Ian, from there only...

BANDRA (11): In The Name Of The Father, The Mother, The Grandfather, The Grandmother and some Hollywood Movie Star!

2010-08-24T10:43:00.026Z

It has been awhile since I approached the boundaries of fundamental Catlick moral values in a blog and I am sure this one would fly across it like a cripple watching the neighbourhood kids set fire to his freshly delivered package containing his prosthetic leg from the other side of the pond.

Names, you hear them all the time. The good ones you accept, you carry on with your life and may end up finding a best friend. The bad ones, the ones which you thought you heard something, but just could not believe that you heard right, so you asked again and found out that it was right and you then pitied their dismal lives of having to move ahead in life being branded by their imaginative or drunken or dazed or smug or all of the above parents.

There used to be a trend in the Catlick baby naming procedure once upon a time, the trend usually lasted for that decade. There was a decade of saints, a decade of Movie Stars, a lost decade, a decade of hyphenated Anns, a decade of hyphenated Lynns, a decade of misspellings and a decade of mash-ups!

Somewhere in between came satellite television, the internet, the Middle Eastern boom, porn stars, Canadian immigration, Australian-born cousins , Russian hookers (not necessarily in that order) and that messed things up a bit. It added chaos to the already existing sequence of things and we ended up with names like these…

(Note: None of the names have been tampered with for comic effect. They are as you see them. I will leave it up to you to decide how they originated and sex of the person)

Alvea

Amberina

Analeeze

Annaleishea

Annvilla

Antobrazil

Ashlesha

Bellirina

Blandina

Celsus

Claudelle

Cleck

Clestin

Clevan

Clitta

Cloudina

Clyden

Cruzette

Cyntilla

Desla

Dodsal

Earcy

Edelweiss

Eglentine

Ehrenfrids

Elfreda

Ency

Eulalia

Evachrist

Fayola

Femina

Flavina

Florinda

Fredella

Fvicky

Gaynelle

Glosinda

Grayson

Grendyl

Helloy

Hesper

Jenesis

Jerrelenn

Jesvin

Joubert

Klerissa

Lezvin

Louella

Mackosker

Maclon

Maclyna

Melburn

Meleny

Mellicent

Minann

Montina

Nelishia

Nickson

Nymphia

Osbert

Oslyn

Placita

Quenita

Ransley

Rexton

Rochwyn

Rodslie

Schinella

Severine

Shalet

Shiny

Shonet

Silel

Silford

Sneyden

Tennyle

Terryl

Timania

Valonia

Vanrick

Vynlen

Walesa

Wilander

Wynzil

Yhuela

Yorham

Zelishia

Zonnette

What were the parents thinking?! What would their reasons be?!!

Tradition?

Fashion?

Trend-setting?

Superiority?

Stupidity?

We know that thinking unconventionally is good at times but not when the final product will sound like a posh version of a venereal disease.

"I heard that Mark has a bad case of the ransleys."

Leaving the parents aside, imagine the children now all grown up , meeting what they hope to be their true love, the person they think they will grow old with for the rest of their life!

"Jennifer, I'd like you to meet...Fvik...Fviy...Fvicky!

Although I could go on ranting metaphors on this topic, I think my message here is quite apparent.

If there should be something positive coming out of this blog, it would be that future generations will not to subject their children to ridicule and stop being so bloody creative! Because, Really, you are not!

PS: If you did find your name on the list, I am not the one who should be blamed for stating the obvious…

American Idiot On Broadway: Rebels with Souls

2010-06-04T14:52:00.016Z

Back in the last century, a trio of misfit punk kids in a psychiatric hospital room unleashed a new wave of 90's punk rock onto a world of teenagers just getting out of the hair metal era. Plugging in that Dookie album in 1994, made them feel as anarchic as their parents did in the late 70's.

The century changed, those teenagers grew up, so did the band and ten years later, a more mature and a better produced Green Day emerged with one of their best albums of their career and even the noughties. American Idiot!

They had managed to take their punk rebel attitude, charge it up with the political situation of the time, optimize the production and take punk rock to level , it had never been before ... Operatic!

Sure, some of the fans hissed, spat, spoke about them succumbing to the MAN and loosing their scratchy one amp, one monitor almost mono underground punk sound. But Billy and the boys knew that this was the next step in maturity for them and for the genre as well.

Meanwhile, the parents of those whiny fans moaned as they witnessed Ozzy Osbourne duet with Miss Piggy, Iggy Pop sell car insurance and Johnny Rotten endorse English Country Butter!

However, they weren't done yet! In September 2009, Tony-Award winning director Michael Mayer collaborating with Green Day, brought American Idiot to the stage.

The official soundtrack of the Broadway show was released in April 2010.

The first impression you get on listening to American Idiot (The Original Broadway Cast Recording) is that Green Day has been 'American Idol'-ised

...And those whining ex-fans went " See! We told you so!"

But as you sink deeper into it, you come to realise that what Green Day together with Music Supervisor Tom Kitt have done; is taken what was a phenomenal punk rock opera album both lyrically and musically and have added on even more layers to it; be it in additional background vocals, female leads, orchestrations, horn sections, eastern percussion and even gospel choirs!

You soon forget about the Reality TV show moments and soar into the broader picture of the sound and you then come to realise that Green Day, the youth cast and the grander production takes American Idiot with all its rebellious attitude and gives it SOUL!

So now its just a matter of time until My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade does the same, given its already existing storyline and the similar operatic sound.The Goths would then have to thank the grown up punks as they put on their blackest suits and head down to the theatre.

BANDRA (10) : T'is The Season

2008-12-25T09:56:00.015Z

I had initially planned to write this and put it up in early December, but I needed to get into the Christmas Spirit to get motivated. So I now sit in Aberdeen Airport writing this on Christmas Eve, waiting to go to London to spend the long weekend with some friends.

