if it's a dinner filled with strangers with whom I am making random conversation. I instantly look for the comfort of a familiar childhood food.

Childhood habits that won't go away. That bring a touch of rawness and vulnerability to an otherwise emotionally airtight adult life. This Children's Day count the number of habits that have not outgrown you. If you can't remember, start by bursting the bubbles of a bubble wrapped gift. Or by blowing your bubble gum into a big circle. Your memory will not fail you.

A.R.Ts (122)

Last week, I met up with an individual who was trying to convince me to sign up for a service he was providing. He wasn't the best communicator. He struggled to find the right words, and often kept repeating the same thing in many different ways. He didn't catch that I was getting restless since we had overshot time. He didn't spend too much time trying to understand my needs. In short, he was an ineffective sales person. But what struck me about him was his "passion" for what he was doing. He truly and genuinely believed his service and his organisation would make a difference and impact change positively. Every nook and corner of his body shook with that belief.

When someone asks me what I am passionate about, I struggle to give an answer. Yes, there are plenty of things I love doing, but I hesitate to use the word passion to describe my feelings towards them, because that takes the relationship to the next level. It kind of starts defining you. For someone with varied and sometimes even flickering interests, passion is a scary word, almost akin to a lifelong commitment.

But being the risk taker that I am, I decided to test what it takes to convert a hobby into a passion. Not in a planned and systematic manner, but in my usual impulsive and spontaneous fashion. And A.R.Ts took shape. Today, 3 years and 121 posts later, I'm still in the first leg of the journey, trying to find my space and settle down. And I know it's going to be a long ride.

I often asks myself what it takes. When can I really start calling writing a passion? When I quit my job for it? When I publish a book? When I dedicate 5 hours everyday for it? When it consumes me so much that I am always thinking about my next new idea or book? When I pursue it single handedly with no distractions?

And then I know that there will be no answers. There will only be moments. Moments that will define you. Moments that will make you the person you are. Moments that will take you where are are meant to be.

An honest confession at the end of the three years is that more than writing, A.R.Ts has taught me many lessons in life. Humility. Discipline. Courage. Conscientiousness. Respect. Patience. Perseverance. Hard-work. My respect for bloggers, columnists and writers has shot up manifold - I am convinced that writing is less about skill and talent and all about discipline and dedication. I laugh when I remember how naive I was to think that you can't write if you are not inspired. Thank god I have grown up enough to know that the muse will not find you, you have to find the muse. And if you look long enough, you WILL find it.

Thank you all for all that you do to keep me writing week after week. Willy nilly, you have become partners in my journey to find my passion and keep it alive. I pray for each of you to find your passion, and I hope you get the same encouragement and support that I have got so far.

Here's to A.R.Ts Season 4

A.R.Ts (123) - Why do we hate Chetan Bhagat?

A.R.Ts (123)

There are some authors I read for the beauty of their language. The lyrical quality of their writing. Jhumpa Lahiri, Amitava Ghosh. Khaled Hosseini. There are others I read as a wannabe writer. Just to satisfy my "if he can do it, so can I" feeling that crops up every once in a while. Chetan Bhagat falls in this second category. And he is back in the circuit with his latest release Half Girlfriend. Right from its title to the rich babe dating village boy theme the book is a hollow lackluster wannabe Bollywood film which Ekta Kapoor will produce shortly.

But I expect that from Bhagat, the man who has grown from strength to strength on hate and ridicule. For every bad book he writes, a blockbuster film is made. For every hate post on him, his twitter follower count trebles. For every time we cringe when he is called the voice of young India, he pens yet another column in a leading daily.

What I don't understand is this - Just why do we hate Chetan Bhagat so much?

Take a look at cinema. You have a Rohit Shetty for every Satyajit Ray. A Sajid Khan for every Prakash Jha. A Govinda for every Aamir Khan. We happily proclaim "Leave your brains behind and watch Chennai Express". Why don't we do the same for Bhagat's books? Why don't we allow him to claim his space as an author? Is it because movies are for the masses and books are for a more elite audience? Or is it because has he has democratised English and made it accessible to so many more people, that the book snobs who grew up on a daily diet of Shakespeare and Charles Dickens suddenly feel their homes have been invaded and they now have to share it with lesser human beings?

Because that's what Bhagat has done. In publicly saying that he counts Candy Crush and Whatssap as his competitors, he has, in effect acknowledged that he is perfectly happy for his book to be that filler when we are taking a smartphone break. I know a lot of people who have read only ten books in their lifetime, of which atleast three are Bhagat's. They didn't care for lyrical prose, they were just looking for a story and a style they could relate to. In between flights. Before dozing off at night. Or for a lazy afternoon on the couch.

I'm not a fan of Bhagat's books because I don't particularly fancy love stories. And atleast two of his books I read were the boy meets girl romance. But I'm a big fan of people who have the courage to follow their dreams. I'm a fan of people who make it on their own. I'm a fan of people who can go on in the face of so much hate and ridicule (I know our politicians also fall in this bucket, but there are other compelling reasons why I am not their fan)

Keep going Chetan Bhagat. Remember that if a lot of the so-called book snobs and elites of the world can shake their leg to "Aata maajhi satakli" in a club, then maybe they are reading your book in between covers, hoping never to be caught. Maybe for every one hater, you actually have three closeted followers.

To more bad titles. Bad prose. Bad books. To Courage. Strength. Perseverance.