No excuses. No explanations. Just a loss of enthu. (Yes I know. The horror!)

Some of you are still around to read this, one hopes. If you are, then yayy! If not, then I shall build and you shall come and we shall all drink and make merry.

Whee!

Have I ever mentioned that I totally and unconditionally adore Mel Brooks? There’s an episode of Mad About You where Paul and his cousin go to their Uncle Phil’s apartment to move a couch. (Grainy video. Bad sound. Totally worth watching!) Uncle Phil, the source of all Buchman family history, is played by the inimitable Mel Brooks. After the move, they discover a stack of old photos under the couch. Uncle Phil looks at a picture, and proclaims ‘Paulie on a pony!’ He then holds it up to his face and changes his mind and declares it is ‘France!’ Thrilled that the same picture can be multiple things, he moves it back and forth, announcing — Paulie on a pony! France! Paulie on a pony! France! Paulie on a pony! France! Romania! The last bit is when he moves the picture really far away. Priceless moment, it is.

Now for the photo. It had been raining all day. But when the sun announced that it wanted to set, the poor clouds were compelled to take a breather. They stayed gray and overcast, sulking. But we’re not done!, they whined. But the sun ignored them and shone through anyway. Too bad, it said, making it clear who was the boss. And just like that, the rain on my windowpane turned into little drops of molten gold, reflecting the last rays of the sun, as it vanished into the indigo blue of the horizon, on its way to embellish another window and intimidate another cloud.

There’s two things I love about this shot. One, that the sun is nowhere, except within the rain, which is a lovely bit of irony. And two, that the picture looks like a world of spiraling galaxies, mysterious planets and flaming meteors from afar, and yet, up close, imprisons the infinite sunshine within a few drops of rain.

Today, I have my own Paulie on a Pony! France! moment. Happiness comes.

Alright. Gather around peoples. It’s time to get on the soapbox.

Every time I see someone use the phrase running-around-trees to refer to current Bollywood song-and-dance routines, I get annoyed. Yes, Bollywood is escapist and unreal. But news flash. We do NOT run around trees. Not anymore. They stopped doing that, circa 1992. They’ve chopped up all the trees and replaced them with ostentatious sets that resemble space-age metropolises. (Or ostentatious red and gold, stained-glass sets if you go the Bhansali way.) Even the sarson ke khet loving Yash Chopra productions have retired their gaggle of giggly sahelis and instead prefer to feature hotties on the beaches of Sydney and Rio.

Now for those of you who don’t understand words, we have a simple illustrative example of song-and-dance routines in Bollywood, then and now. First Exhibit A, from 1970.

As you can see above, the 70s were a time when trees served many a purpose in Hindi films —

• To run around and sing songs.
• To hide behind and (presumably) kiss.
• To fill up background space when you didn’t have the budget to hire backup dancers. (Standard formula used — one banyan tree = 5.2 apsaraa girls.)
• For hero to hide behind, while chasing the villain with a gun containing a single bullet. (The hero being twice the width of the tree is of scant significance.)
• To sway menacingly to warn the audience of the storm (figurative and literal) that is soon to strike the hero-heroine. (A device used excessively in ghost stories just before villain puts buri nazar on heroine, kills her, and leaves her bhatakti aatmaa to torment audiences for rest of movie.)
• To topple over onto an obviously-fake miniature house to indicate a natural calamity of choice (earthquakes and floods being most popular) thus separating the hero and his family, only to have them be united in the end, after singing the ubiquitous family song. (For all of you who scoff at the idea — exactly how many of you have a pre-determined group song as part of your family contingency plan? Hah. I thought as much.)

Bottomline, trees were important in Hindi films and their importance in romance was no less. Without the tree, the hero had nowhere to trap the heroine so he could lean into her for a kiss. Without the tree, the heroine had nowhere to back into, before coyly giving in to the kiss. Without the tree, Jaya Bhaduri couldn’t annoyingly hide from Randhir Kapoor while singing main yahaan to his tum kahaan. Without the tree, Vyjayanthimala couldn’t hang off a branch, coyly swing her ghaghraa back and forth, and sing dil tadap tadap ke keh rahaa to Dilip Kumar. Well, you get the point. Trees — important.

Now we move on to Exhibit B. This is 2008. Notice. No trees. No nature. Just oodles of symbolism. Whoever said Hindi movies cannot be subtle?

So now you know. Movies of the 70s and 80s were more eco-friendly. And that is the convenient truth.

Q: What do you get if you make Rabindranath Tagore blush?
A: A Sharmila Tagore.

Damn, I kill myself sometimes. Pliss don’t kill me?

