Now that we’re done with the public flogging of all evil on this blog, it is time to get back to our usual merriment. So today, we’ll shift focus to a tender tale of love, romance, jealousy and murder. Er okay .. Maybe not that tender. And like the last one, this one too, is a bit long. Just a leeetle.

Long-time readers would have heard of my affair with Viktor and have also seen glimpses of my on-again off-again romance with Bhuvan. When both of these people made an appearance in my comments section recently, I got a flurry of questions about their identities. (Well, I didn’t actually get a flurry of questions, but that sounded like a good excuse to write this post, so there.) So here’s the scoop — The characters of Viktor and Bhuvan were created by me, in one crazed moment of weakness. But some innovative commenters came along and poured life and personality into them, giving them likes, dislikes, accents, attitudes and histories. This post is an attempt to piece the stories together.

Also, since this story has the quintessential Hindi movie theme of brothers-lost-in-childhood (a la Yaadon Ki Baarat) and mistaken romantic interests (a la Hum Kisise Kum Nahin), it only seemed right that the soundtrack for this story came from Nasir Hussain films with music by R D Burman. All hail the loRD!

Part One — Viktor

are hooo, goriya kahaan teraa des re
goriyaa kahaan teraa des
are hooo, tohe dekhoon to laage thes re
goriyaa kahaan teraa des~ Caravan (1971)

<Exit truck-driver, one laal-dupatta-ed heroine and a brigade of chamiyas going tee-hee-hee>

Viktor Sirivastov. Belarusian truck driver. Met him during my stint as a researcher in Minsk. So what if I was buried under a glacier and my only connection to civilization was the supply truck that arrived once every three months with sardines? Kya truck drivers insaan nahin hote? My red dupatta and the glacial cold. Fire and ice. Opposites attract and all that blah. Plus, how do you say no to a man who smells of fish?

Part Two — Bhuvan

<Enter hero in white-and-gold tights with a red heart sequinned on his chest, singing>

bachna ae haseenon lo main aa gaya
husn ka aashiq, husn ka dushman
apni adaa hai yaaron se judaa!~ Hum Kisise Kum Nahin (1977)

Bhuvaneshwar Chandra Shrivastava. Classmate from third grade. Reappeared in my life with the famous lines - ‘Hello, I am Bhuvaneshwar Chandra Shrivastava. I am a boy. I would like to make friendship with you.’

When Bhuvan wrote that email, I used that opportunity to cruelly mock him. Greatly saddened by my behavior, he posted a comment (in heavy-duty Hindi) lamenting about how it did not befit me to behave like that. He also spoke of how hard-hearted a person I was to allow his name to stand in the way of our making friendship. In addition there was a lot of mumbo-jumbo about memories of wheat fields and babbling brooks and waking up to the sound of cock-a-doodle-doo to drive the point home that he was a bhola-bhala gaaon ka chhora.

I was unmoved. He might be painting himself as an innocent boy now, but what most people didn’t know was that BCS had a past with me. One, that I had not yet forgotten.

<Striking pose, pointing accusatory finger at hero and singing>

bhoolega dil jis din tumhein
vo din zindagi ka aakhri din hoga
kya hua, tera vaada, vo kasam, vo iraada ..~ Hum Kisise Kum Nahin (1977)

A flashback of the stifled pain of my childhood came pouring out in rotating black and white circles. And so in response, I wrote —

<scene fading into sepia tones> .. Bahut saal pehle ki baat hai —

It was a fateful day in 3rd grade when we sat together in the same class, on the same bench. You may not remember me, but I remember you well. You leaned over and asked for my freshly-sharpened pencil. I said I couldn’t give it cos my daddy bought it for me. ‘Ye pencil mujhe dede, Meghaaa!’ you said, in your best Gabbar accent. I refused - ‘nahiiiiin’ much like the stoic Thakur. You wouldn’t relent. You demanded it saying - I am a boy! I refused. Boy or girl, NOBODY deserved my daddy’s pencil but me! In a fit of anger, you pulled my pigtail. And a moment from childhood was frozen in time.