No matter how Christmassy it feels here, with the shop windows overflowing with decorations, the High Street all lit up with huge glittering flashing lights, marching bands playing carols in the malls and streets, Winter Fairs selling crackling pork roasts, real Christmas trees, ginger bread biscuits, hot roasted chestnuts and hot chocolate, people bustling around with bags filled with gifts shopping till their wallets run dry…(Recession, what recession?), since it isn’t HOME, i.e. Bandra; my Christmas Spirit doesn’t feel that complete.

So, what are those small, quirky yet humble facts that make up Christmas in Bandra for me?

·The kids from the colony/neighbourhood getting together on weekends from early December to make up a huge Star made up of long flexible bamboo shoots and colourful crepe paper to be hung up in between the buildings.

· Aunties causing chaos in the material shops in Elco Arcade and the tailors all around Hill Road and Bazaar Road.

· College kids sitting around one Catlick bugger with a guitar singing Christmas carols in the canteen on a slightly cold and sleepy Saturday afternoon in December.

· Listening to the ‘Boys’ (who are actually men well into their 40’s and 50’s) from Mary’s Clan, coming around with their acoustic guitar and the occasional harmonica and accordion doing ‘sort of’ in tune but very warm hearted versions of all our favourite Carols.

· Guys buying bad jewellery or perfumes for their girlfriends as Christmas gifts.

· Girls buying bad ties or deodorants for their boyfriends as Christmas gifts.

· Wives buying short sleeved polyester shirts for their husbands as Christmas gifts.

· Husbands giving the kids some extra money so that they can sort Mummy out with something for Christmas in his name.

· All the men from the building society who never speak to each other except at the Society meetings ,trying to synchronize together to put up the fairy lights on the trees in the compound with long bamboo sticks sticking out from each of their respective balconies.

· Mothers staying up late at night stirring the thick, creamy milkcream sweet in the copper-based aluminium vessels and then pouring it out for their mothers to mould it into various and designs.

· Fathers taking leave during the last two weeks in December and then going on a DIY rampage to get the walls and window grills painted, the front door and the furniture polished and new curtain rods and curtains put up all before Christmas Eve.

· The rush of people to Pinky/Parry/Deepaks Wine shop at 8pm on Christmas Eve and 11am on Christmas morning to stock up on the booze for the days to come, often meeting people you only meet at that same place and that same time every year and act like you’ll been best friends for years.

· Doing the last minute dash to Cambridge or Check-Up to get a shirt and a tie to match for the suit for Midnight Mass.

· Waking up on Christmas morning with a slight hangover from the couple of drinks you had with the boys after Midnight mass to the smell of Stuffed Roast Chicken, Pea and Raisin Pulao, Sorpoteal and Vindaloo wafting through the house.

· Standing out in the balcony after the heavy Christmas Lunch, enjoying the silence on the roads, anticipating the blissful afternoon nap to follow and the commotion soon to start when everyone starts getting ready for the Christmas Parties and Gymkhana Dances in the evening.

· People getting totally confused towards the end of the Christmas Dance especially after a few drinks of whether to wish someone ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Compliments of The Season’, because ‘technically’ Christmas day has passed and if you do say Merry Christmas past 12am on the 26^th, you will be corrected by a young snooty woman wearing a tight silky golden brown ‘frock’ elegantly covering all her naughty bits while staring down at her mousey boyfriend who is wearing a ugly cartoon tie, has been forced to ‘jive’ all evening and is still recovering from the previous night’s hangover.

I hope this ‘Christmas Special’ Blog warms your heart and fills you up with as much of the Bandra Christmas Spirit and Cheer as it did me writing it all these miles away.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!

BANDRA (9): If Webster was from Bandra…his ‘book’ would have been thicker…

2008-11-12T15:48:00.012Z

For the past few months, I have been actively trying to promote my blog and Bandra ‘internationally’, hence the six months hiatus.
There are however many gaps to be bridged...

One of the first things which I have noticed that always seems to bring people from different races and cultures; closer together is Abusive Slang.

So, as a start to what may become a long list of beautifully articulated words and phrases, here’s the Bandra Abusive Slang all spelled out:

Bugger: Used to refer to ANY and EVERY one you know in Bandra.
‘Not utilized’ in the Homosexual context as most of the world does know it but used as meaning ‘fellow’ or ‘chap’.
· Has also been improvised into ‘Bloody Bugger’ (still staying away from the homosexual reference here) and is used here in more abusive context.
· Can be used as a verb as well e.g Mario buggered up my car…
It does not mean that Mario did ‘naughty things’ with the car’s exhaust but simply means that Mario has damaged or ruined the car’s engine in some ‘other’ way.

Ballrag: This verb means 'to get furiously angry'. Commonly used in the past tense

e.g My wife was futaye ballragged 'cos I forgot our anniversary.

Chaunt: Stupid Irritating C*^t, a combination of these three powerful words here, makes this one very heartfelt.
This word was used around a lot in the mid 1980’s but died off slowly towards the end of the century. I am hoping it makes a comeback.

Fourjack: Similar to a Chaunt , but slightly less irritating and more stupid. i.e. a dumbf**k

Fod : (pronounced fo(r)d) A lot less irritating than a Fourjack but a lot more dumber.

Your Grandfathers/Grandmothers Jambuls/Pears/Brinjals/Various other fruits and vegetables: Translates as ‘Are you crazy?’…Often used as a reply to an illogical solution; providing a modest yet vivid description of the person’s grandparents genital regions.

To Rape One’s Happiness: Translates as being told off firmly by someone in a higher position than you and therefore getting your mood down for the rest of the day.
e.g My boss will rape my happiness if I show up late for work today.
· Can also be used the other way around if you are the one in the position to do the raping.

One Tight Slap: When slapping a person in Bandra, it should be spectacularly done or not done at all, therefore it should be ‘TIGHT’, i.e. forceful.
· Similarly, you can also ‘wafrao’, ‘raptao’ or ‘futkao’ him.

