Yeh Joke Tha?

I think the line that I've repeated the most in this blog is : I love Bollywood. Period. I mean, it is just such an integral part of my life, that I cannot imagine life without it. In fact some of the craziest moments I've had, with some of my closest friends, has something or the other to do with Bollywood. They are all hindi-film related moments. Usually something that would make us laugh till our stomachs hurt. Old dialogues that we could repeat with the exact feeling and emotion and tone. Songs that we would sing loudly, drunk or not drunk, just generally happy with life.

I remember, some mental nights, we would sing horrendous songs from the 90s, songs you'd be ashamed were ever made. But it was weird how we all remembered the pathetic lyrics like "jab tak rahega samose mein aalo, tera rahunga o meri Shalu" like seriously! I can not imagine having as much fun with someone who doesn't get hindi or hindi movie songs or hindi movie dialogues. Even today whenever someone says a really really bad joke or mocks me, my automatic response is "Yeh joke tha?" and I expect the other person to respond saying "Haan tha toh" to which I will say "I don't like jokes" and they will say 'I don't like you" or in as someone used to say "But i like you"... Haha. It's a scene from Kuch Kuch Hota Hain featuring Shah and Kajol. It flows in my blood and I can't rid myself of it.

This other instance I remember, is when we had to shoot a video for one of our annual conferences at work. And the video production agency we hired had been given a brief on what we wanted and two friends of mine were working for that agency and on that video.  One day they came into the conference room to show me the storyboard and they explained the scene to me, and I immediately said "omg, this is like that scene in Kal Ho Na Ho, where the characters are trying to remember when Naina last laughed/smiled." And they looked at me, and said "yes! that is exactly what we had in mind when we were writing this part". It's small things like that from Bollywood that get me excited.

Well, all the examples I have stated above are Shah movies, but there are a few other epic scenes : epic for Indian cinema in general and me in particular: that are a part of my 'language'. Since I've grown up in North India and around North Indians, Hindi has always been a part of my daily life. And so for a long time as a child, I thought, everyone in India, would invariably know Hindi! So I would find it funny when we visited our grandparents in Coorg, that people there didn't understand Hindi. Well of course, I grew up, shifted to Hyderabad for work and the number of South Indian friends I had increased by a huge margin, actually almost all my friends in Hyderabad are South Indians! And then I realised, that  my belief that the Hindi language was widely spoken and ubiquitous, was wrong. And also there was nothing wrong in that, nothing wrong in people not knowing Hindi. I've had a lot of fun times with folks where Hindi has not played any role, and with no Bollywood references. But all I'm trying to say is, I've had the most fun, in the times when they have been a part of the conversations!

Hindi film music. Oh man, if there is one thing that can get a party started, anywhere, even among my father's army course-mates, it's the song "Rang Barse". Recently I attended a wedding of two very close friends of mine. The groom was South Indian, but educated and lived in the North all his life, except for college in Chennai. The bride, South Indian and lived and studied in Bangalore. At their wedding night party, when it was just our friends and their cousins, no elderly people, the party ended and then restarted when the groom tied his tie around his forehead and took the mic and started singing "Khaike paan Benaras walla". We created our own instruments and sounds and beats to make sure we did justice to the beauty of that song! And then loads of other songs followed. What a night!

I am not saying, other languages don't do this to you. Many of my Tamilian friends, go to a different level of craziness when they start singing old Tamil songs. What I am trying to say is, that language for me is Hindi. The other cult movie among Hindi movie fans is Andaz Apna Apna. There is awesome video that TVF did on Andaz Apna Apna fans and how mad they can get about it. Even if you go back in time, I watched Anand today and I am huge Rajesh Khanna fan and if you're a Hindi movie fan, this is a movie you SHOULD have watched! He was the only other actor I've loved more than Shah, because my grandmom and my mom are huge fans, so that love rubbed off on me too as a child, until of course I discovered my true love and Shah. But so, this movie is just so beautiful. Hrishikesh Mukherjee and his movies are just something else. Anand is especially famous for it' Babumoshai dialogues and the  Babumoshai dialogue (OK Fine, I know its originally sort of like Shakespeare, but come on!). Its weird but every time someone says Botany, my mind does a flashback to Chupke Chupke and Amitabh as Botany ka professor!