<sepia tones shifting back to normal Eastmancolor>

Of course, it was inevitable in a story like this that BCS had to have been nursing feelings for me all these years. Bachpan ki mohobbat and all that. And so he did. A lifelong quest has come to an end, he wrote.

Scene at the village bus stop. A little girl with pigtails in mismatched rubber-bands looks out of the window of a slow moving State Transport bus. A little Boy running barefoot behind the bus on the dusty path, carrying his pet murga, Murughan, shouting ‘Meghaji! Meghaji!!’. He roes, gidgidaoes, but the world doesn’t listen to his *one*.

<Cute, pint-sized gaaon ka chhora, running behind bus, singing>

deewana mujhsa nahin is ambar ke neeche
aage hai kaatil mera aur main peeche peeche *pant pant*~ Teesri Manzil (1966)

Part Three — Happy times

mil gaya, humko saathi mil gaya
hum se gar koi jal gaya, ho ho, jalne de!~ Hum Kisise Kum Nahin (1977)

Many months passed. I remained unmoved by BCS’s feelings. The childhood scars were too deep. Plus Viktor may have looked all brawn with his shotgun and brusque talk, smelled like hell thanks to the company he kept, but underneath all those frozen sardines, was a gentle heart.

Me: Ohh, Viktorrrr! Hunnnny!
Viktor: Grunt?
Me: *blush* You make me feel so special ..
Viktor: Grunt.
Me: You are the one I’ve been waiting for!
Viktor: Aww, grunt.

Sigh. Such tenderness. And he took such good care of me. If ever a slimeball said anything nasty about me, he’d be ready with his swig of vodka and a shotgun. (In that order. Which led to some disastrous consequences. The elk and moose of the region will bear sombre testimony to this.) But all in all, life was good. But alas. Good times were soon to end.

Part Four — The end of Viktor

dil lenaa khel hai dildaar ka
bhoole se naam na lo pyaar ka
pyaar bhi rootha, yaar bhi jhootha
dekho mujhko dilwaalon
khaaya hai dhokha maine pyaar ka!~ Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai (1981)

Viktor tempted his own end. All through his drinking and driving I stood by him with unflinching devotion. At every moment of his trigger-happiness, I helped dig the necessary holes and shovel the needed dirt. (Do you have any clue how difficult it is to bury a moose?) And I silently played second-fiddle to his main violin of ichthyoidal fetishes. But then he did the unthinkable. He tried to gross me out. He came home one day with a new deodorant he’d bought. Stale Scales it was called. But if you dont like it I vill change it. How about that other one - ‘Spice of Lice’? he asked casually.

That was it. I couldn’t bear it anymore. This had to end. I had to do the deed. You’d give up ’stale scales’ for me, schnuckums? Really, poodles? Awww, I always knew you were a keeper! My cuddly-poo, I said. Needless to say, he promptly dropped dead. Poor Viktor, may his soul rest in pieces. I don’t blame him though. Tell me, which self-respecting supply-truck driver can survive ‘cuddly-poo’?

zamaane ne maare jawaan kaise kaise
zameen khaa gayi aasmaan kaise kaise ..~ Baharon Ke Sapne (1967)

I even wrote a li’l ditty to commemorate the moment —

Oh how the mighty rise, and how the mighty fall
But let this be a lesson, learnt by one and all -
Be sweet to us, and over you we will gush.
Gross us out, and we will kill you with mush.

Part Five — The dots connect

yaadon kii baaraat niklii hai aa dil ke dwaare
sapnon kii shehnaai biite dinon ko pukaare .. ~ Yaadon Ki Baarat (1973)

When Viktor died, they went through his personal effects. There were rumors of his being a Govinda resembling Russian spy who had a thing for Indian chamiyas. So naturally, the world was curious to know about the life he lived. A half-eaten piece of gum. A hip-flask with the letter M engraved upon it. And deep amongst his belongings, hidden inside a secret music box, they found a locket. On opening it (yeah it was the classic Hindi-film, flippy-open types) there were two photos. One of Viktor. And another of a man who looked just like Viktor. Huh? Confused? Yes, so were they. You see, Viktor had a twin! And no prizes for guessing who it was!