Please feel free to let me know if I have left out any, as these were the only ones that came to my mind at the time of writing this...

But remember they should be 'local and as pleasantly abusive as possible...

Otherwise I will rape your happiness....!

BANDRA (8): Your Fadders B***, What? ...

2008-04-02T15:15:00.022Z

(I mean blog...you filthy-minded people... ;-) )

Ever since the Catlick mudders post , I have been meaning to make it even by paying due respect to the men for whom back in the day, all it took for us to get back on track were the words ' Wait... Till your he gets 'ome... and I'll tell him what you did'.
We knew that when he 'did' get home from work, he would take a hot shower, slap on tons of talcum powder, change into his vest and shorts, pour a nice Scotch , half smile and grunt in your direction , grab a handful of salted peanuts to munch on and switch on the News....
But we would still go ...'NOOOOOO ! I swear I will never do that again!'
Yes! Its everyman's mentor, every woman's knight-in-70%cotton-30%polyeseter armor!...The Catlick Fadder!

But, doesn't every Father...

- Seem like he doesn't have the slightest sense of humour , but when he's with the boys on Poker night, turns into Robin Williams!

-Come into 'their' element when it was time for the family holiday and go into 'logistical' overdrive. Sometimes equipped with a small scribbled notebook in which everybody's schedule for the next 5 days has been planned.... Right! 8am-Get out of bed,Breakfast, 9am- Walk on the beach, 10am-Women-go Shopping!, Boys- Swimming... But daddy I want swim too , No! Go with your mother...otherwise we all go home!

- Spend the whole week working in the office, but on the weekend...still get up early, have a big breakfast and jump right into his D.I.Y self-inflicted projects, which after happily doing for 5 hours , moan about wasting his precious weekend on this shit!

- Have more fun, with his kids electronic toys then they do, usually starting with the words...'Wait! Let me show you how its done first....' ..... Chaaa! Not that way.... Give it here! again... Let me show you again!

- Keep Sunday Afternoons the way it was written in the Bible.....'sacred'! Kicking back with an ice-cold drink, a classic Spaghetti Western movie, a wholesome roast lunch followed by a nice long nap!

- Make all hell break loose, if woken up during his afternoon nap by some unfortunate salesman.

- For his children's sake, sit down for the family rosary, but when its his turn, Yawn, Sputter, Grunt and Mumble every word out , only getting 'perfectly audible' for the last Amen!....causing his wife to turn back and snarl silently with flared nostrils...

- Have more in-depth conversations with his son-in-law than with his son, sometimes going to the extent of sharing a drink of his 'special stuff'.

- Not shed a single tear or show any sign of saddened emotion, the day his only daughter gets married, but later that day, wreak havoc in the lives of the caterers, the decorators, the MC and his son's drunken friends.

PS: Dad, I hope the house papers are still signed in my Name , After this ....

BANDRA (7): The Catlick Girls Preservation Society

2007-11-24T11:24:00.008Z

With due apologies to the NETWORK, before I start out this blog and I am well aware of the consequences of my actions…

I have recently uncovered what you can call a conspiracy within the network. Many of you may have suspected it for a while and even doubted its existence… but it is true. For those of you who don’t I have decided to put my entire future and family name on stake to write this one… so make sure you learn from this and pass it on those naïve people out there…

There exists a top secret society of Catlick Women, brewed by the NETWORK for that ideal ‘happily ever after’ experience. They are perfect by themselves in every way. But it is not until that final day when you (the poor unsuspecting groom) realize that this wasn’t the deal you signed on for and you soon become conscious that long-term overseas contract you got recently doesn’t seem ALL THAT BAD!

The Catlick Girls Preservation Society is as secret as the Freemasons Society, with the true origins of it starting out right from the birth. Throughout her life her mother and/or other members of the network then bring up the girl. They are brought up around the 11^th commandment, which states:

‘Thou shalt HAVE A LIFE only after marriage’.

The following qualifications ‘must be satisfied’ by the time they reach the ‘marriageable’ age

· Look and maintain themselves to be unconditionally beautiful.

· Attend Stitching and Cooking/Vegetable carving/ Cake Baking classes.

· Learn to ‘JIVE’ by the age of eleven.

· Must read in church every Sunday and during Bandra Feast at least once at the Mount in the Novena week.

· Attend Choir Practice Sessions every week and must sing at the Mount at least in Holy Week every year.

· Must have read the Bible ‘at least’ once in a year starting from their ‘communion’ year, when they receive at least half dozen Bibles as gifts.

· Must have gone for piano or singing classes and performed at the Parish Talent contest.

· Never ever ever sip any form of Alcohol/LIQOUR! , Until their wedding day.

· Never ever watch a XXX (Blue!) movie, unless the cable guy shows it on Channel 33 at 1am every Friday night and you have a TV in your own bedroom.

· Never ever go on co-ed overnight picnics to Gorai as the boys only want to do ‘hanky-panky’.

· Never ever go to Discos (before you are married or engaged), so that you may not be influenced by others to actually have some fun!

· Never wear vulgar/fashionable clothes that might just show a hint of leg or worse still cleavage!!

· Learn to bargain in the bazaar by the age of thirteen.

· Must have cooked their first Chicken curry for Christmas Lunch by the age of fourteen.

· Must have prepared a full course meal for ‘guests’ including Russian Salad, Meatloaf, Lonvas, Wedding Rice, Sorpoteal, Vindaloo, and Fruit salad with custard by the age of sixteen.

· Learn to remove stubborn stains of clothes using RIN and Robin Blue.

