They Say....

‘They’ have said many things, everyone always quote them, but still no one still ever knows who ‘they’ are. In my search for ‘They’, the quest probably boils down to parents, grandparents, priests, mentors, bosses, relatives, politicians and psychologists, in other words everyone!
It’s really quite impossible to find them really… But They do have happened to SAY a lot of things…

‘They’ were the same bastards who circulated some Armageddon literature many years ago and it scared the living shit out of me as a kid. ‘They’ had adapted the Revelations Chapter literally and had given it a modern twist and left the leaflets in everyone’s letterbox in our neighbourhood. So it fell into my innocent naïve hands, in it was described an Armageddon so horrible so dreadful , it would make a Roland Emmerich movie seem like Singin In The Rain and now the part which angers me still after all these years , is that everyone else around me believed it and made me believe it too. Everyone was talking about it in those days, at all the dinner parties …’They said there is going to be…..’

Although I can’t remember much of it, the parts I do remember was something about the six hour earthquake along with 8 days of darkness, in which the sun would be blacked out completely, and then came my now favourite part – only the candles blessed at The Easter Vigil could remain alight absolutely nothing else will light as if controlled by some divine source. This resulted in my mother collecting candles by the boxful every year at Easter. “Forget The Eggs, get more candles”… so much so that I thought that if we ever had any chance of surviving the Armageddon, we would be millionaires by the time it was over, if started selling our stock during those dark times.

‘They’ have said “Death comes in threes…” or “Airplane Crashes happen in threes…”
So ‘Their’ point is God is up there , bored now that the world is complete and has nothing else to do except answer a few prayers here and there and has got himself addicted to playing– Trios version1000005.3 and is competing with the other gods through their Holy Spirit network, going… 1Frank….2Elizabeth….3Joe, yeahaa !

Air France Boeing 707… British Airways Boeing 714…John Denver’s Cessna… shit! … Retry…EasyJet… yes!

People tend to believe that Death comes in threes… so strongly that they almost make it happen. Especially after the second one…then there always is a lot of tension in the air…Who’s Next ?…who’s next ? Then once the third person is dead, everyone is glad it wasn’t them or it was someone for whom they didn’t care for much anyway and their life resumes back to normal.
But what if there’s a fourth soon after? Then they say ‘ Aaah .. he doesn’t fit in?... He probably belongs to someone else’s trio. Let them start counting now…


‘They’ say “Don’t Clip your Nails at Night because it will bring out the demons from the dark”.
Another one of dreadful sayings from my childhood, which however I was quite curious to get to the bottom off . So one fateful night when I was about seven, I waited till it was about 9pm, and slowly slid away to the bathroom while no one was watching …nail clippers in hand…I reached the bathroom, bolted the door, pushed the mop handle through the door handles… and prepared myself for the demon attack...with the toilet brush kept next to me and my grandmothers rosary around my neck. I then took out the nail clippers, wiped the sweat off my forehead, you got to know I was scared of what I might unleash in the world with the power of the nail clipper and the intensity of the full moon that night, I felt a bit like Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead, except I had a nail clipper as My Gateway to the other side. So, I slowly placed it to the forefinger of my left hand…my ears were cocked like a Doberman on guard duty… I had one eye looking at my forefinger…the other at the window…
and then I did it….c…l…i…c…k…! I looked around…sniffed the air a bit (you never know)…Nothing! So I then had the courage to try another finger… still no sign of the Gateway opening up…. I continued finger by finger till my entire left hand was done. Maybe I am not doing it right…maybe I need to try something a bit more drastic…!
…So then I decided to try a toe… preferably my big toe…that ought to cause some sort of uproar in the Spirit world. I mean the big…hard…thick…flaky toe nail, which would take me about four seconds to cut through is enough to piss off at least a small time gargoyle or something if not Satan himself…
So I placed the shiny silver nail clipper on the toe… C…r…a…c…t…C…r…a…c…k…....allowed it this time to fall to the floor…
When suddenly I heard a ‘BANG’… ‘BANG’… ‘BANG’… on the door, the door was vibrating with each ferocious thud, the mop handle slipping slowly through the door handles…my heart started beating faster than Clarice Starling’s in the end of Silence Of The Lambs …then a loud shrill voice called out my name as if it was coming from the depths of hell itself …
‘I…A…N…! … ARE YOU DONE YET I REALLY NEED TO PEE…!

