Marriages are made in He............

Here comes the second part of the story (Part 1):

20^th December, 2009:

After getting the shock of my life from that command of Dadaji, at least one thing was sure. I could not evade going to Nokha. I had to go there anyhow.  But I had to make sure that all the rest of my family members were on my side when I make a refusal. A refusal which they couldn’t refuse! So I called up Mom and Dad to make sure that they also didn’t like the picture of Ms. Manisha Bagri. And as bad the picture was, even they did not like it. Yes!! Similar were the thoughts of my sisters. I could always tell Dadaji that if all the people in the house don’t like her, there is no way I’ll marry her.

As my last master stroke, I thought I would take my younger brother Munna with me to Nokha. His presence can give weight to my decision. But as an afterthought, it came to my mind that this could be seen as “too much of a scam” from Dadaji! Hence, I decided otherwise ;-)

Racy, Anshul and I returned home as there was actually no conveyance to Bikaner or Nokha at that hour of the night. And I was definitely not in a mood to spend 6-7ks for going all the way to Nokha to just to make a refusal! It would be ridiculous. Hence, I decided that I’d take the early morning bus to Bikaner and further proceed to Nokha. I remember saying to Rinki before sleeping that night, “Don’t worry sis! Mana karne jaa raha hoon! Fatafat salta ke aa jaunga!!”(Actually this was my plan till the end!!)

After having a night-out, Racy came to drop me off at the bus stand. He wished me good luck, and then, I boarded the bus for the most annoying journey I’ve ever had. Since it was a sleeper coach, all I was thinking before boarding was good sleep, an honorable refusal, good sleep! But the bus driver had other ideas. The sound boxes were blaring on top volumes the crazy Punjabi songs of Babbu Mann!! Aaaaargh! “Son Di Jhadi”, “Chak Lo”, and many such insanely torturous songs were enough to make a person lose their mental balance. But I fought! The solace was calling Uncle and Aunty and also taking them to my side about the Refusal I was planning. Also was continuously texting Pinky Didi and Dipanjali about how I had everything worked out! But in heart of hearts, I was also very guilty thinking about the girl. But again, I thought. At least I’ll be honest. It’ll be good for her also (Oh! I hated the System for this!!!).

So after surviving the mind numbing journey, I got off at Bikaner. Dadaji was there to receive me. In the one hour journey from Bikaner to Nokha, I made it very clear to Dadaji that whatever my decision was, I would not talk or argue about it to anyone else. I’ll just tell that to him. He was fine with it. I felt a little more relief!

After reaching Nokha, I found that along with my Dadaji and Dadiji, a few of my other relatives were already waiting for me at my home with their hawk like eyes! One of them was my cousin uncle, who was also the negotiator. He had come to tell Dadaji how all the arrangement would be made. Firstly, the girl’s Uncle will meet me at their (Negotiator Uncle’s) house at 5 p.m. And after that, if all works out, then they planned to make the bakra and the bakri meet at a temple.

At around 4 p.m., Dadaji told me to get ready. Now, I had a plan for getting ready to. After taking my bath, I dressed up in the best way to receive a rejection from the girl’s Uncle only, and the matter would not have to be taken beyond that. And I wouldn’t have to take the burden of guilt of Refusal! The jeans was bought 3 years back, had frills coming out of the bottom with all the sweeping of the roads that had done by it. And to add effect, it had also not been washed for the last 15 days. The shirt and sweater were very average. But to show my one-dimensional figure (Yeah! have got that as a compliment too besides the regular “gush of wind will blow you away” and “why don’t you eat anything” or “haddi-raja”) I had taken the sleeves of my full length sweater as high as I could to make my ultra skinny hands fully visible!

Proud of my punctuality, I reached my Negotiator Uncle’s home at 5 p.m. They were constructing a new shopping complex at their backyard. So I went there with uncle to see the progress and kill my time. As we were talking two men entered from the back gate and started listening to our conversation with keen interest. One of the men was stout and the other was very short. After listening to our conversation for around five minutes, the introductions were made. Both were uncles of Manisha! Oh Fish!, I thought. Had I known earlier, I wouldn’t have made some good observations about the shopping complex and blabbered! Plus one in their book I thought!

Then we were shown a room where, supposedly, they were about to grind me! But I was too confident! I mean, how hard getting rejected could be! [In later months, I came to know from Minakshi that her uncle had grinded more than 90 boys before me for her! May be the Nervous 90’s got him! ] And then the interview began. He started by asking me questions in Hindi. In defiance, I answered all his answers in Marwari and also mocked him humbly about how our mother-tongue should not be forgotten! Then he started in Marwari. I was still very rude by my standards. I told him I had my base in the North East, was in a job and body-building is definitely not my hobby! [In later months, I also came to know that he wanted Minakshi’s husband to be in some family business, having a healthy physique and he hated the North-East! He wanted no connection with it, whatsoever!]