So at the end of it all (the courting with or without the network chaperone, the planning, the wedding ceremony, the lavish party at the Bandra Gym where Candies catered…, the honeymoon in Maldives), you walk into the kitchen one hung over Sunday morning, innocently ask for a nice hot cup tea to eat your fugias with, she turns around with her oil stained batik nightie, her face as red as a baboons arse, snarling like Dirty Harriet, she pokes a red hot spatula in your face and says with her clenched teeth:

Go Ahead...Make My Day...B*tch !

BANDRA (6) : Beware! You Are Being Watched...

2007-06-21T02:06:00.000Z

A Long Time Ago in Bandra… before Bill Gates and his team of nerdy engineers came up with Networking for Windows, before the existence of Servers, the Internet superhighways, emails, GPRS, WAP, mobile phones, coaxial cables, Big Brother, spy satellites and CCTV.
There existed the Aunties Network…

A network so intricate, so extremely well connected, so efficient and so fast, it would put today’s best broadband and wi-fi connections to shame…
No one can ever escape the network, rest assured from the time you are born to the time you are six feet under, you will remain under their surveillance. Some are even spoken of afterwards, depending how extreme your case file is.

So let me break it down to the basics…

WHO (are they?): They live amongst us and all around us. More often they are heard rather than seen. You will never recognise one when you see them because they blend in pretty well.
No one knows for sure, how many of them exist in the network as some may work as consultants.
One thing we can be sure of is that they are always related to or are somebody’s sister, mother, or grandmother who knows you and your parents. This may sound a bit harsh but the truth is that many of our mothers may have already joined in under pressure from the Council of Elders.

WHAT (are they about?): Keeping the Catlick youth of today away from the vices, Matchmaking, Gossip and keeping up-to-date with the lives of everyone on/in the street/colony/parish.

WHY (Do They do it?): Boredom, Assumption its their god given right to set things right, For the sake of the Catlick community and the local parish, Duty Free gifts from the NRI boy they found a wife for…

WHERE (Do they operate?): Mostly In the bazaars, in the churchyard after the daily mass, Ladies Sodality meetings, in the cash lines in State Bank of India and Citizen Bank, in the house of the deceased after the funeral, at the cross feast parties in the Square, at months mind parties, during the ‘jive’ sessions at weddings when they are sure that there is no one around as all the youths are on the dance floor…

HOW (Do they operate?): Mainly through word of mouth, the old Bakelite MTNL telephones and now with technology catching up …mobile phones and even emails…(who knows maybe blogs are next…?)

You should be afraid…be very afraid!
You can run but you can’t hide…

- You think there’s no one around when you sneak behind a tree to take a drag of a cigarette…. Look Again! …Even if you manage to finish it without getting spotted…you will run into them down the street before you had time to buy the mints and one whiff will tell her how many you smoked and she might even specify the brand…

- With the trend of the now ‘happenin’ discos…playing trendy retro catlick hits, they have even infiltrated those places (where sweet homely girls and shy little mommas boys could go and order a double Jack Daniels and coke, tequila shots, lit up a fag and dance obscenely with each other…)

- Think you can get jiggy in the car on some lonely street with lots of tree cover…they will be there… ‘Returning from the market’ or taking their daily stroll.

- Even after you marry the one ‘they’ chose for you and decide to immigrate to another country far away from them, they have their connections there too and will probably know that your wife is pregnant even before you do.

- If you think you’re too tough for them to affect you and actually manage to give them a piece of your mind, you will be branded either ‘all or one’ of the following by the end of the next day’s mass…Drug addict, Alcoholic, Wife Beater, Pervert/Womaniser, Retard with a fake arm and for the ladies…the one and only but painful… ‘Sleep Around’-er

So the next time, you step out of your house …and are thinking of doing something bad.
Remember their theme rap song, recently 'remixed' to keep with the times…(may it send the shivers down your spine)

Doong Doong Doong Dududoong Doong!

-Alright...Stop... Collaborate ... And Listen...
-Aunty’s here with a brand new section...
-Break it down... One Time...

Whuckka whucka woom whucka woom!

-We strain ourselves to get all the news...
-From the cross feast parties...
-To what’s scribbled on the church pews...
-We know who’s sick, who’s dying...
-Who’s just joined Mary’s Clan...
-We even know about dat lady from dere who’s seeing another man...
-We will keep you informed no matter what...
-Specially about dat obscene doctor who just got caught...
-We roam the villages for topics to cov(aa)...
-But the best bits We get are after the daily mass is ov(aa)...
-So my dears, we promise to keep you in touch...
-With all the gossip you miss out on so much...

Wooing and The Thrill Of The Hunt (2) : The Curse Of The Committed Man

2007-05-29T22:08:00.000Z

(The Un-Anticipated Sequel)

Old Jungle Saying: When you take a lion out of the wild and put him into captivity, you can see him start to slowly loose the sparkle in his eyes as he starts to forget what it feels like to run wild and free…

And that basically sums up what I think it feels to be married and committed…

So what does really happen after you have committed to the Wooed One??

Are You (‘lovingly’) shunted away from the public eye and general merriment forever, to have and to hold, from that day forward, for better and worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health until death do you part...?

Is the curse of the Committed Man really true?

If that is the case, then we (the last of the hunters) need to start treating everything you do now until the Big Day as OUR LAST!!

And by that I mean…

Every Peg Of Whiskey we have…

Every Cigarette we smoke…

Every Night Out With The Boys…

Every Late Night Porno Viewing…

Every Boy toy we buy…

Every Woman’s butt we check out on the street…

And pray to all the gods that you get to have AT LEAST some of the wedding wine at the reception…

…That sweet, innocent girl who once shyly tried to hide her cute dimpled face from you out of embarrassment when you proposed to her on bended knee in the college canteen, suddenly gives the words ‘Who’s My Bitch Now?’ …A whole New Meaning! …

In a single guy’s universe of thought (mine to be precise), as you slowly get older and desperation (though dreadful but vital) kicks in… walking down the aisle seems like:

Walking like Sydney Carton in A Tale Of Two Cities to the Guillotine.