Part Six — The Return of Bhuvan

Bhuvan had watched the entire story silently. But when he learnt of the news of Viktor’s end, he could no longer remain so. All the milna-bichhadna songs he had been practicing since a kid, had just gone to waste. His slow-motion running was frozen mid-frame, Matrix style. All the kaandhe pe tils he was gonna compare and rejoice about had just been turned into Lonavla ka til chikki instead.

So he decided that it was time the world knew the story. Viktor Sirivastov was none other than Vikram Chandra Shrivastava. The brothers were separated in their childhood. Where? At the Kumbh mela of course, dummy. Have movies taught you nothing? Bhuvan narrated —

scene cut to kumbh mela in allahbad. daddy-srivastava, mommy-srivastava and two chutku-putku things taking dubkee in river. two evil-looking russians with big handlebar moustaches, moles on their cheeks (battleship potemkin style), and bad sadhu disguises survey the crowd through their binoculars.

“Praporshchik Ilya, have you found a kandidate”, says the kaptain.
“No komrade kaptain, it’s too krowded”
The kaptain hits Ilya on the head, nearly dislodging his fake beard, “Here, give it to me!”
The next scene is filmed through two circles cut out of paper placed on the camera lens to make it look like a binocular view. A little kid takes a dubkee and comes out of the water shaking his head. He picks his ear and is puzzled to find a sardine head in it. He flicks it away.

“There, that one!”

Ilya comes running along the river bank, fake beard bobbing, picks up the other kid by mistake, puts him in a gunny sack, and runs away. Mommy-srivastava turns around to find her little baby gone. She screams, “Naheen”.

Part Seven — A new beginning

The two men who had such a great impact on my life were connected all along? Strange are the ways of fate. So overwhelmed by the moment was I, that I couldn’t write a response to Bhuvan for days. But here, finally, is my reply —

o mere sonaa re sonaa re sonaa re
de doongii jaan judaa mat honaa re
maine tujhe zaraa der mein jaanaa
huaa qusoor khafaa mat honaa re~ Teesri Manzil (1966)

Priya Putku urf Bhuvan,

I was just bemoaning the loss of a current love when you stepped back into my life like a thandi hawa ka jhonka. I cannot tell you the kind of fireworks that are exploding in my heart on seeing your return to my world. (But if you are interested, they are the anaar bombs from Ajanta Fireworks Industries, 118, Ammankovilpatti North Street, Sivakasi - 17.) And now I find that the two men who have ever moved me (If we don’t count the bulldozer driver in the summer of 2002) were actually connected? God plays strange tricks on us.

Magar ye to meri ek chhoti si bhool ne saara gulshan jalaa diya types scene ho gaya. (Translated for rest of audience - I made one chhotu mistake and ended up starring in a Gulshan Kumar movie.) You didn’t pay attention to your brother for one fleeting moment and his life changed forever! Waise galti aapki bhi nahin hai. It was not really your fault either. That sardine in your ear was probably convulsing distractingly and dancing like Sandhya in a V Shantaram movie singing — man ki pyaas mere man se na nikli, aise tadpon main jaise jal bin machli. Alas, what could you do?

I have also finally understood the reason why you treated me and my pigtails, the way you did. Those sadhu-babas, their fake beards and their anmol moles caused you to be deprived of the brother you loved. Such emotional turmoil at such a young age coupled with an aversion for long hair led you to react agressively at the most unexpected of moments, I am sure. But alas, I did not know this. I knew not that, beneath the grimey untucked shirt and snot-covered half-pant was a kid who had seen so much at such a young age. And more importantly, that when he reached out with his grubby fingers and lunged towards my hair, he was only looking for solace. For support. And for spice of lice, as a fond memory of his then-not-so-long-lost brother.

But after all these years, I have finally understood you. And I have decided. We should not let Chutku’s death go to waste. This trikon of our life is a strange one, but I would like to believe that this was more than just God messing up his Geometry test.

The End

This is where the story stands today. Let us see where fate takes us next. As the story unfolds, you shall of course, be dutifully updated. But for now, we shall take a commercial break and step out for some samosas and lime-n-lemony Limca.