Then of course there is Sholay. Oh man. The number of Basanti dialogues I have used in my life and the number of times we've all tried to do the Mausi ji  "chakki peesing and peesing" scene when drunk! I remember, there was a big group of us talking about cult Hindi movies, and there was a Banglorean in the group who didn't know Hindi and was feeling left out. So she pitched in and said "I really liked Dil Chahta Hain" and this is when we were talking really old Hindi movies and the only "new" movie we had included in the list was Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na. So everyone stopped talking and just stared at her. I mean, I loved Dil Chahta Hain, I really did, but I wouldn't include it in my "awesome Hindi movies of all time" list, or maybe I would, but it wouldn't be in the top 10 or 20 even. So yea, I am kind of mean like that. I feel bad for making her feel out of place that day and staring at her after she said DCH. But, maybe I don't feel too bad, so chances are I'll do it again.

More often than not, I've connected with people because of Hindi music. There is a tune, or a song, that I can associate with different times and different people in my life. When I think about Kal ho na ho songs, I think about my school friend in Delhi and how we watched it together. I think of Tere Bina from Guru and I think about Delhi college winter days, when I was in love with this guy, who send me that song on email. Or how Lag Ja gale reminds me of a time I can never forget and never want to forget. Or how I can't think about Call me dil from Jhootha hi Sahi without thinking about someone and how we watched that movie in Prasads in Hyderabad on a Friday night and I was so angry because we got late for it and I hate missing the beginning or any part of a movie, but Hyderabad traffic failed us that evening and after the movie, I had to rush back, pick up my suitcase and catch a flight to the US, but how I insisted that I wanted to watch the movie with him before I left. It's almost like life has a background score to it. Which is nice, and sometimes you get so nostalgic, when you hear a song or a tune, from long ago, and you get drawn and pulled back in time to the days when that song was on repeat on your playlist. I don't think I could ever fall in love with someone who didn't understand Hindi or Hindi music, didn't know Kishore Kumar or Mukesh or thought Udit Narayan and Sonu Nigam were too down market for them. Believe me such people exist, I've met them. It's a stupid condition to have, absolutely immature, but it's just me.

I still remember, when I first came to Hyderabad. My flight landed at the airport at 7:00PM from Bangalore and my father was flying in from Delhi for a conference. But his flight was arriving only at 8:30PM, but we had decided to travel to the city together. Hyderabad airport being it's usual efficient self was fast and swift and by 7:30 I was out, had collected my luggage and was sitting and waiting for Dad to arrive. And suddenly the instrumental from Kal ho na ho started playing on the airport lounge music speakers. I was young and naive and i thought that God had played that song to welcome me to Hyderabad. Actually I think, I would think the same even now, if that happened again. Haha.

There is this scene from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, that my best friend and I got talking about one late night on the phone. He was leaving Delhi, going back to the US after his college winter vacations and I was studying for some random half yearly exams. He called from the airport and we spoke about the scene where Shah and Kajol see each other for the first time in the K3G and we both got the exact scene and the song that was playing in the background and we started singing it. It's one of our favorite scenes from the movie. This other recent memory I have is discussing  this wonderful scene with someone from Kal ho na ho where Shah and Saif are describing Naina. It's the first few minutes of this video. Sigh. The last part of that video is when Shah completes "main shayar toh nahi, magar ae haseen, jabse dekha maine tujhko, mujhko...", just look at that man. Just look at him.

I can go on and on and on and on. The point is, there is just too much Bollywood in me, just too much. So I will judge you if you don't get my "I don't like jokes" dialogue. Which is OK, because you can judge me for not getting some famous Hollywood movie dialogues. So we are equal.