Walking Like Sean Penn on Death Row in Dead Man Walking

Walking Like John Coffey to the Electric Chair in The Green Mile

Walking the longest, slowest and most tragic walk of your life even though it is only a few feet long…(depends on the size of the Church of course…but if it’s a beautiful quaint little wedding chapel which your to-be wife so romantically chose, even shorter….AAAAARGHH!!!)

Talk about walking towards the light…, Whole Life flashing before your eyes… If there were any perfect moment that would be IT!!

At least the wild lion doesn’t expect it when it happens, you willingly AGREE to it, more often than other ASK for it…

And So finally in the modified words of Peter Parker (aka Spiderman)…

You tell yourself… (as you walk out of the church... hand in hand, husband and wife...)

‘ With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility…

This Is My Gift…This Is My Curse… Who Am I ?….

I’m THE COMMITTED MAN! ’

PS: Check out the above link.

BANDRA 5 : The ‘Gulfie Return’ Shopping List from the 80s

2007-05-19T19:48:00.000Z

(a.k.a – The Real Middle East Crisis if you don’t buy something small for Aunty Cassie and fly…because you know how big her mouth is…)

(Dedicated to my Godfather)

Recently unearthed in the an old pant pocket in Charlotte Villa on Veronica Road was the following, (it was written on an aerogramme),

My Dear Son,

Please get the following t(h)ings when you are coming down next month :

- 1 packet pistas

- 1 packet almonds (for Aunty Mary who makes those lovely gulab jaams)

- 2 packets cloves (one for us and the other for Aunty Phelmeen (Aunty Philomena)

- 2 small packets cardamoms

- 4 Kit Kats and Mars (for all the small cousins)

- 5 Toblerones (big ones)

- 2 Cadbury Fruit and nut (one for Sundri the servant and the other for Dhondu the gardener)

-1 22carat gold name bracelet (for Uncle Johnny’s Son…so much he helped us during Maryanne’s Wedding when he was the best man, putting the pendoll up and all)

- 2 small scent bottles of Prophecy Eau the toilet (one for me, and the other I can give to Aunty Lizbith ( Aunty Elizabeth)

-1 small bottle of that Cobra perfume (for Ralph, Cassie’s son-in-law)

- 2 boxes of Yardleys powder

- 1 bottle of Drakkar Noir scent

- Some Thomsun Original Cassettes of the latest dance hits

- 1 big bottle of Kraft Cheese spread

- 2 bottles of olives with dat red thing in the middle (we can put that Amul Cheese with them on the toothpick and offer then if anyone comes home to see you)

- 4 packs of those Kraft Cheese singles

- 3 packs of that ‘red cow smiling’ cheese triangles (good for breakfast no...?)

- 1 Casio Calculator watch (for Dalton…who works in State Bank)

- 2 sets of Faber Castell colour pencils (for the nieces)

- 1 ‘automatic’ (you know the one with the buttons to open) pencil boxes (for your godson)

- 12 Camay Soaps (for Ann’s Contract Bus friends…)

- 1 bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label or J&B whisky (for Wendell)

- 3-4 ‘dinky’ cars (for the nephews)

- 2 bottles of Brut aftershave (one for Eustace and the other for Walston)

- 1 packet of those Gillette throwaway razors (for Easdon and his brother)

- 1 bottle of Mango TANG and 1 bottle of Peach TANG (Don’t worry about the Mango one we may get it in Crawford Market so I can give it to Aunty Clitta…she won’t know the bleddy difference)

- 1 small National two-in one cassette deck (for Uncle Anton who got you the Gulf Visit visa in the first place…God Bless Him)

- 2 packs of Huggies Diapers (for Carls new baby)

- 2 cartons of 555 cigarettes (one we can give Lionel and the other to Savio…so much he was coughing that day for the Kyle’s communion… still he was smoking…)

- 3 packs of Maggi Chicken cubes (5-6 cubes we can give for Asha the fisherwoman)

- 7 Scotch-Brite Sponges (for Patsy’s in-laws we can give a few)

- 2 Head and Showers Dandruff shampoo

- 1 Tiger Balm (for Aunty Loveys’s bad back)

- 3 Dubbhas Of Nivea Cream (for Cassie’s granddaughter, Aunty Marie’s daughter and me)

Don’t get too MUCH stuff for US…ok…but just get these ‘few’ things for these people …only because you are coming for the first time…otherwise you know how people talk…

Love

Mummy

P.S: Please Say Your Three Hail Mary’s Everyday

The Old Wise Man Speaks, he does..

2007-03-26T11:42:00.000Z

On reaching the 28th year of my life, I have decided to share a few of the lessons I have learnt in my short but colourful life. Living almost two lives , one in Bombay and the other in Aberdeen has taught me a lot, so I wanted to put down a few words of wisdom to my fellow countrymen that would put even Yoda to shame...

Whenever you are going out clubbing on a Saturday night, and there is a slight chance you might hook up with a beautiful woman there... never wear your longjohns !
Never try using British Slang to sound cool in a conversation, because sooner or later your Bombayia accent will slip out , especially when you least expect it to.
Never try out the Blazer-Tshirt-Jeans-Sneakers look...Just because it worked for Jay Sean doesn't mean it will work for you!
Never attempt to be Scottish and wear a kilt in public, your legs are too skinny and hairy!
Never go to the toilet to take a piss, when you are cooking a spicy curry!
You will NOT look as good in a lambswool sweater as the Scottish model in the magazine advert!
No matter how much of Axe/Lynx deodorant you spray on yourself, IT doesn't do what it says in the advertisments... partly because if you are an Indian living in the UK, in an unventilated house, your jacket will always carry a slight whiff of last nights curry!
Never ever laugh at the fat police officer who is trying to get over the wall to bust your New Years Eve party at 4am!
No matter how good you look, how well you dress, how well you get along with the ladies, how rich you are or in which part of the world you are currently living in , your mother and a few obscure aunties are still lining up a few 'homely girls' for you back home!