All in all, after the meeting was over, I was confident that I had pissed them off real good. And there was no way the meeting would be arranged! I laughed! Then destiny laughed at me! Within the next 5 minutes it was decided that I was about to see a girl for marriage at 6!!!!

To be continued……

Part 3

Marriages are made in .........................

Where are these made anyway??

I do not believe that if you do good things in your life you will go to heaven and if you do bad things you will go to hell. In short, I do not believe in the concept of heaven and hell. Period! But without the use of the words “heaven” and “hell”, the story I am about to share(which is, by the way, based on a true life incident to the best of my memory), just cannot be completed. I mean you cannot frame sentences like “Marriages are made in CCDs.” or “All coconuts broke loose.”! Ah! Let’s leave these Arun Lol-isms aside for now.

Now, there are generally two ways happy marriages happen (Yeah! Yeah! It’s not a myth!) among the people that I know. The first way is ‘relative’ly simple(if you don’t worry about your relatives,i.e.). The boy and girl fall in love, they convince their respective families and with their blessings, they get married(sounds simple, doesn’t it?).

The second process is a “wee bit” longer. Here’s how it works out. Firstly, the families of the boy and the girl make it clear(sometimes they don’t even have to) to all their relatives and every person in their community that their child has reached a marriageable age. And the frantic search for the perfect match begins. Bio-datas, photos, bio-datas, photos, bio-datas, photos! Phew! Now when the prospective bio-datas and pictures are successfully exchanged through the negotiators (the relatives or the community people, of course!), these people set the meetings. Not quite unlike business deals, you see, with brokers! It is mutually decided whether the girl’s family will first see the boy or the other way round. When the families meet the prospective match for their child, there are gazillions of question answers and in 90% of the cases(ok, I might be being too harsh on our system!), then and there it is decided, whether the boy or girl would be perfect to be married to their child. In mundane eventuality, the boy and the girl meet and in one meeting decide that Yes! This is the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie of my life! or No! Get the hell out of here you moron/she-moron/oxymoron! And if they agree, they are happily married!

Well, that’s how it goes. As for me, I was a beneficiary of the second method.  Here are my memoirs:

Friday, 18^th December, 2009:

It was one of those boring days at office. Christmas was coming near. The markets weren’t moving. Had lost some money in a few trades. But nothing significant. Was also talking to Anshul about watching Rocket Singh before going home for winter holidays. In all earnestness, my mind was wandering on the thoughts of the party Rahul, Saini and I were about to throw the next day. All of us had had a good previous quarter and made some good money. Hence, the party.

Here I was, sitting quietly, thinking about the party, when suddenly my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Took it out. “Dadaji” calling! Took the call. Here goes the conversation translated from Marwari:

Me: Pranaam Dada! How are you?

Dada: I am fine. You are coming to Nokha on Sunday.

Me: Me? Nokha? Sunday? Why? Is everything alright?

The cell that rang!!

Dadaji: Yeah. Everything is alright. You have to meet this girl from Surat. Her name is Manisha Bagri. I have sent you her picture on e-mail. I have also sent the picture to all the other family members. Bye.

Now if ever the phrase “All hell broke loose” was to be used somewhere, it was then!  No! No! No! This isn’t happening to me. I don’t want to be married now. No way! Mummmyyyyyyyyyyyyy! I didn’t remember sending any bio-data pictures to anybody. (To me, it is shocking people spend hundreds of rupees making their portfolio pictures just for marriage purpose. I find it too ridiculous). My mind began to wander so as to which picture of mine had Dadaji sent to the girl’s family. And like a solution to a stupid riddle, the answer was in front of me. Just a few days back, Dadaji had asked me to send me a few photographs to him. Cunning as I thought I was I sent him a few neatly clicked passport size photographs(smug, eh!! ;-)) But seems my Dadaji went one up. He sent those passport size photographs and more bizarrely, the Bagris liked me fine :O

Anyways, my mind was then working like Chacha Chaudhary so as to how I would evade going to Nokha on Sunday. And again, I solved the riddle just too quickly. It was simple. After the party tomorrow, I’d just say to him that it’s very late. There is no train at night from Jaipur to Nokha. The buses also won’t be available. Hence, I won’t be able to come. It was just too simple. I relaxed. There was no need to worry now.

Calm and confident, I moved towards my chair. And suddenly, the despo in me took over. Let us see the picture. What if she actually is the Amrita Rao kind of girl I had always dreamt of marrying. So I opened my mail account. Saw the mail from the nokha cyber café guy, opened the attachment, and all expectations came crashing down. No way! The picture was pathetically taken, even though in a studio. And the first thought was, she’ll look so fat with me. It ain’t happening! Closed the mailbox. Back to my own world.

