.. eeps .. err .. Hello! And Happy Birthday, Bloggy!

Yes yes, it is me. Today is the day this blog (well an almost-dead blog is still a blog, pliss) turns four and since one has never missed a birthday post before, one didn’t want to mess with tradition and all. (Mess with the habit of writing posts to keep the blog alive, sure, gladly so. But mess with tradition? Noooo! Never!)

Yes, I am guilty of all the terrible things you are about to accuse me of and fully deserve every squishy tomato and rotten egg that comes my way. But for now, I just want to say a big heartfelt THANK YOU to all of you who continue to stop by and check in on this blog despite its three-month silence. If you’re still wondering, yes, this blog is alive. (As is the blogger, thankooverrymuj). And the festivities too, shall return. Soon.

Now, eat some cake, give yourself a sugar-high and let us all resume the nonsense! Yay!

• A spotless white set. Megha in spotless white, sitting on a spotless white couch, holding a spotless white coffee cup filled with split-pea-soup, just one spotless white towel short of becoming Miss Chamko.
• This part of the program sponsored by Surf
• Good evening! It is lovely to be back. Though the show has a new look (it is finally visible) the flavor of ‘Mutter with Megha’, much like this soup, remains unchanged — monochromatic, bland and with the inevitable queasiness of eating too much plant-protein.

  So let me introduce our guest for today — his intellectual humor and ability to quote Neruda has the ladies swooning, but this legend of the industry is a dedicated father and especially loves to take his kids on long trans-Atlantic plane journeys. Belying his macho image, he is gentle and romantic. Oops, sorry. Wrong script. Um, say hello to .. *looks down at paper* .. Greatbong.