For all those who lament about a lack of a love life, this was a story in seven parts, meant to teach you how you can get a make-believe one through your blog. Or to live vicariously through mine, if you prefer. Back to reality now.

Brevity has never been the soul of our wit. Yes, soul-less wit, that’s us. Not to be confused with a wit-less soul. Okay, token silly wordplay over. So yes, this post is just a wee bit long. But, the time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things, and so it will have to be done. Oh and by the way — this is not for the weak-hearted, impressionable-of-age and bearing-of-child. Heh heh.

You’d think it is a foregone conclusion that the people who read this blog actually want to read this blog? Amazingly enough, no. Apparently, a lot of people who find me annoyingly cute and find my writing suicide-inspiring also read this blog. Yippee-de-doo! And no no. Not just read it and go back to infest the dungeons they inhabit. Nosiree. Instead they visit an ungodly twenty-three times a day, post comments full of pimply angst and dutifully check back every few minutes to see if I’ve kicked their asses nine ways to Nairobi. And you know how we hate to disappoint.

So yes, excruciating love and affection of certain peoples has been compelling them to pepper the blogosphere with sweet nothings about me and my blog, since a while now. My non-controversial, couldn’t hurt a fly if it tried blog. Damn, I can’t even say that with a straight face. Ah well. Some nasties are in posts written about me, some in comments on other people’s blogs and some via email. And of course, how can I leave out my most favorite kind? My dah’lings — my anonymous commenters. Yeah, wayyy too much loving, I tell you! So here you go. All the things you wanted to know but were afraid to ask. At least in public.

Me

• Q: Are you real or imaginary?
  A: I am complex.

• Q: Is Megha your real name?
  A: No. I am Pentakumari Pamulaparthi. I realized Megha was cooler, so I went with that instead. And before you ask, no I am not related to P V Narasimha Rao. Yep, that’s what the P in his name stands for.

• Q: Are you single?
  A: Viktorrr .. hunny bunny! This one’s for you!

• Q: Do you have a life other than your blog?
  A: Yes, multiples ones, in fact. A convenient side-effect of having multiple personalities.

• Q: Why are you so full of yourself?
  A: Aren’t you? How sad. I for one, find it a wonderful way to ignore everyone else who is full of themselves. In any case, would you rather be full of me, instead?

My writing

• Q: This blog is so annoyingly silly and pointless.
  A: Yeah, it is. So? Why does it bug you if I am frivolous? No seriously, please to tell me why, so I can hone my skills and annoy you some more. And more importantly, why is being frivolous such a bad thing? If you’ve never been frivolous, you should seriously consider trying it some time. Immensely therapeutic. And while you’re at it, you might want to remove that stick out of your ass too. Ah there. Much better, ain’t it? Pat pat. Nah, it was no big deal. Always willing to help.

  I think some people take themselves way too seriously. I, on the other hand, revel in my shallowness. I don’t claim to be profound. If you have those pretensions, pliss to write deep posts of your own and then drown yourself in them. Blub blub. But why do you expect them from me and then throw hissy fits when you don’t get them? If you’re in the mood for Chinese, why order a Gujarati thali, I say?

  Which comes to my other issue — who said writing pointless and silly posts was a trivial matter? Every one of the cretins who crib and whine about my writing — I’d like to see YOU write something that is silly, pointless and make at least one person in the world smile or laugh. No, seriously. Why is humor/wit/satire (yes we shall be so pompous as to believe we do some of that) given the red-headed step-sisterly treatment in general? Why is serious writing lauded and silly writing, considered less-than-equal? And who decided what was blog-worthy, in the first place? Who says Asha Parekh’s posterior or a cow’s dialect are not serious enough issues? Oh hush, you skeptics. I have a letter here from a very distraught Mr Asha Parekh, that will change your mind.

  I think it is tougher to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. Tugging at your heartstrings is much easier than tickling your funny-bone. But no, I am not so full of myself as to believe that I always make you laugh. But I love to write the nonsense that I do and if in doing so, I manage to bring a smile on your face every once in a while, I cannot really ask for much more, can I?