Wooing And The Thrill Of The Hunt.

2007-01-16T11:41:00.000Z

Man is a natural born hunter. We need to stalk our prey, plan our approach, lay out the bait, wait patiently for the exact opportunity to strike, sight it between the crosshairs, pull the trigger and finally bag your catch…..
Which according to me can be applied to wooing a woman. Now, there is a lot more to that statement than what is written. What I mean is all the physical and mental torture which goes on behind the scenes during the hunt…the adrenaline pumping, the heartbeat racing, the hands trembling moments, the hair pulling moments, the face blushing moments, the sleepless nights and the stomach churning anxiety…sometimes making you just want to give it all up and run away. Not to forget, all the questions which start crowding your head - Will I get it or Wont I? If I do this…what will be the reaction?, Maybe I shouldn’t do that …, If I do get it , Then what should I do ?, Should I plan what to do after I get it now or should I wait and see what happens first and then plan ahead ?. Whatever it may be, all of this boils down to it being ‘ THE THRILL OF THE HUNT’. Something that once your trophy has been finally acquired…and your life is finally sorted…well…you miss it!

In the beginning, as a teenage boy, you start to learn how to hunt, you make a lot of mistakes initially i.e. you may get a crow instead of the duck you were actually aiming for (everyone knows this one as we have all been there). There are times when you suddenly find some old photographs and say to yourself… What the hell made me do that back then? …
As time goes by, you learn from those crucial mistakes and you begin to improve…
Your aim improves… so does your agility… your technique, your intellect and… your stamina…
As you reach your early 20’s, many stick with what they have already captured, others start to get desperate to find some, while some are in just in it for the sport and don’t mind hunting sometimes as often as a new one every week.
Push back a few years later…you come to realize that the hunters out there can be now to specifically classified into 4 types:

1. There’s the dedicated one, who knows exactly what he wants once he sees it and goes precisely after it until he gets it.
2. There’s the desperate one who hasn’t really made up his mind about anything and just tries firing shots in the air, hoping to get lucky and hit something.
3. There’s the sneaky one …who like a hyena prowls on other people’s already bagged prey.
4. And finally there’s the fourth orthodox one… The kind who doesn’t even try to get his hands dirty so he prefers that his parents get him his ready packed frozen steak from the local supermarket, in which everything you need to know is already printed on the label, i.e. the brand, the weight, the price and the expiry date.

But what ‘does’ happen once all the excitement has died down, once you are satisfied, once your life returns back to normal….

- Do you sit in your armchair, staring blankly out of your window with your Scotch on the rocks and dream about those days?
- Do you often take on a young apprentice and watch him then chase such magnificent and noble prey, which makes you now feel like such a loser?
- Do you sit down at your local bar and narrate stories of your exploits to anyone who would care to listen?
- Do you often get tempted to get in just ‘once’ again for old times sake?
- Or are you just sometimes now just driven to the edge, in which you are forcefully or willingly put back into the game?

Whatever the consequences of the hunt may be, every moment of it should be savoured like there is no tomorrow because at the end of the day, nothing is more worth it than someone for whom you have really fought for and for whom you have done everything possible to get her to fall in love with you….

Oi, Kiran ….Get Me One More Whisky Soda …..!

BORAT: Sheer Comic Genius With Cojones!

2006-11-23T00:19:00.000Z

Call it Racial, Anti- Semitic, Slapstick, Repulsive, Chauvinistic, Homophobic or just Side-Splittingly Funny…
It is only when you look behind the comedy, you see it for what it really is – A LOUD HARD SMACK IN THE FACE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY. No one is spared… making any goddamn American want to shoot Sacha Baron Cohen on sight.

They know it, you know it, they always showed it in all their ‘Hollywood’ Movies making everybody wished they had it; living the American Dream is the BEST and ONLY way of life?!! And he has managed to just take all of that, kick them in the nuts and still leave them screaming with laughter.
Borat, one of the characters played by Sacha Baron Cohen from his ‘Da Ali G Show’ TV series, is a Kazahstani TV Reporter who (in the film/mockumentary) is sent to US and A to learn about their culture and bring the knowledge back his glorious nation, on the way he happens to catch an episode of Baywatch and then spends the rest of the movie travelling across the US to make Pamela Anderson his wife.
On his travels, he meets up with all the ‘typical’ types of Americans i.e the drunken fraternity students, the Southern gospel preachers, the cowboys, the elite upper class, the African-Americans from the ghettos, the politicians to name a few and ends up showing the ignorance and stupidity of their beliefs and culture in a way in which you suddenly realize that’s it is not his character (the broken English, the accent, the fabricated Kazakhstani culture) you are actually laughing at …its them.
If you ever thought ‘Jackass: The Movie’ was grotesquely funny, it is only when you see the now soon to be infamous ‘nude wrestling scene’, you realise the ‘true meaning’ of those words. It is one of those movies in which every single line can be ‘quoted’.

Now a quick look at the man behind this comedic brilliance,

Sacha Baron Cohen was born in London, attended Christ College at the University of Cambridge… for crying out loud!

He is a hardcore orthodox Jew (although he spends most of the movie slandering them just so that he can actually reveal the prejudices against them).

In his often 'unscripted' TV show,he plays three different characters Ali G (a wannabe gangsta rapper), Borat and Bruno (a gay Austrian fashion reporter) in which he interviews various celebrities and politicians, some of them who have believed that the interviews are sincere and legitimate and he rarely does any of his public interviews out of character.

So although surrounded with controversy, Borat The Movie Film is not racial, anti- Semitic, repulsive or chauvinistic at all …it is just Sarcasm at its Very Best!

