bravado

After hearing that Salman Khan was blasting all those critics who blasted 'Veer', Teja is seriously waiting for him to react to my review of 'Veer' in Tehelka.

He's been going to the gym lately, and would love a fight. But Salman Khan is

So, no, I rather he stayed far away from Teja.


In my defense, I did end my review with a line about his fabulous screen presence, and stardom. Not my fault it was edited out.

Dhanno refuses to be implicated in any of this.

why aren't we in goa?

Teja fiddles with his camera.

He says: "I don't like palaces and forts. Unless I'm studying them for some particular reason."

Dhanno says: "We should go to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Ajmer. I mean, we should really see the place."

I say: "It's only 15 minutes since we landed here, people. Why did you say yes to Rajasthan? I knew we should have gone to Goa."

Dhanno drools: "Hmm. Prawn curry rice. Pancakes in the morning. Cinnamon apple pie at night."

Teja says unconvincingly: "Oh, I'm OK. This will be fun, too."

Dhanno grumbles: "Yeah. But why are we staying in Udaipur for 3 days?"

I look at the Lonely Planet guide yet again to find out why. I begin to read aloud from it.

Dhanno flops on her bed, and says: "This is like sleeping in a hammock. I'm sinking."

Teja wears his reading glasses, just because I am wearing mine.

Dhanno says: "Both of you act like they are new toys."

I say: "I like the room. It has the same curtains as our bedroom."

Teja laughs: "We should have stayed at home then."

almost a blue moon

In the last 10 years, the birt hday boy has taken
5 years to move from 31 to 32,
4 more years to be nudged ahead with a great deal of haranguing on my part, from 32 to 34,
and another year to grudgingly accept that he was 38 yesterday.

Being born on the last day of the year, for some reason, allows him to to remain a particular age for longer. I being born in the middle of the year, am apparently at a disadvantage. Depending on his mathematical prowess and annoyance quotient of the moment, I have been anything between 40 and 55, in the last 10 years.

Thank god, it was not a blue moon day when he was born. It would have taken him another 19 years to turn 39 (or not!). And I would be called a cougar.

a 'bad hair life'

A group of college students enters 10 minutes late. Of course they are chattering. Loudly. As they shuffle across me.  A girl who has actually (really?) seen the film earlier gives them a vague update on what has happened so far.

The vagueness of her story-telling makes them ask more questions and the chatter goes on for some more time. When they finally settle down, the girl who has seen the movie before dials a number and starts cooing into it. I stomp off and change seats. I can hear them sniggering.

Another group enters late and sits down to the left of me, thankfully a few seats away. Yet another group enters late and sits down to the right of me, giving me a wide berth. I am khush.

The people on the right tentatively deposits an infant in the seat nearest to me. But perhaps my scowl is fluorescent.  It makes them change their mind. They take the infant and place it in the aisle near their feet, presumably to be trampled upon by hovering popcorn vendors.

I look at them in horrified disgust. They ignore me. The man then spends the rest of the film talking to his clients. From the various instructions about a car in Mira Road, and a driver in Vasai, I gather he runs a transport company.

Suddenly, a man 2 rows behind starts yelling abuse. I turn around thinking that finally someone has lost their head in the way I've been wanting to for the last 40 minutes. But the man is raging with eyes in space. Ah, a hands-free phone. "Tell the bastard that we won't do anything till we get the money." He starts walking towards the exit, yelling all the way, his 'b******d's and 'f******'s lighting his way.

I burrow into my seat and think viciously that an audience like this deserves a film like 'Tum Mile'. We have become so desensitized as a society that we deserve to pay obscene amounts of money to watch complete shit about 2 people who make the most boring couple in the world.

Why write a script where two ex-lovers meet after 6 years on a day that is bound to give them bad hair?