• Q: Why do you refer to yourself as ‘we’?
  A: There are a whole bunch of us. Seventeen at last count. Good one, Evil two, Psycho three, Sentimental four, Kooky five .. and so on. And all of us write this blog. Hence the we. Plus, we suffer from delusions of grandeur. We think we are royalty. We write our blog sitting on a velvet recliner, with grapes being dangled over our mouth. A delectable stud, wearing a strategically placed fig-leaf, fans us, while another of his hubba-hubba ilk, draws us a bath of goat’s milk and rose petals. In the background, our pet white tiger with a diamond-studded collar, yawns disinterestedly, while perched on his silk pillow. Is that enough of a visual for you? Now shoo.

• Q: Your blog is emetogenic. It makes me want to throw up. What should I do?
  A: Don’t visit it so often. And if you must, the brown paper bags are near the exit.

My commenters

• Q: I can’t believe you deleted the obnoxious comment I posted last week! What the heck?
  A: Really? After fifty-three deletions you still have trouble believing it? My my, quite the optimist, aren’t we? Gee, what can I possibly do to convince you, I wonder? Maybe this and this will help?

• Q: Why don’t I see any female commenters?
  A: You don’t? Hmm, it must be ‘cos all my female readers are higher beings so they have powers of invisibility that are beyond your comprehension. I alone can read their comments. Yep, that’s got to be it.

• Q: Why are your commenters only men?
  A: Aww, you have a problem with that? Why, I have just the solution for you! Here is how you can help change that. Aw, no biggie. You can thank me later by stopping by and commenting. Post-op of course.

My beguiling charms

• Q: People read your blog only because you are female.
  A: Oooh, thank you for your faith in the allure of my gender. As it turns out, my being a female precludes me from being capable of writing anything readable. People read my blog only for my feminine wiles and charms, *coy blush* and not for what I have to say. And sadly, silly me didn’t get the memo explaining these fine intricacies of the blogging world. Tch tch. What a waste. Apparently I could have written about how my dog ate pickled prunes and pooped and all of you would have come along and lapped it up willingly. Ugh.

  While that speaks very highly of my aforementioned wiles, *obvious eyelash flutter-flutter*, it is so deliciously insulting on so many levels, innit? One, it suggests that I am not capable of writing something that people actually want to read. Two, it suggests that my typical reader, as a habit, leaves their brain on the local train before visiting my blog. Three, it implies that all my readers read my blog only in the hope of getting into my pants. Aww, li’l old me? Really? *giggle giggle* Now I am as delusional as the next person, but not even I, with all my megalomania (and a homonymous website to boot), think that is possible.

  But let us for a moment, for entertainment sake, assume that to be true. So who do you think would have a problem with my commenters’ nefarious agendas, my insidious intentions and the coy song-and-dance routine we are jointly indulging in? Someone who has made it his or her life’s goal to be one of the aforementioned get-into-my-pants-ers, that’s who. Now for that kind person, I have a few words of wisdom — please do unto yourself what others would not do unto you. Enough said.

• Q: How many men do you flirt with simultaneously?
  A: I’ve never been much about numbers. It’s all about quality, not quantity.

• Q: Why not me? I am a man too, you know?
  A: Ah, you are? Your mama must be so proud!

• Q: Will you have a blog fling with me?
  A: Can I fling you from my blog?

• Q: Do you secretly hope to get sexual gratification from your blog?
  A: Wouldn’t be much of a secret if I told you, would it?

Ah, all done. See, I didn’t want to get diabetic all by myself, so this was just a way of returning some of the suggah. Yeah, I know. Sometimes I am so nice that I make myself nauseous too. But niceties apart, they say you haven’t really arrived until you’ve got someone thoroughly hot and bothered by your very existence. If I’ve managed to make people launch into random vitriolic bombast about a person they know nothing of and care even lesser about, then I MUST be doing something right, no? So yay for me!

Oh, and by the way — don’t forget to pick up that stick on your way out. Thanks much.

‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said the Spider to the Fly,
‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I’ve a many curious things to shew when you are there.’
‘Oh no, no,’ said the little Fly, ‘to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.’

