The Vacation that wasn't

It all started with an inception.

The idea was simple. A vacation, My mother and me. Seemed uncomplicated, didn't overplan, went to the same place we always go. My aunt's house, in Hassan, the great Devegowda's home turf.

Everything seemed simple, we packed our bags, hurtled into a Volvo, just in the nick of time. It all seemed so perfect. Even the three hours of watching an intolerable Puneet Rajkumar movie, didn't spoil my spirit. I was looking out of the window, with a smile on my face thinking of the my relaxed days in the huge expanse of their garden,

"Too much dust not there, I hope, construction and all happening know", my mom remarked. "Aiyo, Garden only not there now. So sad!" (Transliterating)

Oh shit, they tore down their garden! One down! hmm.. but still, I could lay down in one of their rooms and write away the story that's been haunting me for one whole week, I thought. Ahh! Peace, here I come.

We reached Hassan in three hours straight. I started recollecting the shady past when we used to travel for more than four and a half hours in the damn jatka gaadi type buses.  An auto dropped us to the place that'd be my getaway this quarter. I put down my bags and ran into the loo. When I was doing my business, I heard the sound of approaching anklets. I remembered the scene from the movie Chandramukhi when the ghost/heroine walks wearing anklets and scares the shit out of people. (Oh you didn't get scared? Don't overact now.) I laughed at my stupidity as I lifted the mug and poured the water, when I heard ambiguous noises, like gagagoogoo and other unmentionables. Oh! It must be Chintu, I thought. My eighteen month nephew, who I had gloriously forgotten in all my excitement. I hadn't seen him in six months. I jumped up and opened the door.

Too bad I didn't know, when I opened that door, I closed one more. The door to my peace.

Gagagoogoo continued the whole next day, coupled with, "thop thop thop thop thop", which literally means soap. The kid plays with thop the whole day, and expects you to play thop-thop with him. To put it lightly, I went mad. I told my mom that we were leaving the next day. And here I am, typing away on my laptop, at HOME, when I was supposed to be relaxing in my aunt's lawn!

Kids! I hate them.

I always thought I could tolerate kids, atleast others' kids, since they'd leave eventually. But I was the guest here, so I did the right thing. You know there's a saying, "Fish and guests stink in three days", but here it was the opposite, one of our hosts, my nephew started stinking in one hour, soosoosoosoo, he shouted, as he poured away on the carpet. That was the breaking point. I made it clear to my mom, I couldn't tolerate it a minute longer and dragged her off to a movie.

I came back to my cousin proudly narrating a story of how Chintu bit the dog's ear. I needed a good night's sleep to get over it.

I woke up the next day, today, that is, to Chintu's bangs on my loo door. I was sleepwalking till then. I avoided thinking of the next five hours we were going to spend there. My mom and I decided to go for a walk, and obviously Chintu had to join,to prevent him from creating a mini ruckus. He went inside the room, and came back looking like Junior Rajinikanth. He wore his yellow tweety cap, and multicolored sunglasses, and I couldn't help but laugh. I imagined the walk to be another looming catastrophe what with Rowdy Rathore-in-the-making accompanying us, but he just baffled me. He walked without making one small sound. Poor thing, I thought I was too hard on him. I bought him a "thop" to make up for all my nastiness. He was happier than, I think, even Aishwarya Rai was when she won that Miss World title of hers. All for a small Vim Bar.

But that didn't change anything on the peace front. It was too little, too late. I couldn't read anything, leave alone write. Chintu won in the end. He had his vacation in his own home, at my cost. He even used me as a bed to have his afternoon nap. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. God knows when I'll take my next vacation..Orei Chintu, enduku!

Lesson to be learnt: Approaching anklets always mean impending horror. How many B-grade horror movies have you watched! Still, you don't seem to understand. I guess my story will teach you a lesson.

So the next time, you hear the chiming chal chal chal of anklets, run far far away. It may be a Mohini Bhootha, Worse! It may be your eighteen month old nephew!

PS: If my cousin reads this, I will be dead. Please pray for my safety

Bol Bachchan - A horrifically tragic movie

Do not watch this movie. Period.

I implore you, I plead you, I warn you. Hell, I beg you in the name of humanity.

Okay, if you say your brain is slowly degenerating due to which you'll ignore my warning and still you want to watch it, Please read this tragic story before you go ahead.