They say ‘Never Cross over anyone else while they’re sleeping, otherwise they will stop growing, so once you cross, cross back quickly, before the ‘evil eye’ notices…’.
One afternoon during the school summer holidays while everyone was having their siesta, I decided to go and watch some TV instead of just lazing around in bed. So I woke up quietly, and slowly tip toed across the bed, I swung my leg across my younger sister and was about to bring it down on the other side, when I just happened to look at my mother who was resting nearby, only to find my mother wide awake, her eyes opened wide with horror to what I was about to do. There lay her youngest sibling who was now to remain at 3ft 2” for the rest of her life and because I had done what ‘they’ had said not to do. On seeing that look, the ‘they’ saying played again in my head…and I too realised the consequences of what I had done, I was going to have a midget sister all because of that fateful step. I quickly pulled my leg back whilst it was still in mid air back. Then I began wondering about the technicalities of the saying and wondering whether my sister was now exempted out of it or no.

Things like:
· Does a Mid Air Leg swing count as one complete two way crossing or just a one way swing?
· Do I have to cross completely and THEN cross back?
· If Yes, then how fast should the cross back be, immediate…in a minute or two…or after an hour (maybe I can get myself a sandwich and an ice cream)… considering my sister was still asleep.

I decided there was just one solution – Make it a Best of Three, and make it quick, so I would loose count and so would the evil eye. A bit like the exercise football players do… So I got into position, left leg in midair and went 1-2…3-4…5-6…Ha ha ! I laughed to myself – Take that evil eye!
Next thing I knew was my mother’s hand grabbing me by my ear… ‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? Have you no sense, no love for your sister, crossing over so many times? Do it one more time properly and get back to sleep…

Pirates Of the Caribbean 2, Boo-Hoo!

From the moment I heard the Tag line - 'Captain Jack Is Back' and saw the teaser trailer online months ago, I was hooked...dying in anticipation for the movie to hit the cinemas... like most of the world and Da Vinci Code...

The reason being the first one - The Curse of the Black Pearl was just magnificent... it brought the Pirates and wooden galleons back into Hollywood with a style of its own.
Johnny Depp was perfect! as the Keith Richards/Hippie/Swashbuckling Captain Jack Sparrow , Orlando Bloom should have been killed in Troy instead of going to the Caribbean and Keira Knightley actually managed to show some cleavage!
All in all , the first one had it all , a fun story line, pirates , a treasure hunt, sea battles , duels, ghosts, a fantastic score, epic production and great comedy moments ... everything you need for the perfect Summer Popcorn Entertainer....
Merchandise was sold , Kids finally forgot about their light sabres, donned eye patches , hoisted up their Jolly Rogers , duelled each other with wooden sticks , dug up their gardens to find lost treasure and the world was a happier place....

Then...
As always they decide to make a SEQUEL...
And as always it had to be of the bigger scale than the first, which is fine and all ...but then it comes down to s...t..r..e..c..h..i..n...g the storyline and that is where MOST sequels fail to deliver... It has been proved before i.e The Matrix, Transporter 2 , XXX2, Back to the Future2...the list goes on...

And So Unfortunately Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest falls in that category...
The first movie had so much fun introducing each character , that this time they had to just drag along the character's traits longer and harder to a point where it becomes a situation like a person telling you the same joke over and over again...
As for the script .... it seemed as if they just gathered together all the infamous sea-faring stories they could find and mixed it all together... some of the ones being - Treasure Island , The Flying Dutchman and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.. and wrote the characters into it...
Make no mistake though... the production is as epic as ever ! , the visual effects ... brillant, the locations the sets ... magnificent...!
Its just the story which doesnt quite fit the bill and feels quite 'Forced' ...as it probably was...

So although, I will Still Go out and see Part 3 when it comes out next year just to see how it all ends...
I was really really really disappointed that this one turned out to be such a wet blanket than it actually promised to be...