Keyword searches have brought much amusement into my life. There is a lot to be said about the joy of luring unsuspecting strangers into your lair of madness. Imagine — a poor sod sitting in a faraway land chances upon an innocuous looking link with a wispy fluffy title — A walk in the clouds. Pretty daffodil fields full of sunshine and chirpy bluebirds fill his mind. He clicks eagerly and .. WHAM! Like Sunny Deol’s two-and-a-half kilo punch, disappointment knocks him unconscious and sucks him into a vortex of nonsense. Of course, by the time he recovers, it is too late. But as a memorial, here’s how some of those sad stories began. (And the narrator’s commentary.)

• Indian chamiya
  (Look ma, I’m a chamiya now! Aren’t you happy?)
  
• Goan chhole
  (Fusion cuisine, here I come!)
  
• Tomato pappu, Andhra-style tomato pickle
  (Mum would be proud. Er, mum, please to not read past this point.)
• Sizzling Bollywood babes
  (So much for daffodil fields and bluebirds, eh?)
• Sexy Bollywood navels
  (From the 80s to today, if there’s a bared tummy we have it here. Ooh, that should be my tagline.)
• Shilpa Shetty navel, Madhuri navel, Trisha navel
  (Navels are like opinions, everyone has one. Um, something like that.)
• Mallu porn, Bong porn, south Indian porn
  (No Gult porn though? Are we really such an unattractive race? Hmpfh.)
• Saree dropping aunties
  (Er .. dropping? Saree gira re, Bareilly ke bazaar mein.)
• Sarees in the rain
  (Yes, we are the one-stop shop for all things titillating. And sarees.)
• Megha in a transparent saree
  (Hello? No no no. NO! Heh. GreatBong and Amit Varma also show up in the resuts for this. Heh heh.)
• Devil worship
  (Damn, I knew that Black Magic 101 was gonna come back to haunt me.)
• Grown men who need their mommy
  (WTF?! Okay, that’s it. Anyone who calls me ‘mommy’ on this blog, will die a slow painful death.)
• Pictures of women on horses riding in the clouds
  (Chatur naars and ghodas, that’s what we are all about.)
• How to hang decorative Indian blankets
  (Helpful tip: One corner at a time.)
• Things to know about becoming a thief
  (Step one: Steal. Step two: Don’t get caught.)
• How do clouds manage to remain floating
  (Not how do they float, how do they sustain the float. Yes yes, very specific, we are.)
• Megha has lost the moon
  (Lost lost moon, open sky, flap flap arms. Lovely song, no?)
• A website where I can write my own name in neon lights
  (If there’s anyone whose name will be written in neon lights around here, it’ll be me! So there.)
• Kunti’s eye make up in the Mahabharata
  (Kajra re kajra re, tere kaare kaare naina ..)
• Draupadi’s saree
  (Only Vimal, only Vimal, only Vimal, Vimal! And we’re back to sarees, once again.)
• Kishan Kumar, Avinash Wadhawan
  (*bangs head on wall singing achha sila diya tune mere pyaar ka ..*)
• Chunkey Pandey, Aditya Pancholi
  (Nahiiiiiiiin! Keh do ke ye jhoot hai! )
• Ramsey Brothers
  (Oh the horror! Um, literally.)
• Megha and Deepak Parashar
  ( .. sitting in a tree? K I S S I N G? Ugh! There are people who hate me *so* much?)
• Jeetendra’s hair
  (Hmm. His hair but not his heir apparent? How strange.)
• Disco Shanti pictures
  (Singing Mithun style — I am a Disco Shanti! *pam pam para*)
• Ganguly in the rain
  (Hopefully looking for Rupa and not Saurav.)
• Mamta Kulkarni body paint photos
  (Er .. um .. aa ..)

And the top honors go to —

• Hemant Birje
  (Aaaaaaaaaaa~aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~aaaaaaaaaaaaa!)
• Ajmeri Baba
  (Aaj meri baba, kal teri baba. My blog finally has a purpose. Searches for Babaji lead people to me. I am truly blessed. Om hreem kleem M M Kreem yada yada.)
• Hasan Jahangir
  (Why on God’s green earth, WHY! Gah, let me just go die. Ooh, I made a rhyme there. Cool! Isliye marna cancel!)