Soha Ali Khan is gutsy. Her hair goes from wet rats tails to dried frizz. Perfectly natural when one has been pelted by the rain for hours. But since the 26 July 2005 deluge is only a pretext for the two ex-lovers, Sanjana (Soha) and Akshay (Emran Hashmi) discovering that they are after all, just right for each other, surely a background kinder to the heroine's hair could be chosen for this reconciliation of kindred boring souls?

Sanjana is rich and modern. She lives alone, then lives with her boyfriend. She enters a room and takes off her shirt and does the rest of the scene in her slip. She lounges around in teddy shorts. She displays a beautiful cleavage whenever she can. Soha is comfortable with her body. She does little things with her eyebrows and a flick of her hand that tell us she knows about acting. And yet, I spend the better part of the film wondering why she does not allure, why she remains an ordinary girl. Surely I should admire her for acting an ordinary girl, but I find myself resenting the total lack of glamour.

Even her supposedly rich father lacks glamour. Sachin Khedekar does not look like rich Sanjana's rich father, but in his black shiny coat, a lawyer soliciting clients for 100-200 rupees outside Bandra Court.

Emran Hashmi seems to have put a cap on his sleaziness. But that unfortunately just makes him flatter than a paper dosa. He's nothing without his torrid kisses. He plays an inexplicably bitter painter.

Inexplicable because in fact, he paints for the common man. Melting moons and beautiful sad women by windows, which in the real world, should sell like hot cakes to hotel lounges. Instead he is poor. Even though the 'common' electrician too loves his painting. There is much talk about the opinion of the common man. It's a message to all those out there, yes, the critics may bash our work, but the common man loves us.

Sadly, the 'common men' watching 'Tum Mile' did not seem too happy on the ride.

There is no point in even elaborating on the illogicalities in the plot. There are many but they float like dead rats in the dirty water. However, because this is a love story, and not a documentary, we do not see the dead rats.

What remains is a sense of terrible boredom. The two narrative threads, the past and the present, play like two different stories. The trouble is that Sanjana and Akshay are just not interesting enough a pair for us to be interested in their love, hate, love lives. You feel sad that Sanjana hasn't found anyone more worthy in all these years.

Akshay is given a chance to vindicate his earlier 'loser' status, someone who had to let his girlfriend pay the bills, by now flying business class, buying art galleries and going to Tokyo to pick up awards for his design company. He is also given several chances at displaying his manly heroics during the flood, while Sanjana is suitably, femininely helpless and afraid.

What is conveniently forgotten is that things went wrong in the past because Akshay didn't communicate. That Sanjana just got tired of dealing with someone who was so self-obsessed.  All doubts about compatibility are washed away in the deluge.

A shorter version of this review published here.

BTW, header photo by Teja.

pure gold

it's been a long haul

'Khargosh' won 3 awards at the Osian festival this year - the Special Mention and the Audience Award and shared the NETPAC-FIPRESCI award.

Trisha at Tehelka wrote this.

fashinista banno or an old horse with red reins

I had been eye-ing a red bag in Hidesign since months.

It was not always the same bag, but it was always red.

Once again, I went in to the store, and saw the perfect red messenger bag. I took it carefully off the lurching mannequin, and slid it over my shoulder. One hasty look at the mirror, one covert look, one over the shoulder look and I dropped the bag, and walked out. A few steps away, and I turned back to look at the store, wistfully. The bag was calling out to me.

I wanted Teja and Dhanno to convince me, either to buy the bag or forget it. They were tapping their feet, and clicking their fingers, and looking everywhere but at me.

I said: "It would look too much, no? Everyone would say, an old woman carrying a red bag."

Dhanno said: "But that's what you would be, isn't it? An old woman carrying a red bag. So how does it matter?"

What I had wanted her to say was: "But you are not old, Mama!"

There's not much to be said for dinning 'honesty is the best policy' into your child at a tender age. Because sooner or later, she hands it back to you. I let out a sigh and took a couple of steps towards the store again. Then sighed and turned back.

