Random Expressions

In my current job assignment I meet a lot of the government servant types (I cringe at the use of the word ’servant’ , clearly an odious legacy from the British era). I have noticed that they are the ones who almost always have a very neat and cut out life.

Often they ask me about my family. And the surprise (or rather, the shock) on their face is more than visible when I state I am single. It is impossible for them to comprehend that I chose to stay this way, willingly and happily, after my divorce. Invariably, they will go on to list out the virtues of getting married and the need to be settled an argument which rankles me no end. Why can’t I be ’settled’ without the burden of marriage?

But a more pertinent question is, why even be settled in life?

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Agra opened its doors to the second mall - the sprawling TDI Mall, on Fatehabad Road, adjacent to Pacific Mall, the only other existing one in town. TDI Mall is much larger in size and will carry a variety of brands.I visited the place on its inaugural day on Sunday. Frankly, as of now it’s quite disappointing and boring since only Pantaloons and McDonalds have opened shops. The rest will take some time to come up.

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Situated at the posh Sadar Bazar, Jaiwal Bar is a small but great place, one of the few modern bars of Agra. The place has an additional soft corner for me as this was the first bar that I had immediately loved when I shifted to Agra; since then, I am a regular here, with even the waiters recognizing me.

Ambience - Handsome! The bar has a trendy decor, with a glazed glass entrance, plastered walls and elegant wooden chairs. On one corner are comfortable sofas for those who wish to relax a little more. They play good music, and there is a television set as well for the ones who want to catch cricket along with their beers.

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Mid-week holidays are dicey. The weekend effect is missing, and it spoils the flow of the week. But festivals can fall anytime, and this year most of them are coming at odd times. Yesterday was Ram Navami, and we had a day off.

A friend had come over in the evening, and to kill time we visited the only happening place that I could think of -Pacific Mall (Sadar Bazar is an option, but it is closed on Tuesdays). Since there is only so much one can window shop, we decided to catch a late night show. My friend left the choice to me, and I chose Just Married - a film about which I have read many bad reviews, but one that I really enjoyed. So, I just wanted to check if I was wrong somewhere.

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Chokho Jeeman is a Marwari/Jain Restaurant, on the road leading to Agra’s significant Raja-Ki-Mandi Railway Station, at Delhi Gate, next to Moon TV Network’s office.

Even though I had heard of it earlier, but I visited the place very late, only last Sunday when a friend and colleague took me there for dinner. The restaurant impressed me enough to visit it again this Saturday, and also to write this review.

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In his weekly column in a leading national daily, eminent writer and UN diplomat Shashi Tharoor has emotionally implored the nation’s women to save the sari from possible extinction. I echo his sentiments.

Since childhood I have a strong fascination for the sari - not that I indulge in some secret and perverse pleasure in (cross) dressing in them, but it is the sari’s visual appeal which fuels the fascination. Possibly, this attraction stems from watching Sridevi cavorting in bright red and blue chiffon saris in Jaanbaaz and Mr. India respectively, during my growing up years. And then all those Yash Chopra romantic films further cemented their allure. Today, the sari has reinvented itself into a style statement, but still I find a Sushmita Sen much more enticing in Mai Hoon Na than her corporate suits in various other films. And the sari lent a unique appeal to Aishwarya Rai’s tall and skinny frame in the second half of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. In the earlier generation, Rakhee was a huge favorite, and despite having a body that most heroines today would scoff at, she was an epitome of polish and poise and possibly with the widest collection of saris.

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Film Review

“Tum filmein nahin dekhti” cheekily remarks Akshay Kumar whenever he bowls over the prim and propah (well, not really) British bred heroine with some stereotypical googly. This insouciance and ability to poke fun at one’s own self is extremely heartening and displays immense maturity and confidence on the film makers part. Perhaps the latest spate of overseas success has helped Bollywood shed its fundamentally solemn outlook while giving the most filmi movies; and now it does not take itself too seriously. And all this is paradoxically done keeping every traditional cliche neatly preserved in the script.

