Marriage

Marriage is on my family's mind. All my cousins and close friends are slowly beginning to get married. This has made me realize that people were lying when they said that your 20s were going to be fun. No one told you that in your 20s you'd make some really bad decisions regarding education, friends and people and then basically drown under the stress of not having a job, various skin problems, various other problems stemming from the fact that this bloody law course is not fucking ending and of course the parents. (I think this needs to be elaborated upon):


Indian Parents:

Normally found all over the world (because we are after all lots of people) and majorly concentrated in the Indian subcontinent this is a species with severe double standards and appalling levels of hypocrisy running through their veins. There are certain rules that all Indian parents follow regarding their children and other people's:

1) Try to discipline everyone else's child but your own.

2) Live under constant delusion that your child is the best

and the most important one

3) Parents know best

4) Most in the country believe staunchly in arranged marriage


I find the last point very scary and slightly disturbing. This has me thinking of my days in school in Prague. By that time I was used to being a third culture kid but even then I was as little prepared for the question asked by my class mates as I am now : " So like your parents are gonna find you a husband?". It was high school. I was the only coloured one present. I shrugged and nodded with a sheepish smile. I had no idea what to say. But I was not prepared for what came next: "So they're like gonna pimp you out?!" and certain immature white children fell about laughing. I was quick to defend what was my culture. However, as I grow up, I realize that I think like that too!

Coming from a middle class family, I haven't really been exposed to others, so my perception is shaped by what I've seen growing up. The girls are trained, taught to cook, to keep quiet, dress appropriately and behave themselves. These are qualities that will later be shouted from the rooftops when they get of marriageable age. This is what you are being sold on. There exists such a place as the marriage market. Your entire life, your existence boils down to what you look like and how fast and well you can cook. You may be a rocket scientist for all they care. This brings in the parents. Those people that take you to malls and pick out hideous tops and sweaters for you to try and then look disappointed when you pointedly turn away. I mean people who are not equipped to pick out clothing for you from well stocked stores in hugeass malls are the ones in charge of getting you a life partner. Don't get me wrong, in some aspects parents are quite wise but if picking out a husband is based on a silly newspaper ad then it just shows that either they're being plain lazy about the whole process or the entire country has taken to heart that "hope makes the world go round."

Not one parent of a girl that I have spoken to has said "I know she will be happy." They all said: "I hope she will be happy." Not a single one found it appalling that their child was about to become part of their biggest gambling strategy.

So basically, parents that never allow you to have boyfriends, or go out at night or basically even talk to boys unless its about school work, are completely ok with the idea of spending shit loads of money, getting you dolled up in gold and red and then shuttling you off in some idiot's flower decked car. The idiot you went for coffee with thrice before your marriage (as more times was not seen as appropriate). Upon reaching his house, after the family's done welcoming you and kick in some rice at the door, you will be pushed into a room where there will be a bed. A bed decorated with flowers. An unknown boy's bed. You are supposed to sleep with him (pun intended) on that bed. Because you went round and round around a fire with him. Wow.

I know what my newspaper ad will say: Match wanted for, tall, slim, convent educated girl. Early marriage. Contact P.O. Box no. etc. etc.

This ad describes half of my class in school. I say half because some were really short, although all were of course convent educated. It doesn't say anything about me. It scares me. I am disappointed in the low value attached to some Indian women by their families. Any guy will do. As long as you get married before you turn 28. Any guy will do.

The Dirty Picture - Please Kill Me Now

It is a movie made on Silk Smitha's life. And it makes you want to take your own. It hurt even more because I had chosen to watch it in the middle of exams and from the first scene it smote my conscience since it was precious prep time wasted. For those of you that haven't seen it this is the story narrated by Emraan Hashmi's character, Abraham, who might as well have gone and drowned himself off the coast:

In a place a little way off from Madras a young girl dreams of reaching the skies. She literally attempts to do the same by getting onto a ladder before her mother basically tells her to get her ass back on the ground and proceeds to accomplish the same by shaking the ladder till the girl falls off. For a second it had me hoping that the film would proceed on how the girl made it big with the help of prosthetic legs and became a dancer or something in south indian films, but sadly this does not happen and so I dolefully settled back into my chair to watch what seemed to be a below average-waste of time movie.

As the girl grows up in true South Indian, plump, ghagra wearing style she develops a mantra to justify all her stupid decisions in life. It goes something like this : "Jab bhagwaan ne ek zindagi di hai toh do baar kya sochna?" (When God has given you one life then why think twice?). No one bothered to tell her it's because God hoped we'd respect life more as the better evolved species. Anyway, so one night Miss Reshma (yes that's her name) jumps out of her window (we later find it's the night before her wedding) and runs off. This provides ample time for the film makers to show the names of the people who have been cast in this pathetic venture.