Teja, knowing well that the sighs if ignored, threatened to take over our domestic arrangements over the next few days, said: "Why don't you just get it?"

I said: "Yeah. I can probably use it for a few more years. Then I'll be older. And that will be just be too old for a red bag."

Teja said: "You'll never be too old for a red bag."

Dhanno said: "Yeah, as if. You are never going to give up your jhataak pink, are you? Or purple? Or yellow?"

I grinned.

This time, I ignored the swinging of the mannequin and grabbed my bag from its shoulder and marched with it to the cash counter. Anyone could see that the red bag was going to give me graces Nature had not conferred on me.

With flamingo-pink rainy sandals, and my tomato-red messenger bag, I made quite a fashion statement on my last documentary shoot. Specially when I teamed them with my lime-green capris and rose-pink lipstick.

real life dharamji

Dhanno has pasted on her cupboard doors -

6 posters of Drake Bell,

4 of Hillary Duff,

3 of Avril Lavigne,

1 of Ranbir Kapoor,

1 of a bulldog in a blue denim jacket,

1 of a poodle in a pink jacket,

1 photo-shopped picture of her with Drake Bell,

A school group photo of me in Std VIII A, in St. Anne's School, Pune, 1977,

and

A school group photo of her in Std. VIII A, in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land, 2007.

So that I don't feel left out, Teja found me this. It was flying around on his studio floor.

 

My crankiness after a 3 hour drive back from town disappeared instantly.

Teja said: "Happy?" 

I said to Teja: "He's just like you."

In fact, Teja is a real life Dharamji. No, no, not looks. Lest all my friends gasp at my blindness. But in his sweetness.

Thankfully, minus the excess boozing and womanizing.

what do bullet holes say?

Dhanno has her hair streaked purple to match her purple cell phone, both gifts for working incredibly hard all year, giving her Std. X exams.

Teja gets ready to board the 'Ladies Special' local train. No, he is not abandoning me, not just yet. Only prepping for a TV show.

I, meanwhile, try to make sense out of bullets.

 

Bakery Wall, opp Nariman House, Colaba

  

          Bakery Door, opp. Nariman House, Colaba

 

Lift door, 6th Floor, Cama Hospital, Azad Maidan

The bullet holes make pretty patterns, but no, they don't make sense at all. 

 

Viewed the book

Teja likes to switch on his night lamp and open a book the first thing he gets into bed. He started doing it first to impress me. Now it's a habit.

The other day, I walked in and he was holding up a book. I rolled up his 'charsa' and put it over his eyes. He continued holding up the book.

I said, "You are still reading?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "I've covered your eyes, and you are still reading?"

He said, "Yes."

I gave up, and removed the 'charsa' from his eyes.

I said: "How?"

He said, "I've decided to give 30 seconds to each page. That's it. That's the only way I'll ever complete a book."

I said, "So whichever line you are at, when 30 seconds are up, you move to the next page, is it?"

He laughed.

He said, "You are very funny. What's it got to do with the lines?"

I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "How would I know 30 seconds are up when I am reading?"

I said, "Yes, how?"

He said patiently, "Obviously I cannot read the lines. I keep my eyes on the page, and I count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 up to 30. Then shift my eyes to the next page."

I was tongue-tied.

He said, "I sense some things on the page. And make up my own story."

I said, "Hmmm. Nice."

He said, "Look, this last page, I know there is a girl waiting at the bus stop, it's late at night, she was at a disco earlier. Maybe, there will be a murder, maybe something else."

I said, "Seems as good a way of reading as any."

'Boi Dekha' or "Viewed the Book" is popular Bengali slang for watching a film. So, Teja is in good company, as Punjab-da-Puttar would affirm.

Later, at dinner, Teja missed an entire conversation between Pu, Sesh and me. After the Ramayan was over, he said, "You know there was this story about Ram."

I said, "Teja, where have you been? We've been talking about this for the last 10 minutes."

