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.

• Hello, I am Bhuvaneshwar Chandra Shrivastava — When introducing yourself, don’t use your middle name. I understand that mommy named you with a great deal of love and daddy is very proud of his sonny boy, but the girl in question is not going to be impressed by the length of your name. In this case, size does matter. The prospect of talking to her might seem as formidable as a job interview, but it is not one. And if she is a prospective boss, you probably shouldn’t be hitting on her in the first place.

• Hello, I am a boy — No no no! NO! Don’t explicitly state that! Let it be apparent from your email. And if you have to state it, for the love of God, please do NOT refer to yourself as a boy. A guy maybe but not a boy. Boy is not macho. Bond didn’t set his martini down, turn to the drop-dead gorgeous babe next to him and say ‘Boy. I am a boy.‘ Yep, there was a darn good reason for that.

• I would like to make friendship with you — The most famous of all cringe-worthy sentences. Credit her with the sense to realize that you are not sending her an email to discuss the price of tomatoes. Unless she is a tomato-farming blogger, in which case that might be a good way to start a conversation. But I digress. The intent to know her more is already apparent in the sending of the email. You are writing to ‘get to know her’ not to ‘make friendship’ with her.

• Hello Swati, I would like to be friends — What is wrong with this one, you ask? Nothing, except that it was a mail sent to Megha. Yesh, I understand that the same email is being sent out to forty-six women. Higher probability of success, power in numbers and all that. But if you are going to do such a poor cut-paste job that you forget to change the name of your object of affection .. tsk tsk.

• What is your good name? — I remember my granddad telling me this was the polite way to ask a lady her name. Fair enough, but over the years it seems to have acquired a creep factor it did not have in dadaji times. Very lecherous A K Hangal types. Most disturbing. So pliss to skip.

• I’ll w8 4 ur reply — This one’s a bit unique. I personally don’t get too excited about the shorthand SMS way of speaking. It’s okay in SMSes but it bugs me in an email. But I know women use it as much as men, so perhaps this one might help you connect with the gal in question, provided she uses it too. And may God bless the union of such like-minded souls.

• Email me pleeeeeeeeeeez???? — Argh! Drop the desperation, it is most uncool. No I am not asking you not to be desperate. By all means be so. But please to not make it apparent to the girl in question! She will write back if she wants to. And if she doesn’t want to, I highly doubt she’s gonna say “I wouldn’t have ordinarily replied, but since you said please (with eleven Es and four question marks) I decided to make an exception in your case.”

• OK? Byeeeeee!!!!!! — This one I seriously don’t get, no matter which way I look at it. What is the guy trying to say with the OK? OK, I hope you understood that I am trying to hit on you? And what’s with the byeeeeee? Cheerful wave from a distance? Pretence of coolness? And the multiple exclamations are to indicate how excited he is to be writing the email? Gaaah!

Before we make ourselves scarce, a few words of wisdom. As some of you know, we take the advice of our guru Ajmeri Baba rather seriously. And he once told us that our USP is our special brand of mindless nonsense mixed with pseudo-seriousness. Pliss to notice the pseudo part. So keeping with tradition, this is yetanudder of the ‘have blog, will blab‘ type posts. In this case, one hopes that one has given her readers enough lines to read so they will not have to resort to reading between them. OK? Byeee!

But does love also mean never having to feel sorry?

Presumptions and generalizations are the very bane of communication, aren’t they? The more we assume about people, based on stereotypes, the less we give them a chance to be themselves. So much that eventually, the person you think you know is more a creation of your own conclusions rather than who they really are. A total waste of getting to know someone, methinks.

And so often anyway, it is the exceptions that prove the rule. So isn’t it best to just let a person be, discover them for who they are, the opinions they hold .. and be pleasantly surprised at how different from the so-called norm they are? Soon enough one realizes that there is no norm in the first place.

Reminds me of a line from a recent mail forward —

We always create images and perceptions about people and then try to make them prisoners of those images …

Something to think about, isn’t it?

It all began on Halloween 2003. During the usual trick or treat merriment, a bunch of kids came by — a dragon, a cowboy, a fairy and a bright green M&M. The hero of the story is the last kid in this bunch, a most remarkable seven-year old named Kyle. Here was a kid who clearly hated the concept of dressing up as anything other than himself and was making this displeasure most apparent with a scowl on his face akin to that of the mob-boss’s sidekick in a Hindi film. Now I’m pretty sure Kyle doesn’t watch Hindi films, but he’s got a good backup career if he ever needs one. But I digress.

While the other kids happily took candy by the bagfuls, Mr Green M&M sulked in the corner until his mom (the chaperone) shoved him to the front. The conversation went something like this —

Me: Hello, what’s your name?
He: *mumble mumble*
His mom (background): Tell the lady your name!
He: Kyle..
Me: Hello Kyle, what are you dressed up as? (Yes it was apparent, but I asked anyway)
He: Can’t you tell! *scowl*
Me: *chuckle* Okay, here’s your candy!
He: I don’t want any!
Me: Okay? You sure?
He: Yeah.. I don’t want any!
Me: Okie. Have fun trick or treating!
(exit M&M, fairy, cowboy, dragon and M&M’s mom)

Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. It’s my favorite kid in the world, again.

Me: Hello?
He: I changed my mind. I think I’ll take the candy..
Me: Sure! *dump a bunch of candy into his bag*
He: Thanks.. *gives me a moderately long ‘what’s-up-with-this-girl’ look*
He: You’re cute!
Me: Huh?
(Kyle scampers off)

Yes, rather interesting. Three days later, I run into Kyle on the street. He on his bike, me walking to my car.

