Kambakht hangover

Kareena is at it again. Flaunting her size '0' status with elan. Little does this self proclaimed glam doll realise that the teeny weeny bikini is not what is glamourous. Glamour is in the acting and the elegance, rather than flesh. It is all about the substance that a person is made of. Talent matters at the end of the day. I watched the Kareena - Akshay starrer 'Kambakht Ishq' and don't know how I sat through teh three hours. I want my money back!! The double meaning, so called jokes, were far from being funny and i almost thought I was visiting 'Nude zone'. It was, if i may sum it up in one word - CRAP!! A terrible headche has taken over. It has to be the hangover from that hopeless flick. The only saving grace was the Bebo song, so I guess I'll leave the movie to rest. The hangover will die down by next Friday, i'm sure.



I twitched my thumbs for a long time and later got on with the only sport I am fit to play these days. Yes! channel surfing. Zee, star, sahara, besahara all of which were airing serials that had already been aired. That was when I chanced upon the song 'aa ante amalapuram'. I don't have a clue of what that means, but it sound good. A peppy number from a Telugu movie. I was watching Gemini Tv. It was a programme on music and the next number had Venkatesh shaking his leg, hands, head, chest and well! almost every body part with some actress, whose name is not known to me. After having a dose of pure entertainment, when my mind seemed relaxed, I switched channels and lo and behold! it was MAA Tv, another Telugu channel. I stopped. Nostalgia had it's jaws tightly clenched into my existence, and all I could think of was the place I had lived before. I was having yet another hangover..



I remember having a candid conversation with an old cook, when I first set foot in Andhra. "Amma" he started at which I retaliated with a hiss. Amma! God! had I aged so much! Do I need to dye my hair. Just when I thought my woes were over, I was faced with another googly. "Amma, do papa?", he asked. I knew he had had some misunderstanding. "No, do nai, sirf ek papa" i replied. He gave me a quizzical glance and threw another question at me " Papa school gaya?". This was getting on my nerves. "Bhaiya, I almost shouted, Papa school kyon jaega, Papa office gaya". An attendant who i hadn't noticed till then, laughed his lungs out. It was he who later informed me that Papa means girl in telugu and amma was a word used for the feminine gender. Such cocktails were enough for me for the day. I had to learn teh language, I almost myself. My teachers were my maid and the lady who ironed th clothes. The maid made a sheer fool out of me and did manage to get away without doing all the work, almost every single day, because she constantly used the word 'repu' which I thought meant 'ok', It actually means tomorrow. Counting numbers in Telugu wasn't a tough preposition. Every time the lady who ironed the clothes came, we sat still and waited for her to start off - 'wokati, rendu, mulu, nalgu aaidu aaroo... 1 to 10 was easy.


It's been quite some time since I left Andhra to reside in another place but I still feel connected and every time I feel home sick, all I have to do is switch on the Tv. It was indeed home to me for a while. Nomads, after all have places to go. The only permanent things in their lives being a heart wherein they carry memories. I know I will move yet again, and then I will miss the place i live in today but that's what life is all about.



A nomadic existence leaves behind a sweet taste of the place that you leave behind. Each time a change of place hits my life and jolts it into action, I realise the essence of the place I had lived in more. Even if the stay happened to be for a small period of time, the place lives on. The people, eating habits, dresses, forests, flora, fauna etc come back to haunt. The things one ran away from seem dearer. The smells that made you puke and fume, bring a smile to the face and the things that made you angry, have you in splits. There's a feeling of warmth even in things one found irritating. It is all because we like to hold on to our yesterdays. No wonder, our school or college days seem the best. The memories of our first job brings back tears ( of joy course) no matter how stingy the boss was. It doesn't matter that school or college days were filled with days you wanted to finish it all and move on, because of the peer pressure and family pressures or simple heart aches. We still like to live in the past. It is safe to look back as it can't harm you more than it already has. On the contrary, it manages to give happiness as a present.

The future is yet to come , the present may be a present but the past is the treasure that no one can take away.