He said, "Oh, I was talking to Sesh."

I said, "You were not."

He said, "Yes, I was. Without saying anything."

It didn't matter that Sesh hadn't heard him.

We all agreed that Teja is moving to greater philosophical heights than we are yet aware of.

i'm gonna 2-time

Flabbergasted by my comment on my last post 'Copy Chris, Paste Ghajini' that I quite liked 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi',

My brother Rolu called me and said accusingly: "So you liked 'Rab ne'?"

I hemmed and hawed and defended myself sheepishly: "Well, you know, we saw it on New Year's day, and it was sort of just right for an evening after a hangover, quiet and simple."

He said: "It was worse than 'Ghajini'."

I said: "No, 'Ghajini' was so violent. 'Rab ne' was not."

And Surinder Suri in his polyster checked shirts and polyster pants, with the goodness of a loving provider, reminded me of my father, and of course, I am a sucker for anyone who reminds me of my father, and I cried and cried lots.

And I knew that Taani would choose Suri, rather than Raj, as any girl with any sense would,

and I loved that moment between Bobby and Suri, when they are drinking and Bobby passes out, and Suri says wistfully, 'We were having so much fun'.

What to do? It really didn't matter to me that Suri was rather idiotic in his attempts to woo Taani with a lame makeover, because we are allowed to do idiotic things when we are in love,

and Hindi films are full of idiotic disguises anyway, which are such great fun.

And I just like SRK better than AK.

Rolu said: "Well then, we can ask Teja-bhai to shave off his mustache, and you can start having an affair with him."

Not a bad idea that.

alternative modes of transport

I was watching Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee on a snow peaked mountain in 'Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hain', don't ask me why, I wouldn't know. No, wait, it was to do with the Friday release of 'Drona' and I wanted to see the director's earlier film, from an academic point of view. No, really, that's me.

Anyway, suddenly, I got an a-ha moment. Teja and Dhanno will tell you I often get a-ha moments, where I basically realize after a considerable amount of time what most people know from their mothers' wombs. A lot of my a-ha moments are to do with the working of taps, bottle caps, door latches, turnstiles, elevators, tetra-packs and other such mind-boggling things. But that's another story.

Right now my a-ha moment came while Teja said: "Where are they dancing?"

I said: "The Swiss Alps." Though I didn't know for sure, it's good practice to give answers confidently.

Since they had just reached the Swiss Alps via a Film City set just by virtue of singing a song, I said: "I'm sure if we sing a song right now, we could be in the Alps."

Teja said: "Yes."

I said: "We'd have to move our arms around in synch."

Teja said: "We could do that."

Dhanno said: "But both of you will reach there. I'll be left behind. I want to come too."

I said: "We'll sing a family song."

Much singing (completely off-key on my part, perfectly pitched on Teja's and Dhanno's part) ensued accompanied with much flailing around of arms and legs. But we stayed firmly ensconced in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land.

I said: "We need costumes and make-up."

Dhanno said: "We need a camera and lights."

Teja muttered to himself: "Love means doing stupid things together. Love means never having to say sorry (to yourself) when you do stupid things together. Love means ..."

Meanwhile Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee had come back to the Alps after a brief sojourn to some grassy flowery meadow in Ootacamund.  They looked at each other, they looked at the camera, they did some posing of the romantic, dreamy kind, you know the arms outstretched, twisted necks variety.

I thought the way they are shot, and their dance steps are, they could well be performing in front of a blue screen in Mumbai. Most songs are choreographed this way nowadays. The backdrop could be Milan, Mauritius, Muscat, or a painted screen in Mehboob Studios, Bandra. How does it matter? The actors don't relate at all to the place they are in, the dance movements have nothing to do with the space around them.