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Yesterday, my car and I celebrated our ‘Togetherness Anniversary’.

Six years back, on a balmy March evening, I had brought home the shining and spotless white Santro from its maaika, a leading Hyundai dealership in central Delhi. The smooth, power-windowed and power-steered Santro was a striking change from the old model Maruti that I hitherto drove. The pride on my face rivaled the smirk that the car’s frontage carried.

However, two days later we had significant adjustment problems, and I angrily sent it back to its showroom the airconditioner wasn’t functioning properly. The showroom assured it was a minor issue and refused to take it back; and promised that it would set the car right and it would never give trouble again.

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Film Review

Finally, in 2007 arrives a film where I didn’t wait for the interval, nor did I fidget around for the end to arrive; where the proceedings on screen were crispier than the pop-corn and the narration had more fizz than the Pepsi; where there is filminess to keep me engrossed yet it s rooted in enough realism to ensure credibility. Meghna Gulzar’s second directorial venture is - to put it straight and simple - a delightful film!

Although it has a shaky start (and I had feared that another evening would go waste) but once the lead pair are married off, it settles into a cozy pace, weaving in little nuances and moments, adding rich characters and embellished with subtle humor.

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My tryst with rural India added one more chapter this week. This time, I went deeper into the villages. Kagarole isn’t new to me; I have been there often. But this time we planned to not skim through it; instead we rolled up our trousers and plunged into the villages surrounding the place.

Mercifully our host suggested that we travel in-road in the company’s hired Mahindra Jeep; a decision for which I thanked him profusely, since the ride was unimaginably bumpy and only a sturdy vehicle could have negotiated the kachhi sadak. The recent rains had added their own soggy and muddy designs.

“Adventure!” my colleague remarked, crouched on the back seat, as we plunged deep into another crater-size pot-hole. Yeah indeed, I grimaced, sitting tightly in the front seat, with another official on my left, and the long gear handle sticking into my abdomen on the right. Earlier, I was positively scandalized when the driver suggested I sit at the back, but since the door wouldn’t open I didn’t risk jumping in.

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The weather took a sudden u-turn on Sunday and unexpected showers hit the entire North India. The lightening showed more presence than Agra’s electricity board. And the cacophonous thunder kept people awake alongwith the mosquitoes.

On Monday, in the midst of a function, while our Vice President delivered an essentially dull business presentation, the proceedings were suddenly livened up with reverberating background sounds, drowning the VP’s voice. It was a hailstorm. Hail, the size of overgrown potatoes, lashed Agra - and destroyed the potato crop!


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Film Review

At long legs… oops, long last Ram Gopal Verma’s supposedly controversial film gets released. The film has been long in legs… aargh, I mean long in news, mostly for all wrong reasons.

The story goes thus: a family man Vijay (Amitabh Bachhan uses his erstwhile screen name after ages) lives in a picturesque house with his homely wife Amruta (Revathi) and his young daughter (Shradha Arya). On one holiday the daughter brings home her friend, a reckless young girl Jiah (Jiah Khan), who has long long legs, and who comes from a broken family. The long legs moves about in the house, and though initially Vijay finds it disconcerting, gradually he starts thawing towards them. So, he takes her on long legs… oops, long drives to show her the tea estate. They have long legs… err, long conversations about life and love and marriage. In not so long legs… aargh, I mean not-so-long-time they get attracted to each other, so much so in the long legs… oho, I mean in the long run Vijay confesses about his attraction to his wife.

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A few days back I paid a visit to the local Planet M store at Sadar Bazar. I visited it after several months and as ever, I returned disgustingly disappointed with their lopsided collections, especially in the older music section. There were plentiful albums on RD Burman, a handful on Madan Mohan, a few on SD Burman and even a couple of polite ones on Naushad and - surprise surprise, Chitragupta- but there wasn’t a single piece on Shankar-Jaikishan- the tunesmiths who unarguably ruled the charts in the golden fifties and sixties!