BANDRA (2) : WHAT IS,WHAT IF AND WHAT WILL NEVER BE

This is the ‘Bandra Boy from dere only’ back once again to embarrass Bandra and make you giggle. This time it may seem to get a bit personal so certain buggers may get boisterous about certain mentioned tings especially that ‘boy from dere whose brother is that guy who hangs around dat place with those guys who know those other guys who were involved in dat incident many years ago’ and boys will come to hit (you know who no...!! Hmm.. so just keep it quiet).

The following is just stuff I overheard while I was passing tru’..
Most of it is the troot...

• ‘You know Agnelo is finally getting married after all these years ... any sense what to get married at 49...anyway I heard the girl is from Ranwar, she is 43...
(When Agnelo’s neighbours found out about his proposal)

• ‘See him how he is showing off here drinking and laughing and all and dat side he bleddy sucked those people dry for the property money and you know his wife is NOT even East Indian’
(Grouchy aunties gossiping at the wedding reception at Crystal Springs)

• Hello ... aah...hello...haah ....Dominic just check how many tomatoes are there , because I am in the bazaar now... calling from the mobile so tell me and accordingly I can buy....
-Oh, there are...okay ............
How many sour limes are there...okay....
Do you want me to make sorpotael tomorrow ... then I can buy the pork ...
-Okay okay I will buy ... arre.... just see how much vinegar is theremen...and chillies...okay...
(A housewife with a cellular phone...)

• ‘Ayye , you saw the way Craig whuchkaoed the ball in the penalty... zooop... towards the right of the goalie what , what a way man .... you dint see wat .... arre what a way ....shaaah.... what a way ....!!’
(Rink Hockey Tournament Semi Finals at the Bandra Gym)

• ‘Yoric, dat one bugger is trying to patao my chick Jennifer men , cun fast lets wafrao him outside’
(In one of the many discos in Bandra)

• Savio ... you want da bucks for the quarter now , or I will make the mandoli with Melroy later...?
(Outside Pinky Wines...)

• ‘Pour men Cyril, open it fast, go behind the wall and make the aali jaali in the Pepsi bottle before the cops come’
(Later at Carter Road...)

• You should hav’ seen it man, first dis guy and myself pushed him men, then Yoric gave ‘im one zupti on the face and he was already fully tuun men so he was giving futaye gaalis men so then I gave ‘im one hard rapti men, arre then ‘is friend came from back and started bhajaoing me men, zaat zaat he was hitting on the back , so then even I lost it and gave him also one zwhaat in the stomach and he also fell down’
(One party pack down ... Michael explains his account ‘outside the disco’ to Francis)

Have you ever wondered ‘What If’ Bandra became as contemporary as the rest of the modern world, how would the people be talking then ...?

• (If Gay marriages were legalised ....)
‘ Aye , I heard Charlotte’s son Neil is getting married men, the boy is from Orlem'.

• (If the spinster aunties got broadband...)
-yvette_angelic62 says : Good Morning Maria,how come you are online so early ?

-sweet_maria48 says : I was just looking at the pictures of Lorraine’s picnic on the website

-sweet_maria48 says : That Lorraine’s daughter is quite pretty, I think she will join the airlines...

-yvette_angelic62 says : Yaa, I know, I have seen her daughter hanging around with those boys from the village.

-sweet_maria48 says : Which boys men?

-yvette_angelic62 says : That Ralph and all , with the long hair andall , they are everytime smoking and all , I think they are smoking the drugs on the promenade.

-sweet_maria48 says : Very bad, very bad , anyway :-) email me your recipe for the mince rolls no...

-yvette_angelic62 says : Brb, curry’s on the fire...

annie_prayforusstanthony has signed in

-annie_prayforusstanthony says : Hello Maria, after long time men I’ve seen you in cyberspace.

-sweet_maria48 says : Hello dear. How have you been keeping ?

-annie_prayforusstanthony says : I’ve been just doing mymilkcream orders for the sodality, I finally finished and anyways this bleddy computer also was not working till Tony just fixed it yesterday.

-sweet_maria48 says : From when I’m telling you , put Pentium 4 , put Pentium 4 , you are not listening to me , now after so long you did it.

-sweet_maria48 says : I was just chatting with Yvette, I’ve beenasking her to email me her bleddy mince roll recipe from when ,she doesn’t give it only , first she will talk very sweetly and all and then when the time comes shes always giving some excuse or the other. She even puts her webcam off so that I cant see her.