For two years we have tried to figure out this blog’s USP. But today we had an epiphany. (Which is both ‘appy and funny. Heh.) There is indeed something that we uniquely offer here. One search that will lead you to this blog, and only this blog. This visual —

A C-grade Bollywood flick starring Chunkey Pandey. Random south-Indian chamiya dances to hawa hawa ae hawa croaked by Hasan Jahangir, while diligently baring her tummy. Chunkey watches, eating Goan chhole and getting chunkier. He distractedly stares at the wall. How do I hang that ethnic blanket?, he wonders. Frustrated at not finding an answer, he picks up the phone, howling — I need you, mommy! The scene fades.

Disturbing and scary thought, no? It’s a Ramsey Brothers movie, after all.

Some melodies are quite simply, magical. I pick one and go into raptures about it for hours, only to sigh at the futility of trying to imprison the intangible in words. I know I could never articulate how I feel, yet I hopelessly try. It touches my heart, I say, and then realize how facile and commonplace that sounds. How naive it is to try and quantify a feeling so sublime. But not quite ready to give up yet, I break it down into its elements — the voice, the words, the mood .. but I know there is something more, something I cannot see .. like a soft breeze that tosses them all together into a beautiful whirlwind. A silence within the sounds, that speaks to me. No one, but me.

I feel its presence around me always. Sometimes as it sweeps me up into a storm, leaving me breathless and gasping for more .. and at other times, as it slows down to softly set me back on the ground, before resuming its unstoppable happy little dance. And yet when I try to hold it and describe it, it plays hide-and-seek with me. Thumbs its nose at me playfully, as it hops and skips away, leaving me smiling to myself, wondering why I even tried. I gaze at it dreamily, as it gives words and form to emotions I always felt, but was never aware of. An unknown force writing new pages of my journal.

I hum the song, languidly caressing each note and reluctantly moving on to the next one .. but the notes tug at me, wanting me to touch them one more time .. and I find myself singing them over and over again. Till they becomes a part of me, permeating my smile, my hopes, my desires .. till I am one with them. Till I am complete.

Some melodies are like some people .. they come into your life, washing over your senses like the waves, while you carefully try to preserve the ocean you’ve just discovered, in the palm of your hand. You could spend a lifetime trying to put into words how they make you feel, but you know you never can.

And even while you try, you fall deeper and deeper in love. Such are the melodies of your heart.

hum bhii agar bachche hote
naam hamaaraa hota Babloo Dabloo
khaane ko milte laddoo
Aur duniyaa kehtii heppi burrrday too yooou!

Yay! This blog turns two years old today. When this moment arrived last year, I did a whole lot of fanfare, made cutesy balloons, and gushed and gooed about how excited I was. This year however, I am trying a more detached, yeah whatever type approach. All this blogging business is just an illusion. There is no use in being happy or sad about it, I shall say, with my best Zen Buddha expression firmly in place. The internal gram-flour-balls-combined-with-sugar-syrup shall, of course, explode. But outwardly, I shall attempt to remain poised and exhibit much grace.

(Of course, you all should proceed to ignore the elegant poise bit, focus on the internal mithai-explosions instead, and leave generous gobs of comments full of wild merrymaking. You know how much of a glutton I am about those.)

This birthday thing also means that this blog is entering, what is optimistically called — the terrible twos. And while I don’t know too much about kids and the bundles-of-joyhood that they are, I have been around my niece enough to know some basics. For instance, this is when a kiddo’s vocabulary grows from twenty to three-hundred words. So, if I start sounding all precocious and pseudo-intellectual types, you know why. Also, a ‘yes’ means ‘no’, a ‘no’ means ‘I wish you would instantly combust’, and hissy fits are considered standard operating procedure. Hee hee! You can see where I am going with this, can’t you? Ooh ooh .. one last thing! Did you know two-year-olds are not fully potty-trained? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, lots of crap, with very little control over it. Whee! *dhinkichiki dhinkichiki* Heh, let’s pretend I never said the bit about poise.

Looking forward to a fun year ahead with y’all. Ta!