I missed suddenly with a deep pang, the cavorting, rollicking, rolling in snow, sliding down snow peaks, throwing snowballs  - Shammi Kapoor and Saira Banu in 'Junglee', Raakhee and Amitabh in 'Kabhi Kabhi', Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore in 'Aa Gale Lag Jaa'. I missed the sweaters and the pom pom caps and the woolen mittens and the faux fur collared jackets. Rani was wearing a chiffon saree, Abhishek was wearing something that I forgot even as I looked at it. Certainly not made for goofing around in the cold. Sigh.

Anyway, since the song and dance routine didn't work for us, we'll just drive down to Pune for the weekend.

the rabbit and the raft

P-Bapu had a few preview screenings of his film 'Khargosh'. Teja has shot the film. A lot of times at private screenings, people make polite noises and slink off quietly. While we may hold forth censoriously on big-budget films on our blogs, all of us are too well aware of the difficulties of making films on low budgets, lower than The Star's bath water budget in the Alps (only Evian, good for the skin), to make smart aleck remarks after a trial show.

But after 'Khargosh', a lot of the people wanted to hang around for a while, chatting, making occasional remarks about the film as it sank into their consciousness. Some people grouped up and left together to drink away the evening, and presumably talked of the film amongst themselves. A little bit, at least, one hopes.

A lot of the audience at all the 3 screenings was from FTII. I, being a two-pice member of Khargosh's unit, doing what I love best, making wise-woman comments on other people's work, hung around at all the screenings. Watching FTII mates before and after the film, I thought this is what brings out the best in all of us. Going to the movies.

We may argue in the most pedantic way about the smallest issues on our wisdomtree mail group. We may run each other down malevolently when we are working together. We may get most nostalgic only about our drinking bouts and our subsequent brawls, passing them by word of mouth from year to year, as the stuff of legends. (Witness Tanmay's film 'I love the friends I have gathered here on this thin raft' - A tongue in cheek look at the FTII fraternity at the Wisdom Tree Film Festival)

But we are all shining faces and solemn grins when we go in to watch a film. That moment when the auditorium lights go off, and the screen lights up, is the moment we all forget the frustrations of working in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land, the anxieties about our career paths, the middle-of-the-night musings on whether we should not have listened to our parents and become bankers, IT professionals, NASA scientists, architects, doctors, therapeutic  masseuses or whatever else but filmmakers.

It's at a screening we realize we are mates, after all. And our work matters. And our opinions matter. Even if they piss off everyone else.

OK, this includes not only friends from FTII, but everyone by default, who loves the movies. Anyone who cannot watch a film without analyzing it, criticizing it, taking it to pieces and putting it back together. Who cannot watch a film without a 1000 spoken and unspoken ideas on How One Would Have Handled That.

recuperating or resuscitating or whatevering with the rajputs

Watching 'Rajput' through one entire evening, 4 hours on Set Max with lots of ads, but a long film, in itself. Like the viral fever all over again. Drifting in and out of stupor. Time seemingly standing still, and yet taking quantum leaps forward. Don't know if it's today or yesterday.

I went to take a call and came back to a son born and a husband come back happy now that a child that is not his has been born to his wife. He cannot help but know that the kid is not his, since he has never slept with her ever. And been away since the first night. Because he cannot forget the sight of a dead man's body over her unconscious one. A man who was kidnapping her. I do not understand, just as I did not understand the strange dreams of my feverish slumbers in the last few days. The explanation for everything, anything is 'We are Rajputs'.

Towards the end of the film, I have to check up on IMDB who the director is. Vijay Anand. I cannot believe it. Ugly rape scene with villian and victim tied together, shots of bleeding female legs, all about honour and dishonour, eew.

Teja and I sat there as if we were trapped, as if we could not switch off the TV, as if it was not a perfectly beautiful evening outside. I guess we both still felt weak and feverish and too tired to bother doing anything else.

PS: The imdb plot summary is more coherent than the film.