• Greatbong comes in through the spotless white wicker door and sits down as graciously as his suit will allow, while trying to appear all cool and award-winner-like. The spotless white couch behind him glows in the spotlight.
• This part of the program sponsored by Rin
• *with a gentle toss of her glowing hair and flowing dupatta, careful not to turn her split-pea-soup into spilt-pea-soup* How does it feel like to be Indiblogger of the year?
• *looking away SRK style at the ceiling and back at the camera with a shy smile* It feels good, Megha. After all at the end of the day it’s the opinion of the public that matters.
• *with a completely straight face* Dealing with any performance anxiety, are we?
• *SRK-style aaahhh* Maybe you should ask my wife! *smirk at the joke made and looking into the camera self-assuredly*
• This part of the program sponsored by 30 Plus
• *sighs sadly at the mess on the spotless white couch, where a joke just died* So, tell us. Is there pressure to write better?
• Yes definitely. You now have something to live up to. You are no longer the underdog. Not everyone is rooting for you any longer. Yes, *pauses for effect* I would be not entirely truthful if I said that there is no pressure. But as Sreesanth said, pressure and pain are my best friends. Especially after I have had a can of …err mutter.
• *sigh* Okay, time for a serious question ..
• Yess… you know me Megha… apun life ko zyara light leta hain… *looks to side*
• Stephen King advises writers to write to, or for, one person. Do you? And if so, who?
• Oh very simple. I write for myself. I write stuff which I would laugh at if someone else had written it. When I write serious stuff, I write stuff I would like to read but find no one has written it yet.
• So, do your readers ever determine what you write? Do their likes, dislikes and expectations ever influence what gets written in your posts?
• *SRK-ian glance at the camera* If you mean do readers influence the topics on which I post, then no — I write exactly what I feel I have to express. If I have nothing to say, I stay quiet. However if you mean whether readers have influenced the way I structure my arguments, then yes. Without being intellectually dishonest, I give a little more thought before writing something than I would have done maybe 2 years ago. That inherently is not a bad thing though. Sometimes when I look at my old posts I go — eeeks I said that!
• That almost sounds like the GreatBong is trying to be more politically correct of late. But we all know better than to believe that?
• *brows knitted* No not politically correct. Absolutely not. That is one thing I will never be. In fact ever since I started writing this blog I took a decision that I will say exactly what I want (an opportunity you rarely get in the real world of mice and men) — even if it is not often the most fashionable stance to take. But yes, the ceaseless process of feedback and debate has influenced the way I structure my points.
• But does this process of debate and feedback ever change your stand on an issue? I guess I’m asking — does it only make you a better debater, or more amenable to seeing another point of view, as well?
• *calm unemotional voice* Yes it has made me more open to opposing views and I believe that as a person I have become much more tolerant and patient than I was two years ago. I remember the first time on a Ganguly post, someone called me a moron I felt really hurt. Yes I was that immature. Now I can smile it off and even say, ‘Yes that guy really has a point!’ Not that I still do not lose my temper but I am working on it. *mutters inaudibly*
• *glad that he is taking the name of the show very seriously* Would you describe yourself as a person who doesn’t back down from an argument?
• A year ago, I would have said “yes” with a thundering boom. I will still say ‘yes’ but I have also learnt to recognize some arguments that have no resolution… Which does not mean I will not debate but I also know when it is fruitless dragging it on. More importantly I have learnt to understand that staying silent after some time in a debate is not a sign of defeat. I had a bit of a problem accepting that before!
• A more balanced, less-feisty GreatBong. Your fans will not like that, for sure?
• *pouting* Well we will just let my readers decide about my feisty-ness.
• Absolutely. At the end of the day, it is the opinion of the public that matters, as someone said a little while ago.
• Sahee… John janata janardhan.
• Tararam pam pam pam pam, indeed. Speaking of the public that mutters, um, I mean matters, your comments section has seen several ugly wars. Yet you keep it open and unmoderated. Why?
• Simple, Megha-ji. Without comments, RTDM becomes like first-day first-show of Mr Prime Minister. My comments and readers add a lot of value to the content here, like doing karva-chauth while doing group dance enhances quality of pati-dev’s life.. *looks to the side*
• *looks to the side wondering just what is so fascinating there* On a lighter note, lets talk about something you are famous for. Not that precious Indiblogger trophy you are holding and not your animal magnetism either. But humor. Do you think humor gets its due in the Indian blogosphere?
• I would think so. Otherwise where would yours truly be!
• So Paresh Rawal can hope to win the Best Actor award one day?
• Who cares about winning Best Actor, ma’am, when you go home to Swaroop Sampat? Winning, like many other things, depends on your POV.
• One hopes, for your sake, that Mrs Bong likes being compared to Ms Sampat.
• I hope, for my sake, she likes the fact that I want to go home to Ms Sampat.
• Speaking of Mrs Bong and Ms Sampat — with your frequency of writing, and the number of comments you get, where do you find the time for a life outside the blog?
• Simple. I do not have a life. Of course Mrs Bong is not pleased with that state of affairs but I deal with her like I deal with anonymous commenters: I pretend not to hear. Incidentally I always, before publishing, read out the post to her and religiously listen to her feedback.
• Okie. Now for the real stuff. An interview with the Greatbong and no Mithun questions? People must be wondering what the hell I’m smoking.
• Yes we all wondered what those clouds in your blog are for… now we know.
• *tells herself that he is supposed to be a funny blogger, put humor on the Indian blogging map and what not. Realizes that it is best to pretend to laugh at the funnies he attempts, and produces customary chuckle* So onto Mithun. What’s the worst Mithun movie of all time? And why, of course.
• The worst Mithun movie of all time is Citizen Kane because it did not have Mithun in it.
• Now that you are a fancypants-bigshot-blogger, is there going to be an official animal for this blog?
• No thank you ma’am… the only kind of animals that are kosher at RTDM are already “cut” and in “a meat” form.
• Heh heh. Now that sounds much more like a Greatbong sound-byte. It is unfortunate that it also marks the end of our interview. It was a pleasure having you on the show, Greatbong! May your blog doodho nahaao pooto phalo. (Translated: Take bath in milk and produce many fruity baby-blogs.)
• Thank you, Megha. It was fun to be here!
• And now, before we bid adieu, the customary gift hamper — Grandma’s not-so-secret recipe for split-pea-soup, a packet of Surf, and a photo of the fascinating spotless white wall on the side.