-annie_prayforusstanthony says : She like that only... She will takethe recipe to her grave rather than give it ...email her a virus and crash her bleddy system.

-annie_prayforusstanthony says : Maria, this year I am tryingsomething new, just go to this link http:www.bgbay/xmasbazaar/sweets/annie/milkcream.html

Things people never say in Bandra ...

• Let’s not go to the Bandra Gym this year for the Christmas Dance this year and sit at home and watch a movie.

• Let’s not have Lonvas curry on Sunday afternoon.

• We are not making fugias this year for Bandra Feast

• I think I will become a vegetarian.

• Lets go to the Bandra Fair!

BANDRA (1) : MAC ACCENTS , BOTTLE MASALA AND DEAD OLD AUNTIES

Im just a regular ‘Bandra Boy’ from dere only wanting to give back a
little something to my favourite suburb. Someone (may have been me) once said ‘ You can take a person out of Bandra, but you can never take Bandra out of him’. And surprisingly, knowing how no one falls for ‘profound’ lines like dat anymore (my favourite one being - I would if I could, but I cant so I wont), its quite true, because no matter where you are in the world, maybe even in a mall in Frankfurt and you suddenly happen to overhear ‘Aaayee Gracie ...See this dress men....’ Get the picture!!

Which brings me to the sweet, melodic and ungrammatical feature of Bandra and my ultimate favourite spice of Bandra - The Bandra Mac Accent (with no reference to a certain fast food chain organisation)
No matter how much RJ’s, VJ’s, TV presenters or stand up comedians try to impersonate it, they can never get exactly right because you have got to live in it to, to get it totally accurate, it has to come from the (h)eart … (Bit like the Scottish accent).

So let me give you a few basic ground rules so that the next time you
are shopping in Bandra you can blend in perfectly..
· Always use ‘D’ for Th.
· Never use ‘H’ anywhere, they are always silent
· Using ‘What’ even if there’s no question asked.
· Using a Hindi Verb with an English ending
· Using words twice to emphasise your point.
· Just like the Americans use ‘man’ in their slang, only we use ‘men’.
· Just like the Americans use ‘like’ in their slang, we use ‘no’

Giving you ‘masterpieces’ like

· ‘Ow you men Larry?
(Situation: Meeting Larry on Saturday morning in the bazaar)

· ‘She was giving me dis dis small pomflits (while showing the size of
her palm) for bledy 50 rupees men’
(Situation: Larry’s wife explaining her adventures in the bazaar,
later that day)

· “Aarre, Dat bledy Sandy no, yesterday he lagao-ed solid whisky for
the communion party”
(Situation: The retired men from the village talking at the local Irani
joint during the Sunday morning mass sermon)

· ‘You don’t have any sense what riding the cycal so fast’
(Situation: Spinster aunty yelling to a schoolboy on Chapel Road)

· Cun, Men Savio, Put tru men, put tru
(Situation: Classic line heard at Supari talao during a football match, asking Savio to bend the ball like Beckham)

· “Aarre see dere men, dere, arre left men, see dere men, arre big
bugger men dere’
(Situation: Boys stealing mangoes in the afternoon in May)

· Aaaye, what men basket, why you are saying anyting aboud my
mudder and fadder, I call boys now...’
(Situation: Often heard after a Saturday nite binge)

· (H)ail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou ...
..Norma, just see whether the back door is latched ...... amongst
women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus .......it’s closed
?.... ok ..... Holy Mary......
(Situation: Family rosary at the Pereiras)

· You know, Theresa, dat day I took little ginger garlic, little onion, so
much so much masala dat I ground, put chicken and the curry
came good men...’
(Situation: Swapping recipes while standing and gossiping at the
junction with the black bag of groceries at their feet)

· Dat day no, solid rain came no so I made nice hot hot soup and we
had with the khadk gutli which Peter brought...
(Situation: Housewives talking at the Cross Feast party)

