So i came all the way to receive my bestest school buddy Karthik reddy, who is coming all the way from Sweden...not for me, but to "see " his prospective bride(Notice , how people never say they're going to "meet a girl", but merely to "see her" . as if she were a Qutab Minar). I am super excited to see him, as it reminds me of my school days. It is our first reunion since we passed out of school in 2001.
This elaborate process of Bridal Tourism kicked off with the girl’s family showing Ravi that they had enough mithai to last them through at least two nuclear winters. Half of those mithai reserves were then forced down the poor guy’s throat, even as he sat around being scrutinised by the girl’s parents, brothers, uncles, aunts, nephews, cousins, plumbers, carpenters etc. As dictated by Indian tradition, there was also a middleman who had set up the whole thing. (Ravi kept referring to him as “my contact”, because it would’ve been inappropriate to say “p#$^”.)
After what felt like an eternity, the girl walked in, carrying a tray. Now Ravi may be a cynical, smug man-beast, but once he laid his eyes upon her, he felt something he hadn’t felt in ages. The blood rushed to his head as he realised, in abject terror, that she’d brought him yet more food.
The couple were then ushered into a separate room where Ravi tried to collect his thoughts. This didn’t work because he had visions of the girl walking around a fire, trampling his manhood underfoot as she did so.
Also, it didn’t help when, fifteen minutes later, the girl’s sentimental grandmother showed up, and went all Nirmalamma on my friend, telling him she thought he was “the one”, which was also what Morpheus told Neo before stuffing his face with a laddoo.
Following this, Ravi proceeded to get out so quick he put Indian Cricket Team to shame. I don’t think he’s getting married anytime soon, which means that his Local Grocery store will continue to remain profitable.
Yes,
2001. I am in fact so old, that I went to school in a whole other millennium
(and I had to walk six miles to get there and back, both ways uphill.) If I’d
tried to write this blog in during my school days , my computer would have
taken a year to type each word out, and when I hit “Save”, I’d have to dive
behind a table and hide just in case it exploded from the hernia-inducing
effort of it all. We were all very afraid of Y2K back then, a bug that was
supposed to destroy every computer on Earth (except Chacha Chaudhary) when the
year 2000 came. Turns out that the programmer who came up with that theory was
Mayan, so never mind.
Meeting school-friends after 14 years brings
back a flood of memories, some of things that seemed insurmountably terrifying
then, but seem trivial now. Why was I so afraid of Algebra papers? Why was it
so difficult to remember where India’s largest coal reserves were? (Answer:
Talcher, Neyveli, and Gangs of Wasseypur) And why the hell did we spend six
years calling my friend Surendra “Pakodi”?
We both were bullied by Suresh on a
semi-regular basis, but it all seems so silly now, there’s no way I could hold
a grudge. So if Suresh reading this, Bro (name changed to protect privacy), I
promise you, again, that I wasn’t the one who slashed your tyres. And no, that
petrol-soaked kerchief you found sticking out of your tank wasn’t mine. I don’t
care if it says “Property of Vamsi Krishna” on it.
There are things about school in the 90s that
I miss terribly. Things that I long for them and mourn for in a way that makes
my heart hurt; like the fact that Tennis ball for cricket was just Rs nine.
There were four of us, so we carried two bucks each. And then fought about
whose turn it was to pay the extra one rupee, because then that person couldn’t
afford to buy “Pepsi-Cola” that day during the match.
Pepsi-cola, for the uninitiated, had nothing
to do with Pepsi. Or cola. It was a polythene tube filled with a delicious
combination of flavoured ice and the promise of jaundice. If you read jaundice
and thought of it as a bad thing, remind yourself that this is school we’re
talking about; the two weeks off would have been the greatest thing on Earth.
Pepsi-cola tasted like an angel’s kiss, cost a
princely 50 paise, and created the most excellent post-school pastime; sticking
your orange or cola coloured tongue out at the one idiot kid who’d gotten the
colourless lime flavour.
My favourite part of school though, was summer
vacations. Summer meant endless hours of cricket, zero homework, and most
importantly, in the days of pre-cable Doordarshan, summer meant Tom and Jerry
and Gaint Robot. Giant Robot was a show about (big twist coming up) a Giant
Robot. And he was controlled by this little Japanese child named Johnny Sokko.
And together they fought the Gargoyle Gang and the evil emperor Guillotine, who
came from an ancient alien race of underpaid actors who laughed in villainous
fashion while wearing the world’s fugliest papier-mâché octopus mask. For
reasons that were never addressed, even though he was Japanese, Giant Robot
looked like the Sphinx during gay-pride week, and the show had the worst visual
effects work this side of Rakhi Sawants last face-lift. But it was, to my ten
year-old brain, the greatest thing ever committed to screen.
I know every generation ever says this about
their time, but being a kid in the 90s was the greatest thing ever. Kids today
don’t know how to do it. You really haven’t lived until you’ve grabbed your bat
and gone home just because you got out on the first ball.
But I feel sorry for those prospective brides
of him as , Karthik ( appeared from his Facebook DP, look like a cross between
Baitullah Mehsud and a young Shibu Soren from his long hair and goatie) .Women
become familiar with the concept of marriage at a young age, as evidenced by
their toys such as Princess Barbie, Bridal Barbie, Gold-Digger Barbie, Alimony
Barbie and so on. Guys, however, reach their 20s and then slowly start becoming
aware that marriage could happen to them one day (so could a hijack, not that
I’m drawing parallels)
I
was reminded of this when a friend – let’s call him ‘Ravi’ because that’s his
name – narrated the story of how he had recently gone to “see a girl”. This elaborate process of Bridal Tourism kicked off with the girl’s family showing Ravi that they had enough mithai to last them through at least two nuclear winters. Half of those mithai reserves were then forced down the poor guy’s throat, even as he sat around being scrutinised by the girl’s parents, brothers, uncles, aunts, nephews, cousins, plumbers, carpenters etc. As dictated by Indian tradition, there was also a middleman who had set up the whole thing. (Ravi kept referring to him as “my contact”, because it would’ve been inappropriate to say “p#$^”.)
After what felt like an eternity, the girl walked in, carrying a tray. Now Ravi may be a cynical, smug man-beast, but once he laid his eyes upon her, he felt something he hadn’t felt in ages. The blood rushed to his head as he realised, in abject terror, that she’d brought him yet more food.
The couple were then ushered into a separate room where Ravi tried to collect his thoughts. This didn’t work because he had visions of the girl walking around a fire, trampling his manhood underfoot as she did so.
Also, it didn’t help when, fifteen minutes later, the girl’s sentimental grandmother showed up, and went all Nirmalamma on my friend, telling him she thought he was “the one”, which was also what Morpheus told Neo before stuffing his face with a laddoo.
Following this, Ravi proceeded to get out so quick he put Indian Cricket Team to shame. I don’t think he’s getting married anytime soon, which means that his Local Grocery store will continue to remain profitable.