So the Lou-puddle has tagged us. It seems we have to go through our archives, find five recycle-worthy posts, and link to them. Yesh. You can barely contain your excitement, we can tell. As though once is not enough, we now have to pull wool over your eyes twice. Not that we mind fooling our readers again and again. All these past promises of posting regularly and then disappearing promptly should assure you that our intentions are always strictly dishonorable. But Puddle has declared my anniversary post a cop out! Sacré bleu! ^* The nerve! The cheek! The rest-of-human-body! His lame-ass recycling-old-posts idea is not a cop out. Naah. But my bootiful, 100% original, no-additives-added anniversary post, with a four-candle cake even. THAT is a cop out. Hah!

^* Notice how we have taken to nonchalantly throwing in French phrases to show off our Paris-returned-ness? Very blasé and subtil subtil we are. Oui oui.

Anyway, Puddle’s hypocrisy reminded us of this famous speech —

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.

Yes, like that only.

By the way, did we ever mention on this blog that we have a niece? Anyway, we do. She’s all of eight and a riot, a party and a hurricane all rolled into one. And naturally, she is the apple of our eye and the mango of our heart and what not. (I’ll pick whatever fruit and bodypart I want. My niece, my wish.) And she talks at the speed of two-hundred-thirty-four words a minute, give or take fifty. So yesterday, she calls. (Note: pinni is Telugu for mom’s younger sister.)

She: Happy Valentine’s Day, pinni!
Me: Thankoo, chutku!
She: Has anyone given you flowers yet?
Me: No, not yet.
She: Pah! All the boys you know are completely useless!

Yay. One more member of my family who passes mocking judgement on the men I know. Awesomeness only. Oh and apparently, they were selling flowers at her school, so she bought a rose for her mom and dad. Gave it to them after coming home with the declaration — I only will have to buy you flowers. You anyway don’t buy for each other. Pah. Happy Valentine’s day! Sigh. What a brat. And the family claims that she takes after me in personality. Which is suchhh an unfair thing to say. Nobody seems to value my wholesome tutti-fruiti goodness, these days. Something needs to be done about that.

And oh. We’re not doing the Puddle tag now. This was just a whine. Next post we do tag. Pakka. As some famous person once said —

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.
But my how we improve the score,
as we practice more and more.

Hee hee. Promises. Hee hee hee!

.. 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!

Hawww! Hee haw! Haw hee haw! Hee haw hee haw! Haw-hee-haw-hee-haw!

Wheeee! The laal-mojaas have brought another one home!

*dhinkichiki dhinkichiki dhin dhin dhin dhinchiki* Total CGCB also!

So the news around town, in an ironic instance of life imitating art, is that Chiru’s nineteen-year old daughter eloped and got married to her boyfriend of four years. Now, please note. Nineteen. Four years. Sigh. I feel like a grandmother. So anyhoo, this news should be of no consequence to anyone except the elopees and their distraught maa-baaps. But this is Chiru. In Andhra. So let us take a deep breath, let out an even deeper sigh, stick on a big honking red nose and jump right into the media circus that has ensued.

So the plan, apparently, went something like this (Do not try this at home without parental supervision) —

• Tell folks at home that one is visiting some aunt/grandma types.
• Meet up boyfriend at friendly neighborhood Arya Samaj mandir.
• Marry. Take pheraas at breakneck speed like tail was on fire.
• Take stock photos and videos with standard-issue pimply engineering college buddies in background.
• Give TV interview telling the parents to shove it.

Simple really. And now Chiru fans around the world are irate at the girl and her naya-navela dulha for besmirching (I love that word) the fair name of their beloved star. Never mind that this is a family matter. The whole world and their neighbor has jumped in anyway and chosen to be angry about it. The boy’s Orkut profile has scraps threatening him and his friends (in exhaustingly bad language), his parents have gone into hiding and the girl has requested police protection for her hubby. Exciting stuff indeed.

Now, admittedly Chiru is a bit of a God for his fans. But the whole ‘how can you do this to your own parents?’ seems rich, no? It could just as easily apply the other way around. Is it really that ridiculous for a kid to revolt against her dad, especially if he had her pulled out of college and placed under house arrest? All this cos the guy was of a different caste? The only part of this whole thing that bothers me is her age. Nineteen (while legal) is admittedly a bit wet behind the ears. But that one issue apart, I don’t get what the big hoo-haa is.

The official comment from the family is that the Megastar is too distraught to comment. But they add that he has brought his dotty up with utmost freedom (must have been before the house arrest?) and some bad boy has led her astray. Total WTF stuff wonly.

Of course, what is truly ridiculous, is the haircut she’s sporting at her own wedding. But nobody wants to talk about that. Tsk.

PJ from four years ago —

Q: What does a Bay Area software developer say when he fixes a bug?
A: Hasta la vista, bay bee!

Revised PJ from this morning —

Q: What does a Bay Area Microsoft developer say when he fixes a bug?
A: Hasta la Vista, bay bee!

Don’t you just love self-upgrading PJs? Hee haw! Total CT only. Cheap thrills, that is.