  Alright, that’s all for now folks! Be good and give peas a chance!

You could have hired some heavies to beat up innocent voters, no? No. Too much hard work, it seems. Did you at least try to surreptitiously hack into the poll and delete votes to tilt the result in my favor? Of course not. You had to go develop ethics and and a sense of propriety and wotnot. You big saint-with-halo-around-head, you. So then? I didn’t win. Are you proud of yourself now? Are ya? Are ya?

I had a good mind to classify you all into three flattering groups —

• Lazy bums. Cannot bring themselves to vote.
• Traitors. You know who you are and I don’t want to know who you are.
• Clueless. Cannot retrieve poll link from their spam folder in Gmail.

But my faith in you may be stirred, but is not shaken. You see, I came in second and third! Which, as any patriotic Indian watching the Olympics will tell you, counts. By golly, it does. My optimism (and not my denial, I’ll have you know) tells me, that the votes probably got split because people were overwhelmed by the blinding brilliance of the two designs but couldn’t pick both.

Plus, as I always say — true genius is often underappreciated, so my not being valued is simply an indication of my profound genius. And thus with a heavy heart I humbly accept the burden. Now I just need to find some bubbly to drown myself in.

Regular programming returns soon. Oh shuttup. Don’t snigger.

‘A walk in the clouds..’ got nominated for Best Design at the IndiBloggies this year. Yay! (Saying which she scurries off to fix all the nagging XHTML and CSS validation errors before people notice them.) It has now been established that this blog is the official bimbette of the desi blogosphere. People visit it for its looks, not for what it has to say. Tsk tsk.

Of course this nomination comes at a time when I am barely blogging, forget irregularly blogging. So perhaps there is some sense in the whole nominate-for-looks-and-not-for-content funda. Of course, they could have run this award thingamajig when I was at the peak of my blogging stardom (?), when I was signing autographs with one hand (!) and waving to the masses all diva-like with the other (?!). But noooo. They go do it *now*. Now, when I have very little to say, my readers have given up on me, and I have nothing to bribe them back with. Bah.

As a solace, a cool little thing has happened. blogchaat, another blog that I designed, also got nominated. (For design too! Bimbettes of the world unite!) So major cheap thrills at being up against myself! The multiple persona thingy seems to have finally paid off.

So please head over to the polling page, and stuff the ballots generously. I am supposed to do the gracious thing and ask you to vote for whoever you think is most deserving, but grace and I haven’t been on talking terms for years now. So vote for me. Me me me! Meghalomania. Did I mention me? (Polls close on the 20th of February.)

If I say that I’ll post more often in return for your vote, you’ll just laugh in my face. But honestly, you have my heartfelt gratitude for your continued faith. Whoever nominated me, I appreciate the thought and support very much. In the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it world of blogging, a gesture like that is a big deal. Thank you, in all seriousness. Now pliss vote.

Three years. Huh. Who’d have thunk?

Regular programming resumes next week.

A regular reader gently brought it to my notice that this is the first time that a whole month has gone by and I have not written anything. Big whoop, I said. Then another reader not-so-kindly pointed out that I am supposed to be a bunny rabbit, not a bear, so could I please stop hibernating? Oh, oops, I said, slowly starting to see the point. I guess I haven’t written. And I guess a blog is a blog only if the blogger actually blogs on it. So .. um .. er .. *gulp*

But to be fair, I *have* noticed. Every day I tell myself, that I shall snap out of this, write something spectacular and the darn block will be gone. Poof! Like that! Except for one minor matter. I can’t think of anything spectacular. Or non-spectacular even. Gah. I look around to see how people do it. Some write about things on their mind but I checked and there’s not much going on there. (Ah, the price of shallowness.) A silly verse about my inability to write might work. But that’s already been done. And there’s the kind that write pseudo-intellectual stuff using the season as a metaphor .. Oh wait, that was me. Never mind.