(Kyle slows down his bike on seeing me)
He: Hey!
Me: *cheerily* Hi Kyle! How are ya!
He: Am cool..
Me: Having fun with your friends? (Yes, I’m not very creative in my conversations with seven-year olds)
He: Yeah.. *walks away a little and turns around again*
He: Hey, I think you’re cute. I’d ask you out, but you’re too old for me.
Me: *an expression on my face that is impossible to describe in words — a mix of shock, amusement and horror, mostly*
Me: Huh?
He: Yeah..
Me: Yeah? *putting on the best disappointed expression I could possibly muster* Don’t worry about it, I understand..

So that was that. Dumped even before I got asked out. Quite a heartbreaking episode. The emotional scars will surely remain. Anyhoo, so as you can imagine, with Kyle still living in the neighborhood, I was looking forward to Halloween this year. Surely enough he showed up last night, all of eight years old and dressed as a vampire no less. (a costume choice far more suited to his personality than the cute green M&M from last year, if you ask me).

Me: Hello Kyle! Happy Halloween!
He: Hi..
Me: Nice costume!
He: It’s cool eh?
Me: Yeah!
He: You’re cool too!
Me: Huh? Thanks! (*chuckle from last year returns*)
He: I wanted to ask you out, but I asked my mom and she said you’re too old for me.

It took all the strength in the world not to fall over and roll with laughter. Apparently Kyle went home and told mom — ‘maa, maine ladki pasand kar li hai‘ but she disapproved! *SOB* Two Halloweens, two heartbreaks, same guy! There is no justice in this world, I tell ya!

I think the article is well written in the two points of view it presents but flawed in attributing it to men and women specifically. The need for reassurance, that the person you love treasures and cherishes you, is fundamental to every one of us, men and women alike. Having said that, this need isn’t a constant one. Its more of an occasional desire that we like our partner to pander to. But after a while of not hearing it expressed, the question does come up - if he/she is feeling it, why won’t he/she say it? It is a happy and positive emotion after all (the emotion of loving someone, that is) so it is hard to understand why there is a hesitation to express it. That in turn gradually leads to doubts about the sincerity of the emotion itself.

Should that happen? Shouldn’t the basic faith in the other person and in the bond itself be strong enough for us to not be riddled with doubts? Why the need for external assurances, one might ask? I think that need comes ‘cos people and relationships are both essentially dynamic. What one feels today cannot be taken to exist tomorrow. In fact if I assumed a person’s love for me is the same today as it was yesterday, and took that to be a blanket fact without considering his actual expression of it, I am taking him for granted. I am doing an injustice to him by not seeing him for the ever-changing person he is. Not all relationships change quite as constantly. A mother-child relationship for instance, is different. Even without the continuous reassurances, it survives. But ‘romantic’ relationships (for lack of a better way to describe them) are inherently dynamic. Change is good, and people should change, no doubt. But it is these very changes in a person that make it imperative to express how we feel. The need to remind our partner that we may be changing, but our feelings remain as strong as ever.

Of course reassurance don’t have to come in the form of words alone. And that perhaps is the biggest difference between men and women. The implicit versus the explicit. The classic ‘why do I have to tell you I love you, isn’t it obvious in the little things I do?‘ question. If women can learn to read more into the subtle signals that men give to express how they feel, and men, in turn, try to express their affection in more explicit ways, perhaps a balance can be struck. Somewhere between questioning the sincerity of a man’s emotion ‘cos he doesn’t explicity express it, and on the other end, taking him for granted and assuming he loves you even if he doesn’t say so, lies an ideal middle ground that every woman hopes to reach. The Utopia of relationships!

The way we women describe the intimacy we want is remarkably consistent: It’s that sense of oneness between two people that flows from an open, meaningful exchange of thoughts, feelings and affection. It’s about each one entering the other’s private world, not merely for a short visit, but to unpack and take up residence. As women, we often see intimacy as something that includes physical displays of affection and time spent talking and listening to each other. But far more than that, intimacy is what gives women the feeling that they’re no longer just a ‘me’ but also part of an ‘us’. In fact, it’s what defines the shared life. It’s the whole bundle of visible and invisible ways her man assures her (and keeps reassuring her) that he is the one person on this planet who knows and cherishes her for who she is. When something that precious is missing, we notice it!

The challenge is that while men value intimacy as much as women do, they differ dramatically in their view of what it takes to achieve and maintain it. We tend to pursue a close, profound relationship in a way that can be described as an upward spiral. Men value a generous and continuous exchange of information, demonstrations of affection (especially nonsexual ones) and consistent efforts to look out for their best interests. When these are present, the relationship feels as if it is progressing to a higher level, not unlike a steady trek to the top of a mountain.

For men, intimacy is a prize to be gained by getting in the finish line in strict sequential order and with minimal repetition. The linear progression goes something like this: (1) Express your interest. (2) Date to build trust. (3) Make a commitment: You’ve got each other now. Once a man has moved to the next level of closeness, he finds no practical value in maintaining the traditions associated with the previous level. Men see intimacy as a settled fact, an achieved goal that implies they no longer need to do what they have already done to gain it. Repeating earlier expressions of intimacy (’Why are you asking me if I love you when I told you a long time ago that I do?‘) suggests to him that the two of you really haven’t made it to the finish line. It’s like having to repeat a year in school.

Add to this the reality that intimacy is a completely subjective feeling of closeness. For women it often means ‘Don’t stop our traditions of showing me/telling me/holding me/hearing me, because that’s what reassures me that you love me‘. For men it often means ‘Keep finding new ways to accommodate my practical needs/admire me/assist me/applaud me‘. Neither way is any more or less loving than the other; they are simply two different roads that lead to the same destination. But unless both the man and the woman are willing to travel each of those two roads some of the time, one or the other may fail to experience the closeness he or she desires.

Agree or disagree, it makes you think..