JAGSHEMASH...NOW PLEASE STAND FOR THE KAZAKHSTANI NATIONAL ANTHEM! (or you will be execute...)

BANDRA (4): AAHH! DOSE WERE THE DAYS...

2006-11-16T02:21:00.001Z

(A ‘Back In The Day’ Exclusive)

Do you often think back on some of the things you used to do when you were younger or haven’t heard of being done in a long time? …Things, which nobody actually cares about anymore, as they would be too quirky to do now…
Here’s a small flashback of some of that (now dull and boring, but back then ‘completely’ justifiable and fun) stuff:

When…

· People used to have ‘Train Friends’ and ‘Contract Bus Friends’ and go for their annual ‘Contract Bus Friends Picnic’ by train.

· Schoolboys knew all the intricate rules to complicated marble games like Aandya-Bonedya and used to bet their personal collection of ‘Chinese’ marbles on ‘top’ fights.

· Office friends from Ghatkopar, Vikrohli and other far-flung parts of North East Bombay used to visit their friends homes in Bandra for Bandra Feast Sunday Lunch after the high mass at the Mount.

· We would line up in front of our grandaunts to get the 10 bucks to spend frivolously at the Fair.

· The WigWam and the September Garden Jam Sessions were ‘the’ places to be seen at during the Bandra Fair Week.

· You couldn’t go to the Bandra Fair and ‘not’ see the Well of Death…(with that one Anglo-Indian bugger who used to ride his motorbike in it).

· People would queue outside the front gate of the Bandra Gymkhana for the whole night in order to get tickets for the Christmas Dance, even though the booking office opened at 8 am the next morning.

· Maurice Concessio and Braz Gonsalves were like the Justin Timberlake and Robbie Williams of that time and you just ‘had’ to book them to play for your wedding.

· People knew all the local wedding band members names and their entire life histories, as well as kids nowadays know the details about Britney Spears and the Spice Girls.

· Christmas Dances lasted till 5 am and then later you could go to Searock for coffee.

· R.A.T.C. (Rock Around The Clock) and Illusions were ‘the places’ to be at during the college lunch break or in between lectures.

· The closest we came to a McDonalds or a KFC was Andoras and Mac Craig.

· Children waited patiently every week to watch episodes of Giant Robot, He-Man, Fireball XL5 and Fraggle Rock on Doordarshan.

· Most of the children were forced to go for piano lessons and singing lessons, only so that they could compete against each other at the annual Parish Talent contest.

· We used to ‘luuurrvvee’ listening to Saturday DateLine at 11pm on All India Radio because they played ‘English Songs’ and Desmond from Virar would always request ‘Sacrifice by Elton John’ for his loving wife Molly.

· We would still get our lunch delivered in Cuffe Parade by the dabbahwallahs.

· The ‘doodhwallahs’ were the first people to give you the ‘breaking news’ headline of the day.

· All ‘homely’ catlick girls between the ages of 18-25 yrs had to go for Stitching, Typing and Shorthand Classes.

· People would cycle all the way from Mazagoan and Wadala to Bandra to buy sorpoteal and vindaloo from the aunties stall in the Bandra Fair e.g. Martin’s Corner.

· You had to learn to ‘jive’ almost as soon as you learnt to walk, because there was never ever a party without a ‘jive’ session (unfortunately there still isn’t…).

· You used to see the small boys from the village running around catching butterflies in the summer and fishing for guppies in the gutters in the monsoon.

· Kids watched ‘musicals’ on Sunday afternoons, in the house of whoever’s Daddy was in the Gulf… because he had a ‘National’ VCR.

· ‘Thomsun Original’ was like the Napster/ Limewire of those days, and you heard the ‘stop record’ sound after each song on the compilation tape your friend made for you.

· In the rest of the world…while Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell were largest selling albums of all time…in Bandra however, they could not compete with the cassette sales of Jim Reeves’s Christmas Carols, Jive Bunny and The Mastermixers and Kim Cardoz’s HOT HOT HOT.

BANDRA (3) : SOME MUDDERS DO SAY DIS….

2006-09-20T23:20:00.002Z

(Dedicated to my Mother)

Catlick Mudders… (God Bless Them!) no matter however nagging or traditional (in thinking they are) are ‘characters’ in themselves, so I have decided to pay a long overdue tribute to them in the following article. So here it goes…

WHY DO MOTHERS…

· …Collect the ‘chilli- vinegar’ pickle in an old jam jar you get with Chinese Takeaway for decades even though the chillies in there are brown and so is the ‘white vinegar’ they come in

· …Still Say ‘ Talk Fast, Talk Fast’ while handing over the phone to the next person in the household ‘waiting in line’ when their NRI son calls from ‘abroad’ even though in this day and age when international calls hardly cost a trifle more than regular calls or keep shouting and speaking on the phone as if they think their son can physically ACTUALLY hear them…

· … Believe that if their children staying away have a Catlick i.e. East Indian roommate they are fine, if ‘not’ they are living a horrible life.

· …Refer to people getting married as a ‘Boy’ and a ‘Girl’ even though they maybe in their 30’s or 40’s or even older (as you know who…hmm)

· …Still refer to having a ‘Drink’ or having some ‘booze’ as ‘Drinking LIQOUR!’ making it sound as if you were down at Raja ‘Country’ Bar.

· …Think that two or three drinks at a party are enough for ANY respectable ‘gentleman’ (i.e. their husbands)… any more and people will say you are an alcoholic who beats his wife when you get home.

· … Still think shoulder pads are still in ‘fashion’ even though the 80’s are over.

· …Still recommend you to stitch your wedding suit at Pereira, Dais or Fernandes Tailors (even though designer ones are now available) because they are Catlick and they will do a good job…(May God Have Mercy on J.Bob Tailor)

· …Still think working in a bank is a respectable job for any man; working on a ship or a rig just qualifies you as an alcoholic womaniser.