A similar story was seen at the newly opened Music World store (at Pacific Mall) last week, where I had even dared to ask the salesman about this unjust anomaly but had received only a blank quizzical look from him as if I had asked some impossibly tough Newton’s theory!

It’s not that the smaller Agra editions of these stores are cutting out Shankar-Jaikishan. The problem is repeated at their bigger versions in Delhi also. And the root of this lies in the sheer negligence on HMV’s part (the music company which controls the rights of 80-90% movies from that era).

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Priyangini Mehta’s name is not unfamiliar to the readers of this blog. We have some common readers. Plus, she has edited all my recent stories. Her work on my stories has been so brilliant that today I feel extremely uncomfortable in putting up a new one without getting her final approval. She has also been the sole guest writer on this space - she wrote the review of Omkara (at the time when she was off blogs).

For those who have read her posts would know that she has an innate story telling capacity. Her four-part Suitor Sagas is a masterpiece in narration. So it was just a matter of time (and some push) that she would pen a story. I recall several comments on her previous blog where many readers had urged her to write fiction.

Finally now, that wait is over!

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A Story By Deepak Jeswal
Episode Seven

I was a bit perplexed to hear the nurse announce Vineeta’s name. I was not mentally prepared to meet her, mainly because I had suspected her to be the enemy whereas she had proven to be an ally. Yet, there was a curiosity to know how she had managed it. And where had I gone wrong in my judgment?

She entered the room with a strong whiff of perfume. Perhaps, Chanel, I thought as she would have informed, had we been in college. But today, I found her very different from the air-headed fool that I believed her to be. For one, she wore a salvar suit. Having seen her mostly in low-waist jeans, this was a marked change but for the better. The suit made her look even more attractive, and it fit wonderfully on her tall and lissome frame.


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A Story By Deepak Jeswal
Episode Six

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I was conscious of was that my head felt heavy. It was as if I were carrying a huge load within my skull. I could make out it was daytime. At first I felt I was home and Mom had forgotten to wake me up. But as I looked at the ceiling, I found it unfamiliar the fan that hung in my room was missing. My hand itched, and I saw that there was a bandage with a plastic wire entering it an intravenous contraption, leading from a half-empty glucose bottle hung on a thin wire stand nearby.

I spanned the unfamiliar room while agonizingly trying to get up on my elbows.

“Please lie down,” an unknown but sweet voice said. Through my half-opened eyes I saw a young girl in a starched white dress. With a subtle but firm push, she forced me down to the bed.

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A Story By Deepak Jeswal
Episode Five

The next day, Vishal and I finished with classes and took the early U-special back. Smita was still absent, and I hadn t called her up either.Despite the early hour, the bus was overcrowded; we got into it with difficulty, stepping on someone’s shoe here and on another’s toe there. After a dozen apologies and a couple of abuses, we managed to reach a relatively safe corner and lodged ourselves till Pusa Road, from where the bus began to empty itself.

I looked around for familiar faces there were only a few that I recognized.

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A Story By Deepak Jeswal
Episode Four

When I reached the canteen, Vishal was sitting with Shilpa and Sugandha, quite an unlikely pair to sit together. But with Vineeta now firmly ensconced in Ashish’s arms and Saina probably busy with one of her umpteenth beauty parlor appointments, I guess Sugandha had to latch on to some other life force to survive her measly existence.

Shilpa Saxena’s breezy beauty made her a natural choice to play the leading lady in many dramas. Fortunately, she had talent as well. Last year, I had seen her play Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello during the Annual Dramatics Society Festival. She did the part with such consummate finesse that it came as no surprise when she won an award for it. A few months later, she made a brief appearance as Queen Helen of Troy in Christopher Marlowe’s morality play Faustus, and with her peaches-and-cream complexion, she looked so ravishingly beautiful that the line ‘a face that launched a thousand ships’ seemed to be written especially for her.

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