One of the most common ways of gossiping among the older
generation is done in a very six degrees of separation - ish kind of
way, in which a person maybe linked up with anyone from the owner
of Johnny’s Cold Storage at Pork Market Junction to the Cardinal.
Ok here goes... another example of conversation...
- Do you know Joe’s son Eric is getting married to Diana?
- Who, Die-na, men?
- Aaree, Diana men, Alfie’s and Maggie’s daughter...
- Who, Alfie men?
- Alfie men from dere, Remember, when they were small they used to
stay near Brian’s house on Chapel road, near the bakery men...He
married that girl Maggie from Shirley village.
- Who Maggie, Mary’s daughter?
- No. Annie’s sister, Joannie’s daughter. You know Annie no, her son
Clyde was married to Hazel and they were living for donkeys years in
the Gulf, then after Clyde had his stroke, he retired and they settled
down here. Their son is dat Leslie he was an engineer very very smart
boy now all dat drinking has ruined him.
- Yes, yes I know he was married to that nice girl Corina from Chimbai,
but then after she had her miscarriage, all his drinking and all started
... and they got divorced...
...and in this way it keeps on going on and on , talking about everyone
they know and not going back to poor ol’ Joe.
(This account has been purely fictional, any resemblance to any
person living or dead is purely coincidental) ...you’d never know...

Another amusing but true fact in Bandra is the one and only ‘secret’
bottle masala. The Goans have their Xacuti, and the East Indians
have their ‘Bottle’ Masala, why? Because it’s stored in old beer bottles,
that’s why and there’s so many ingredients in it that no one can even
think up of a name for it. Its just simple logic.
Every family claims their family recipe is the best and that there is
more colour in theirs or that there are 5 or 6 more cloves in theirs than
the next-door neighbours. Everyone knows how to make it and what
goes in it but the family secrets stays within that family and no one can
get it out unless married into that family or in extreme cases when
there is no heir, on the deathbed.
The first rule of Bottle Masala is, you don’t talk about Bottle Masala,
The second rule of Bottle Masala is, you don’t talk about Bottle
Masala. (Just use it quietly)
The third rule about Bottle Masala is you don’t ask questions about Bottle Masala.

As a kid there were many weird, corny but somehow nostalgic experiences that are etched in the back of my head about Bandra, which don’t come back to me till I am outside Bandra and then the memories come floating back. Here are some of my favourites; you may notice a lot of reference to food in them (as I am also a big fan of Bottle Masala).

· First communion parties on the building terraces in Bandra with the mutli coloured fairy lights against the white sheets tied to the bamboo’s, with some 20yr old pop hit music blasting out of a 2 big monitor speakers, the smell of wedding rice pulao and Devil chicken curry in air....

· Walking through any village in Bandra on a Sunday afternoon and seeing the men sitting out in their balconies with their whisky or gin, country music playing from his music system which he brought down from the Gulf enjoying a quiet weekend before the hectic Monday and after a hectic party on Saturday night. You can hear the pressure cookers steaming with their pea pulao and smell the
tinge of Lonvas curry floating though the air while the mixture of coconut milk and bottle masala bubbles violently under the aluminium lids of the vessels.

· The watery orange concentrate drinks in a plastic cup and the hot steaming boiled chick peas given to you after the rosary at the local village cross while the aunties ask mothers what their son is doing in life and discuss their children’s lives.

· The rush of crowd at the cold storage and the bakery closest to the church after Sunday morning mass.

· The rush of men to the Irani restaurant closest to the church as soon the Sunday mass sermon begins for a chai and a smoke.

. The husbands in short pants, a striped T-shirt, cap and sunglasses
on their scooters with their wives on the backseat also in short pants and a old blouse going to do their weekly shopping in the bazaar on a Saturday morning often stopping in the middle of the lane to have a quick chat with other couples on their scooter going the other way.

Sometimes when you are asleep in the wee hours of the morning just after a late night binge with the boys, the phone starts to ring at 6:30 in the morning, you pick it up and there is an old lady on the other side of the line telling you ‘ Son, just tell your Grandma, that Aunty Mathilda passed away’, so in your best hangover voice you sweetly say goodbye and go on the pass on the message to your grandmother who is already up and saying the rosary for world peace and then you realise, that your grandmother doesn’t even know who Bloody Aunty Mathilda (may her soul rest in peace) is....
So you made that brutal effort to get out off bed for nothing, then
your mother comes in and your grandmother asks her , ‘Who is Mathilda’ .... and she says... ‘Aarree you don’t know Mathilda .....Anthony’s sister in law..?’.....
Oh Jeez ... here we go ... again!!