So anyway, I’ve decided to do something different and place my faith in my dear readers. (Yes, those handful of you who still read this blog.) - Pliss to suggest something to write about? Anything, anything at all. Ooh-aah-ing about music, cheesy movie reviews, ways to cause bodily harm to Mika Singh, ten things that annoy me, photoblogs with pretty fall pictures that I promised once upon a time, the importance of ichhadhari nagins in Hindi movies .. any earth-shattering issue of global importance that you think I ought to have an opinion on. You tell and I’ll write.

Here’s wishing you all a warm and wonderful new year. Now give me ideas.

So here’s the thing. I am not much of a ranter on my blog. In the one-hundred-thirty odd posts that I have on this blog, about four of them qualify as rants. But every time I rant, I don’t think it is necessary that I be subjected to the ‘Why did you react to them? You shouldn’t let them affect you so much’ response. I know it is well-intentioned and I agree that one shouldn’t get worked up over trivial things. I also understand that hate commenters do what they do because they believe that negative attention is better than no attention. What is also known as the Mika Singh school of public relations.

But the truth is, I am really not worked up. I rant, because ranting is fun. I am not deeply affected by the nasty comments people leave me. I’m far too shallow for that. I spent about five minutes of my life writing the previous post. Now perhaps, the vitriol in that post made you believe I was very angry? That my blood pressure shot up a couple of points cos someone asked me the color of my lingerie? If that is the impression you got, then it is a wrong one. I mock the people that annoy me, not out of anger, but for amusement. It is a cathartic experience, to say the least, so pliss to let me have my fun?

Also, my rant was not against comment SPAM, as has been mistakenly assumed. These are not comments with helpful suggestions on where I can buy sleeping pills and Viagra. (I do wonder though, why anyone would need both of those at the same time. But I digress.) These are not penis enlargement offers, nor are these comments selling me videos of zebra sex. (Don’t even ask.) These are actual people, with blogs of their own, who leave hate comments. So why don’t I link to them when I rant against them? That would be a very good question to ask, if you were to ask it. But I have an answer. (Of course I do. Nobody calls a question a good question, unless they have a ready answer to it. Duh!) The reasons are two — a) I am reacting to what these people say to me and not who they are b) I am not going to link to them and give them more traffic. So phooey.

You talk about technology on your blog, because YOU believe it is what you do best. Not because your reader Joe Mama believes so. (Joe Mama, son of Vasco Da Gama, who went to the drama, without a pajama .. No? None of you ever learnt that rhyme as a kid? Deprived childhood, tsk tsk.) You write what you write, because YOU would like your blog to be technology-centric. But I call my blog a personal blog. Not a humor blog or a movie blog or a PJ blog. Just a personal blog. I crack a silly joke. I get sentimental about a song. I get excited about a cheesy movie. And I get annoyed by a hate commenter. It is all me. And my annoyance, much like my silliness or my humor, rightfully belongs on my blog. My priority for my blog, if I were to ever come up with one — is to be myself and try to write decently. As long as that’s achieved, there’s no other priorities that I need to change.

You’ve read my ‘light-hearted’ posts for a while now, but have never commented. But this time, I wrote something you did not like, and you made an exception to your no-comment habit. You delurked and reacted. You also realized that your comment isn’t going to change what I write on my blog, but you still felt it necessary to say how you felt about it. You spoke up because you didn’t like what you read. Then why is it so hard to accept when I do the same thing? And on my own blog, at that?

There. The customary post for the week is done. Now I shall go back to my rabbit-hole where, staying in the spirit of the post, I shall watch the K C Bokadia classic Kab Tak Chup Rahoongi (1988), starring stud-boy-of-the-80s Aditya Pancholi and Amala. Sigh. Silence sometimes has such a terrible price to pay.

• I know how much you like to use the commentspace of my blog as your personal stage to demonstrate how very full of crap you are. But let me break your heart and tell you about that clever little thing called comment moderation. It exists in the general blogosphere, and it certainly exists on this blog. So you can leave me comments about what you think about my various body-parts and what you believe is a better function for them, but those comments won’t see the light of day. So boo hoo for you.
• If you have to ask a girl in the commentspace of her blog, about the color of her lingerie and whether she will have sex with you, there is a 137% chance that you will be be spending the rest of your life alone. Then again, you manage to question Darwinism with your existence, so it is only understandable that you try to shake the foundations of probability while you’re at it.
• When you want to tell me how pathetic you think I am, please get your basic grammar and spelling right. The purpose of insulting someone, is to insult them, not amuse them. If I am pointing at the screen, holding my tummy, and cackling, it would be reasonably fair to say that the purpose of your insult is lost. A recent example — Have anyonee ever told you that you sucks? Rod Stewart should perhaps compose a song about that.