If you are planning to laugh your guts out while watching Bol Bachchan, please carry a good joke book, or download a jokes app into your phone and keep reading it without paying heed to the horror unfolding on screen. No, you wont?  I'm telling you the movie will only make you cringe, make you wanna tighten your fists so hard that a clot will form in your nerve which will travel to your temples and explode there, your ears will resound and cause a shrieking headache. It took  twelve hours and a nutritious meal to rid myself of this ordeal. I do not want anyone else to undergo the same. Survivor's guilt, I'm helping you.

And so here I am, I will revisit the horror only to help someone in need. I know there are many hopeful victims, with stars in their eyes, and a smile on their innocent faces as they turn the newspaper and think, "3 and a half stars?..Hmmm, let me book tickets". This is for all of you.

The farce* starts with Asin delivering a dialogue, and the in the next minute you get to know that she is an art director for some benaami movie, upon which you start thinking, "Why the fuck was an art director delivering a dialogue??" Let me tell you, please stop thinking at this moment. I didn't do it, and look where I am! Anyway, the farce* continues, it takes more than fifteen minutes to actually make a layman and an einstein both wonder if its going to be a tragedy or an emotional drama or an action farce, but not even in the dark corners of your mind does the word comedy loom, and lo!

So coming back to the point, Muslim brother-sister duo, Abhishek and Asin end up in Ranakpur, and due to some unfathomably ridiculous circumstances have to pretend that they are Hindu, and in a stroke of genius, TV actor Krishna who should take my sincere advice should give up (over) acting altogether, tells squirrel brained Ajay Devgan that Abhishek's name is Abhishek Bachchan, and hence, the title. By the way, the farce unfolds with a farcical title track which seems like all three actors are having seizures in sherwanis and are stuck at "Bol Bachchan bol bachchan bol bachchan...".

It continues, you lose track of the number of Judwaa bhais and moms and doodhwalas, that you almost miss the entry of Prachi Desai in some weird pajamas, but five minutes later, you realise that the only reason she is in the movie is to promote the same weird pajamas, and try to make it a fashion statement, as your next seat waali says, "Wow! Don't her pajamas look good". I don't think she has as much screen time, as much blog-time I have given her. So, lets keep her aside.

The villain is a bloody fool, trying to kidnap Devgan's sis Prachi for no apparent reason. He can kill her at any goddamn time, for all we care. But no, he has to call up Ajay and inform him like a good bollywood villain always does and speed off in a new volvo bus. But behold, Ajay and Abhishek overtake him in a jiffy, take a U-turn and miraculously an engineering marvel in the form of a triangular nameplate appears, which is angled exactly to cause the jeep to slide in a trajectory that hits the glass of the bus, not high so that the jeep flies off never to be seen, not too low that it crunches below the bus wheels, but exactly at the centre of the glass. My god! If only the engineer had studied his heights and dimensions chapter properly, he wouldn't have to be assisting such shit movies.

All I can say is, Poor movie hall. I mean to play this movie, over and over again. Its just not fair, which in Ajay's world mean "Kaala". The movie hall would, if the movie hall could, shrink itself into oblivion like a black hole, and spew out this movie instead of absorbing it, with such force that it would travel miles and miles faster than the speed of light in the underground web of gutters and bathroom pipes and flush out with the greatest speed ever from the smelly confines of Rohit Shetty's potty, at the exact moment during which he crouches on it. And using the same physics of the jeep-bus collision, he is also propelled into Mars or any other speck on the universe that supports absolutely NO movie making infrastructure. Dude Rohit, just get lost. First Golmaal 1,2, 3 and now this? Die, Man, DIE!!

I have left out major horrendous details like the way Ajay Devgan says, "A brother in need is a sister indeed" and a gay Abhishek saying "Nadhindhinna". That Nadhindina, it still makes me shudder. Its for your own good, trust me. You want the details??!! You can't handle the details!

Mere Pitaji kaha kehte hai, "Don't desire something you haven't earned". I didn't listen to him and jumped like a jackass when I got free tickets to watch this movie. Now, I can't go back and erase the past, can I?

But as Abhishek Bachchan puts it, which may have been added as an afterthought for making this lame excuse of a movie, "Galti ki nahi jaati hai, but ho jaati hai!"

PS: It seems like Rohit wants the phrase "Bol Bachchan" to become a hot phrase. He keeps shoving it in our faces. Rohit, do you say "Inki Pinky Ponky, father had a donkey??" No?? Then even we won't say Bol Bachchan kardiya, its more embarrassing.

*FARCE= MOVIE