The Humble Mosquito

Yesterday, Teja scolded me for sitting on my script, in the hope that it would hatch into a film with my body warmth. In 2 months, I have sent the script to 2 producers. They haven't got back to me, and I have not followed up, too polite to chase.

Both producers are not-big.

Teja thinks I should approach AC, SK, AK, KJ, to produce the film. He thinks if I need to get immune to rejection, I might as well start with the big guys and work myself down.

Perhaps I need lessons from the ubiquitous mosquito who can find its way into even the hermetically sealed life of The Star. As long as I don't get swatted.

* Drawing from 'The Star' series by Teja.

stranded

Don't we all look rather stuck?

Sometimes, life feel likes that, too.

Then, I guess, you just have to wait for the tides of the Brahmaputra to come rolling in.

Caves and churan

Since I feel a bit like this these days, am posting these pictures of me in Mawsmai cave. 19 May 08. Teja was photographing the cave, so you'll have to peer hard to find me.

I have to peer hard to find me, these days.

Why should anyone want to go traipsing through a cave? Rather squeezing through, crawling and groping through one. All I can say it cheered us all up immensely, apart from making us very hungry.

The cave's been lit up now with artificial light, which our friends hated. They said it was much more fun in the days when you had to find your way through, with a torch. Apart from the fact of course, that the lamps are fancy, plastic flowers, which don't "match" the caves, at all.

The path to the caves too has been paved, making the whole exercise like a walk through a public garden (see the step in the picture). Thankfully, the path in the caves is not paved.

What was on sale in the car park was bundles of cinnamon sticks, plucked straight from the trees (were they? or my fancy as always?). And 'churan' made out of 'bor'. Teja bought all the churan the lady had. I found the packets weeks later in his camera bag.

Oh, by the way, the full name of the Mawsmai cave is Mawsmai Nongthymmai Elaka Krem Pubon. Meghalaya. I saved up the entrance ticket. Ha!


Churan - a sour-sweet-salty powder, usually liked and licked by kids.
Bor - a sour-sweet berry.

i'm still lazing around so ...

Twenty minutes earlier, another rhino had arched her back threateningly at Teja. I don't blame her, I'd hate snoopy photographers taking snaps of me in a mud bath. The forest guard shooed Teja into the jeep, even as Teja kept up the pretense that he could have outrun an angry rhino at 60 kms per hour.

Rihana, (named so by Dhanno), was happy enough however to pose for Teja, amidst her purple flowers. She even turned a couple of somersaults in the water, and stretched languorously for him. Or as languorously as a rhino can.

The Poets

When Teja got a SMS that said, "Meeting at 6.30. See you then. The Poets", I said, "Hmmm! I didn't know that about you."

He said, "It's the name of our cricket team."

I didn't laugh. It's a silly, absurd, sweet name for a silly, absurd, sweet lot that meets for net practice 2-3 times a week. The rest of the week, they spend calling each other, groaning over their aches and pains.

Teja is forever rubbing liniment on his joints and patting cold compresses over them.

One night before practice, Teja asks, "Why don't you come along too?"

I say, "For what?"

He says, "The ground is really nice. You could jog two rounds, and come back home. It would be fun."

I say, "What time?"

He says, "6.45."

I say, "Morning?"

He says, "Yes."

I say, "Ha, ha", turn and go to sleep.

He says, "Plus you'd meet everyone."

I deign to snore.

So Teja brings the lot over for breakfast. Now while I enjoy making huge, special lunches and dinners, for friends, family, neighbors, Dhanno's friends and sundry souls, anyone who expects breakfast out of me, usually gets banged on the head.

But this lot is so cheerful and excited after their practice, all boys again, dirty, sweaty, hungry, tired. And I can do nothing else but laugh with them, and get them something to eat. Teja makes khatta-meetha upma and I make them tea.

Anyone who wants to play with the Poets is welcome. Bring your own liniment and cold compresses along. And your own breakfast. Perhaps I will go one morning, and take some photos.