· …Still assume that if you go for an overnight picnic to Gorai or any place with a beach…they will NEVER see you alive again because of the ‘Don’t Drink and Go in the Water’ Rule.

· …Keep Things (such as cutlery, utensils, curtains, bed sheets, foodstuff… the list goes on) bought from abroad in the cupboard, only to be used on Easter, Church Feast, Bandra Feast and Christmas.

· …Never refurbish their houses in one go or suddenly go for an extravagant holiday … in case people ‘start talking’…(although their children have been NRI’s for years) because they don’t want to show how much money is there in the family and also then the ‘girl’ will come into the family only ‘for the money’, basically because she saw the A/C compressor outside the house.

· …Still refer to a couple ‘going around’ as ‘being friendly’.

· …Not Accept any ‘new’ song is actually worth listening to; unless it has been sung at the St. Andrews Zonal Talent Contest.

· …Believe that if a girl smokes/goes to a disco without her boyfriend/drinks ‘LIQOUR’/has a tattoo/ doesn’t wear ‘blouses’; she is as good as a prostitute or from a bad family with an alcoholic father.

· …Don’t want to buy fast food because its cheap and home delivered, but because ‘they can make it at home for nothing’. (Thanks to the Goodness Gracious Me Team for this one).

· …Honestly believe that their ‘homemade grape wine’ is a thousand times better than the now freely available Merlot, Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon, as they are too dry (i.e. not sweet), too expensive (when you get the homemade ones for 80 Rs a bottle) and don’t kick as much (because there’s not much rum in it).

· …Insist on having a showcase in their ‘hall cabinet’ to show off their curios and crystal wine glasses they got for their wedding anniversary.

· …Fight, scar and maul each other for Wedding Table pieces, which they will keep for years to come in their ‘showcase’.

· …Type on a computer keyboard at the speed of light, sometimes even while talking to you (recalling their secretarial days), while sending emails, but when the time comes to change the font size or move the mouse to click on an icon they need someone else’s help.

· …Consider Ponds Talcum Powder to 'still' be an acceptable alternative for deodorants.

· …Store perfumes for years to come since a close family friend had brought it down from the Gulf in the 80’s and it was probably expensive…
And they also think that Brut and Yardley’s Eau de Toilette are ‘STILL’ the ‘in thing’ to wear.

P.S - Mother Forgive Me For I Know Not What I Do…

London Through Time From An Oil Platform With One Weak Leg.

2006-08-04T04:15:00.000Z

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London …I’ll show you something that will make you change your mind - (Streets Of London – Ralph McTell)

There is a thing I always do whenever I am in London, and that is to get off the tube at Piccadilly Circus and take the tube exit near Eros from which I exit with Eros being behind me; as I ascend the stairs and then once I am on the top of the stairs on the street, spin around and soak it all up in one go …the lights, the billboards, the life, the red buses, the crowd, the theatres, the musicals, the agent stalls… everything…! Absolutely Magic!

This love affair with the city of London started out with a childhood passion for old Victorian London starting quite predictably from Jack The Ripper, Oliver Twist, My Fair Lady and Sherlock Holmes. So I was actually searching for a book about the history of London, something that could tell me how London evolved as a city to the darkly secretive yet beautiful cosmopolitan metropolis it is today.
This brings me to the book I got which is London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd.
What’s different and surprisingly extraordinary about this book is that Peter Ackroyd does the history in a unique way. He looks at London as being a living person … so each chapter instead of examining the various ages specifically, looks into each of its traits through time like for example The Accent, The Noise, The Silence, The Theatre, The Signposts, The Crowd, The Mob, The Lights, The Smells, The Pubs, The Sex, The Gambling… (i.e its vices …drinking , gambling and prostitution),The Food, The Mornings, The Nights, The Fog, The Violence, The Death , The Rebirth after the War…
So Much so that along with the words and the illustrations you can actually feel what he has written and you can actually smell the coal fires, the horse dung, the sewers, the poverty, the bakeries, the Life… taste the ales, the roast beef, the veal, the fish ‘n’ chips, the black pudding…and hear the church bells, the market vendors, the newsboys, the watchmen announcing the time at daybreak, the carriages, the drunks, the squeaking of the shop signs blowing in the wind…of London. Although drenched in history, the book doesn’t come across like a history textbook, but is very light, generalised and narrative. Weaving together folktales, urban legends, history, quotes from essays and selected novels of their time (some worth mentioning are Dickens, Defoe and Thackeray) and news archives, Peter Ackroyd makes his mammoth book of London an energetic, informative, exciting, captivating and thoroughly enjoyable read.

While browsing through the illustrations in the book, I came across a sketch of Victorian London which really seemed to capture the mood perfectly, it was a sketch by a French artist Gustav Doré who had visited London in the late nineteenth century and published a book called London, A Pilgrimage in 1872 which now available as Dore’s London. Dore’s has captured some fantastic everyday characters, locations and events of London, like the baked potato vendor, the Cockney flower girl, the men working on the ships at the docks, thieves gambling in a shed by candlelight, a homeless family sleeping under the gas street light on a bridge, the steamboats along the Thames, the ‘traffic’ jam of that time…which shows a street packed with carriages, sellers, beggars and commuters, the views from the overhead steam trains and boat races.
The lighting expressed in his sketching seems to bring the characters to life with all the filth, the soot, the rags and the chaos in an almost gothic, shadowy yet animated way. With this book as a companion to the Peter Ackroyd book, I was able to put vivid pictures to the words and it made my journey through London an absolutely enchanting experience. (although I was reading it sitting in a cabin on an oil platform with one weak leg in the middle of the North Sea and hoping that the corrosion will hold up for another 5 days!).

They Say....

2006-07-13T11:28:00.000Z

‘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!

2006-07-09T00:18:00.000Z

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

2006-07-08T23:07:00.000Z

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

2006-07-08T22:56:00.003Z

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!!