Seeing as it is so easy to click away from a website that you don’t like, there are only two theories as to why people take the time to visit someone’s blog over and over, just to tell them how much they hate them — a) They were not spanked enough as a child b) They were spanked plenty as a child and have grown to crave it in their adulthood as well. Ooh, such a tough choice that.

The elderly Mallu man is me. The empty field, this blog. And the sad, wandering pasu (animal) is this tag from Dhammo. Not Dhammo himself, just the tag. (On a sidenote, I think I need to work on changing this ‘Have tag, think of Megha’ tendency of his.) But anyway, here we go. As if this blog doesn’t talk about me enough already, here’s more pointless information that you’ll never need —

• I am thinking about ..
  .. why I get suckered into doing tags like this.
  
• I said ..
  .. Hum bolega to bologe ke bolta hai.
  
• I want to ..
  .. do something earth-shattering like saving the world. And also keep my annoying cousins from sticking their nose into my life. And while I’m at it, read the complete works of Shakespeare. Yep, balance. Isn’t that what we all strive for?
  
• I wish ..
  .. no no. My to-be-son, Vish. I, Megha.
  
• I miss ..
  .. simpler times.
  
• I hear ..
  .. the sound of silence. And music. And birds. And voices in my head. And people’s thoughts. And conversations. Quite a cacophony, now that I think about it.
  
• I wonder ..
  .. I bandar. Yesh, I monkey. A clueless monkey at most times.
  
• I regret ..
  .. not marrying Abhishek Bachchan when I had the chance.
  
• I am ..
  .. I yam what I yam, and that’s all I yam. Popeye the Sailorman, ting ting!
  
• I dance ..
  .. the dhinkichiki!
  
• I sing ..
  .. ALL the time! Sample here.
  
• I cry ..
  .. buckets when I chop onions. And while watching Karan Johar movies. (If you believed the latter, you really shouldn’t be reading this blog.)
• I am not always ..
  .. insane.
  
• I make with my hands ..
  .. shadow puppets on train tunnel walls. A dog, a deer, a bird. You know more? Teach me, pliss.
  
• I write ..
  .. way more words than I should. Some here, on this blog. Some only in my mind.
  
• I confuse ..
  ..the hell out of people I talk to. And I confuse the meanings of similar sounding words. And the order of the alphabet. And my left with my right. And my home and cellphone numbers. And my TV and cable remotes. Yeah, I am easy to confuse.
  
• I need ..
  .. fawning fans who will do my bidding at the mere wave of my hand. Readers who think I am the next best thing after sliced bread. Crazed masses who worship the .. well, you get the drift.
  
• I should try ..
  .. flirting with my trolls. Maybe it’ll make them go away?
  
• I finish ..
  .. most things I start. Except when I don’t.
  

And now for some respectable souls who wouldn’t want to be caught indulging in such trivialities. Oh, if you don’t find yourself on this list, don’t feel left out. Please to treat my commentspace as your own home and use it generously!

• Falstaff - I think he’ll kill me for this, but his reaction alone should be worth the risk.
• Heh Heh - If Falsie doesn’t hurt me, he will. Probably kill me with a doodle, no less.
• Anurag - He is to me, what I am to Dhammo - a tag-bakra. A goat and a dog both.
• Sagnik - My only(?) Bong reader, so including him for diversity and all.
• Neha - My hone-waali samdhan. HAHK - Part Two, waiting to happen.
• Anantha - he’s being all pseud and all lately with fancy names, but he’s still apna aNTi.

Okie, that should be enough Raajammes. Now don’t go have a cow.

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.