My only ever two cricket matches

So, Teja is back to playing cricket. The last time he played when we were students at the Film Institute, in 1994.

I have no clue about cricket, and that is the first match I went to. Actually, I just dropped by to have a look at him, even though we were barely on talking terms then. I do remember him sending a ball flying all the way to the girls' hostel, and he likes to say he did it for me. Whether it was to impress me, or out of anger towards me, who knows? I'm certainly not going to ask, for our story back then was way too complicated.

This time, of course, Dhanno and I went as official cheerleaders. Though we reached the grounds only in the second half.

Teja woke up early, and went off at 7 in the morning. The entire family was meant to follow him. Obviously that was a mistake.

First, all of us woke up late, it being Sunday morning, then we all had breakfast, then we gossiped for a bit about lucky stones. I nagged my brother as usual to hand over my father's ruby ring, which he refuses to part with, even though he does not wear it.

Then, I did have to shampoo, since I was going to the Institute after 9 years (I've made three 10-minute visits in all this while, which obviously don't count).

Then, Mummy just had to see her doctor before she did anything else. As we waited outside the doctor's, we realized it was noon, I had forgotten the camera back home, and it would probably be lunch time before we reached the Institute.

So, we went off to buy some sinful mutton roast and naans at Cafe Diamond Queen, and went back home to eat lunch.

My sister said that if it had been her husband playing, they would all have been up much before him, and out of the house by dawn. Dhanno said Teja didn't really want us to come to the match for some reason. My sister said, obviously, since he knew that you'll never be there on time. Of course, my sister thinks Teja spoils Dhanno and me horribly. And that we take him horribly for granted.

After lunch, I was ready to go, the camera at the door lest I forget it again. My sister said she was going back to her place for a nap. My mother wanted to sleep too. My sister-in-law would have rather slept too, but I shamed her into driving Dhanno, my nephew Golu and me to the Institute. No way I was braving the harsh March Puneri sun in a Puneri rickshaw.

Downstairs, my sister said she had forgotten her packed dinner upstairs. She sent Golu to fetch it. I fumed in the car. Golu came back after 10 minutes, and said we were to wait, because his dad, my brother wanted to come too. We waited for another 15 minutes for my brother to have his bath. When my brother came down, my mother appeared at the window and asked what she was going to do alone at home, and that she wanted to come too. There wasn't enough room in the car, so my brother went back upstairs, and we waited for my mother to come downstairs. Of course, she needed to change.

By then, I was sure that my family had no consideration for my feelings for Teja and his cricket match. I sent off my sister-in-law to scold my mother. But my mother toddled over before she could do that. For the next 10 minutes I scolded my mother, and she kept insisting on getting off the car, and going back home in a rickshaw. I apologized, what else, to calm her down and make sure we did keep the car headed in the right direction towards the Institute and not turn it back towards home for some more emotional outbursts.

So after this long journey to cross a distance of 15 odd kilometers, we reached the Institute at 3 pm, for the second match of my life. The ground was abandoned. For a moment, my heart sank, but the players had only gone for lunch. By a stroke of luck, Teja's team was batting now.




Dhanno took this photo of Teja getting out.









Of course, his team lost. It was the same 13 years ago, the student team won, the ex-student team lost. What else, with beer-bellies and no stamina. The student team is always younger, fitter, and this one had even practiced for a month. Teja of course is determined to win back his honour in the next match, next month, same place.

I say, play cricket. It's great fun cheering.






Here, by the way, is a photo of the match in 1994. Teja says meanly, that I'm out of focus, and it's Naseerbhai who's been clicked, and not me. I like it anyway.














This is one of Teja and me watching the rest of the match. March 2008.




Tom Alter was still going strong, after half a day of fielding, another hour or so umpiring, then running for an injured batsman, and then batting himself. He'd played on the Graftii team in 1994 too. If playing cricket keeps you as fit as he is, all the more reason Teja should keep playing.