So Reshma (Vidya Balan) reaches the big city and begins to live in a hovel which seems to be part of a brothel or atleast shares one of it's walls with it. While living there and surviving on crumbs from her 'steel ka dabba', the only thing she bothered to run away with from home, Miss Reshma learns the art of making sex sounds and thus entertains herself at night. There is also an Amma who she is friends with and who she conveniently discards once her career takes off. One day Miss Reshma is hungry and goes to become a heroine. The guy tells her he can't help her and sends her off with 5 bucks. She uses that money to watch Suryakant's (Naseeruddin Shah) movie. Suryakant is the shit in the movies and she has apparently always loved him. Inspired by what she sees, she goes back to the guy who blew her off and as happens in these situations gets to be part of a song sequence because the other girl conveniently fails to turn up. This is the point where the audience is supposed to think : Fate, Destiny, Kismet etc.

So Miss Reshma, our plump beloved sets the screen on fire with her sultry, vulgar dance moves coupled with a jiggling pot belly and of course the hunter which is the deal breaker. Alas, the movie is an Abraham (Emraan Hashmi) direction and he is English speaking, Literature influenced, attempting to be Guru Dutt but not even managing to be himself director who abhors all vulgarity and insists on cutting the scene because he is against making the audience think from their balls rather than their brains. When Reshma goes to see the film, her scene isn't in it!! Haww!! All that hunter time wasted! Tch. Tch.

However, the producer of the film laments that his film is not selling and is then told of the director's censoring of the song. He watches it and after salivating over images of the hunter wielding Reshma decides he must have her! After a long search (I forget how they did it), they finally find her, name her 'Silk' and bring her in for the 'Oooh la la' song with none other than Suryakant. A timid Reshma fails to give the required shot and this puts Suryakant off. Off he goes in a huff and a puff into his changing room where Reshma follows him and offers him 501 sessions of sex in response to his boast of more than 500 lays. What follows sadly, is not the end of the movie or an unplanned pregnancy but they give a perfect shot and she's a hit and in everyone of the over-age star's movies.

Soon, she's as famous as he is! One day she's at his place and his wife comes in so he hides her in the bathroom and sleeps with his wife instead. Reshma is devastated after watching through the bathroom keyhole - delusional fuck that she is. She goes off the bender and decides to go bet on horses. The horse that wins belongs to none other than Suryakant's brother Ramakant (Tusshar Kapoor). They start some sort of an affair which ultimately leads to nothing because of course 'bros before whores' and blood being thicker than water etc.

During all this time, she has moved into a bigger house and is also an alcoholic. And where is Mr. Abraham you may well ask ? He is busy hating her and doing nothing else in particular apart from saying a few deprecating sentences from time to time in the background about her. There's also a journalist called Nyla doing the same, but she's just there for the big bindi effect.

Lest the audience think that Silk has been completely unaffected by all of this, she gives a very 'i have baggage and therefore shall justify my actions' speech at an awards ceremony and rather than hitting Mr. Naseeruddin Shah on the head with the trophy for agreeing to do such a bad film, she walks off with it.

Later, as time passes, people realize she's not that special, her popularity dwindles and she predictably goes into depression. She puts all her money on making a movie with her in triple roles which is supposedly an idea copied from Abraham's movie. This is her downfall, since his movie does well and hers doesn't. Therefore, she loses her head completely and ends up in a porno film shoot from which she escapes because the police arrive and then hallucinates on the streets.

Anyway, this whole time that Abraham's been hating her has actually been good for him because her downfall makes him realize he loves her and in the middle out of nowhere, after she's been ditched by Suryakant and Ramakant (who wanted to marry her) he turns up at her house for drinks and smokes and they become a couple. A proper couple. How we know that is because they don't kiss until their stupid song is over and that's much later but also because she goes to sleep with her head on his shoulder rather than down south and this is supposed to be an indication for the audience that she is now seriously in love.

The movie ends with her killing herself and with Abraham not reaching her on time. Poor bastard had gotten her mother to come visit too! *sniff*.

The entire time after intermission, a small child kept howling in the movie hall as if trying to express what the rest of us could not. The fact that this was an 'A' rated film had obviously not been a deterrent to his parents. Overall, pathetic performances by Miss Vidya Balan whose stomach flab had more screen presence than she did and Mr. Naseeruddin Shah who was an absolute and utter waste. Mr. Tusshar Kapoor was only in the film because he's Ekta Kapoor's younger brother and thus he can be ignored completely. Emraan Hashmi's character did nothing but act all pissed off because Silk Smitha stole his thunder and then acted all weird and sad in the song that was picturised with him and Miss Vidya Balan. But they kissed in the end, so I guess it was all good. A very badly written script, and an insult to the audience and their money, this movie should have been given a 'P' certificate for -Painful and Pathetic.