TV Tales

I am not a TV person. I can live without watching any TV for weeks. When I say TV, I actually mean TV series, reality/talk shows or even TV news. The only TV I watch is when I have to catch a film (even that is quite a painful indulgence with all these hour long commercial breaks!!). And well, I wasn't entirely truthful when I said I don't watch TV series - I still watch Sex and the City and Friends every time. This, in spite of owning all seasons of both of them on DVD! Anyway, since I mostly watch movie channels, it was interesting to see that many of the movie channels have started showing subtitles for the past 2-3 months. I found it interesting, but soon realized that there was one hell of an editing going on in these subtitles. So every time someone says fuck or shit in the movie, it conveniently becomes darn or crap (depending on the context) in the subtitle. Ass becomes behind (for god's sake, behind?!!?) and words like sex, gay or lesbian completely disappear. What's the rationale here - we can hear these words but can't read them? What exactly are these people trying to do? Oh wait, I already know the answer - preserve Indian culture, right?

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Recently I have discovered that 9X channel shows old-ish (mostly 60's through 80's) Hindi film songs from 10.30 PM to midnight almost everyday. The program is cheesily titled Chandni Raatein but I can live with that. The songs are such a welcome change from the repetitive songs/visuals of new releases every other channel seems to be airing all the time. The good thing about these songs is they bring back memories from the past especially when my sister and I watch them together. Like songs from Aa Gale Lag Ja remind us of how Sharmila Tagore saved Shashi Kapoor's life by providing him body heat and got herself pregnant in the process :). Baton Baton Mein is a reminder of how I so liked Tina Munim's dresses in the film and had sketched her red and white stripes dress for our tailor to copy it. Then there are some songs that remind me of hostel days - aajkal paaon zameen par and pal pal dil ke paas used to be the favorite of those who had just fallen in love whereas karvatein badalte rahe and tumhein yaad karte karte were of those longing for their love...

Image courtesy: http://www.countrysidecodewales.org.uk/

A Misty Morning at the Boot House

I remember reading about the Boot House in Bombay in the popular children's magazine Paraag many years ago when I was a school-girl. I secretly imagined posing for a photo on the balcony of the house :). Somehow I never visited Bombay as a kid and gradually the Boot House faded from the memory. But last Saturday morning, just a day before I was to head back to Bangalore, I happened to mention this to my brother-in-law about it while having our morning tea. And he suggested that we all could go there right then as Boot House was located in Kamla Nehru Park (earlier called Hanging Gardens, I think), which was a short drive away. So all 3-and-a-half of us left within 5 minutes, still sleepy-eyed but fairly excited on that rain soaked morning.

It was a mixed feeling on finally seeing the Boot House - it did not look as big and imposing as in my imagination but a rather small, cute-looking one. The entry to the house were sealed so there was no question of going to the balcony :(. But the park on the whole was neatly maintained and offered a very good view of the Chowpatty beach and part of the Marine Drive. The two hours or so that we spent there were definitely more than worth the effort :)

Empty ..

Suddenly the house seems big and empty. Everything is so quiet that I can even hear myself think. I had got so used to having my parents around for the past few months. But they had to suddenly leave for Ranchi 2 days ago on hearing the news that their house there had been burgled.

Even watching the IPL match between Bangalore and Hyderabad (which Bangalore actually won after a nail-biting finish) without them was not as much fun ...

Eons ago - in Kashmir

Found this old photo - taken more than 25 years ago. This one has me with my Mom and sisters (with the snow-peaked Himalayas in the backdground) during our family holiday in Kashmir. This place was somewhere between Srinagar & Gulmarg. Surprisingly, I have a lot of memories of this road trip, which by far remains the longest one I have made till date. I would love to go back to Kashmir and see how similar (or different) it is from what I remember of it ..

P.S.: I am the one sitting on rock - 2nd from left

Me & the Petronas

I had forgotten about many of my old photographs after yahoo photos had closed some time ago. Only recently most of them got moved to Flickr and there I found this one taken in 2003 during my 2-day stop-over in KL on my way back from San Francisco. I headed to Petronas soon after checking in at the hotel.

After clicking many pictures of Petronas I thought of getting one of mine taken with the towers too. I saw a European-looking friendly couple and approached the guy for clicking my snap. To my surprise, he dropped to the ground and lied flat on his back with my camera. Once he had the towers covered, he asked me to step in the frame. When I previewed the picture, I really liked the angle. After thanking him, I asked what he did for living. He casually told me that he was a photographer for Discovery Channel.

I just got lucky, eh? :)

Family, Movies, Books etc..

I was feeling quite low due to my sickness that has forced me to stay home for the past two days. So thought of writing something that has a high feel-good factor to cheer me up. Could not think of anything better than memories from my growing up years to make me feel better. I can think of at least three things that definitely run in our family (for three generations, if not more) - 1. we all love films 2. we all (with minor exceptions) love reading and 3. we all (and no exceptions this time) are people of strong likes and dislikes.

My grandfather used to take my Dad and my Uncle (when they were kids) to watch every movie first day, first show. If they missed to make it to the first show due to some unavoidable reason, it was more or less like a mourning in the household. When we were kids, it was our fortnightly routine to cram into our poor old ambassador (2 adults + 5 kids + 2 or more cousins, oh my God!!) and go for a movie on Sundays. I don't think we would have missed watching any movie that was released from late 70s to mid 80s. It was only during late 80s when VCRs became more popular and movie theatres were considered a place where shareef log don't go that this routine came to an end. Thank God things have now changed. So even now, no family gatherings are considered to be complete without watching at least 2 movies in as many weeks :)

The habit of reading also comes from my grandfather. He was not just an avid reader but also a regular contributor in a magazine called Dharmyug. Long after his death, during one of my summer vacations (I think I was in 8th/9th std), I chanced upon some of his books - complete collections of Oscar Wilde, William Wordsworth, Maithilisharan Gupt & Dinkar. What a treasure it was!! My Dad's reading mostly included classics and management books. I remember having read books like 'Born to Win' and 'Don't say yes when you want to say no' when I was in my early teens :). My Mom mostly reads Grihshobha/Manorama and lately some religious books. When we were kids, our parents used to give each of us short-story collections of Premchand as birthday gifts .. until they exhausted all of them that were published! In our generation, I can read just about anything if I have started it (that has its own disadvantages, trust me), my younger sister is more into romantic novels, my elder sisters are currently reading only children's books (thanks to their kids) and my brother reads nothing but comics & an occasional Car & Auto or Computer Today kind of magazines. And we all (parents included) are die-hard fans of comics. We still drool over Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Garth, Lt Carry Grant and the best of all - Amar Chitra Katha!


Regarding us all being people of strong likes and dislikes .. I would rather not go into details for my own good. I don't know which of my family members might be reading this :)

(Phantom photo: http://www.germworks.net/)