Saturday, 19^th December, 2009:

This was a fun night. We had a party at Sheeshas. It was a very cool party. Almost all of our colleagues were there. A few of our seniors came too. The food was good. The hukka was also good. So were the drinks for those who had those (Yeah! I was a perfect teetotaler then). All in all, everything went according to the plan. After bidding good bye to all, Anshul and I were joined by Racy at around 11:30 p.m. Just to confirm, all three of us went to the bus stand that there was no bus going to Nokha or Bikaner after 11 p.m. I was happy. I called Dadaji at almost 12, which I would never do in normal circumstance. The conversation translated:

Me: Pranaam Dada. The party just got over. I tried the best I could, but there is no conveyance from Jaipur to Nokha at this time. No trains, no buses, nothing. I won’t be able to come. You please say sorry to them.

Dada: Hire a taxi. Reach Nokha before 2 p.m. anyhow!

Me: Ok!

To be continued……

Part 2 & Part 3

The List

 “The list…. is life!!” – Itzhak Stern to Oskar Schindler in the movie Schindlers’s List (1993)

I never knew that this line would come to be applied to me as crazily as it has done for the last two and a half years! And the fact that I followed it so religiously makes its even crazier! Incidentally Schindler’s List was the first movie I watched once this list business started. And to write about a journey of this magnitude is tough (almost like that of The Hobbit’s). But will still have to give it a shot!

It was just another day at the office for me at Jaipur. It had hardly been 3 months since my marriage (Haathon ki mehendi bhi nahi sookhi thi abhi ;-)). I was busy setting up my newly rented home those days. And in one of these mundane moments, Rahul asked me if I wanted to join in this list where they were marking all the IMDB Top 250 movies they had seen. And I don’t even recall whether Rahul had invited me to this craziness over phone or over chat. (Minakshi curses you a lot for this dude!!) But yup! He asked me to join in this and this was certainly an offer I couldn’t refuse!

The Weapons:

Weapons

I started watching this list on my 9 year old laptop. The configuration is mind boggling. An HP laptop with 256mb RAM and Celeron Processor. It could have been used just for watching movies and TV series or for making presentations. Some day I’m going to sell it as an antique. In the later part, I got a much respectable Compaq laptop with a decent configuration.

The Competitors:

The first competition was supposed to be between Rahul and Shruti so as to who would be the first to reach 50.(Rahul about to reach 250.. Shruti recently crossed 50!!) But once the race started, there was no looking back. For the first 100, the main competition was given by Abhishek. But after reaching that milestone, I had a long break. And then Rahul accelerated big time. He has been closing in all the time. But finally, I finished just ahead of him (22^nd February, 9:05 p.m.). The invitation and inspiration to reach here, certainly on you buddy!

The victorious moment!!!

Concept credits: SRT & Rahul

What started out as an attempt to watch some really great movies of all times, turned into a maniac obsession that had to be completed at all costs. Less sleep, endless whatsapp conversations discussing these very movies, Wikipedia understanding, updating the list, etc. Everything was part of the business.

The Movies:

The range, the depth and the diversity that has come across us while completing The List is unparalleled. We would certainly have lost a chance to see some masterpieces had it not been for The List. And though we had to overcome some really boring Japanese/Korean/Chinese animated movies (What the heck are those doing in The List anyways!), the good ones were just too good.

From the all popular cinematic miracles (The Godfather I & II, Shawshank Redemption, The Good The Bad and The Ugly) to the recent revelations (Inception, The Dark Knight Series, The King’s Speech, Black Swan, Shutter Island), from all time classics (Casablanca, Gone with the Wind,12 Angry Men) to the highly contemplated irregular movies (Citizen Kane, Dr. Stranglehold, Sunset Blvd), from the Charles Chaplin silent comedies (Modern Times, The Kid, City Lights) to the singing comedies (Singin’ in the Rain, Some Like It Hot), from The Star Wars’ series to The Lords of the Rings’ series, from some marvelous animation movies (Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, Toy Story series) to the heartwarming non-English movies (Life is Beautiful, Cinema Paradiso, Amelie), from shocking stories (Oldboy, Incendies, Memories of Murder) to just beautiful and happy James Stewart movies (It’s a Wonderful Life, Harvey, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), from movies based on true life stories (Gandhi, Downfall, In the Name of the Father, Schindler’s List, Amadeus) to some brilliant original screenplays (Memento, The Green Mile, No Country For Old Men), from good old gangster movies (Goodfellas, Scarface, Casino) to artists/sport star movies (The Artist, Wrestler, Warrior)  from movies based on the Vietnam war (Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Platoon) to relaxing romantic comedies (Annie Hall, Manhattan, Groundhog Day), from the weird and bizarrely made alien movies (Alien, Aliens, The Thing, District 9) to the majestically picturised movies (Life of Pi),  from Alfred Hitchcock mysteries (Rear Window, Psycho, Vertigo) to Paul Newman dramas (Hustler, The Sting ,Cool Hand Luke), from Quentin Tarantino’s fast paced thrillers (Reservoir Dogs, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained) to Clint Eastwood’s directorial magic (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino) and from the headless tail-less Monty Python comedies (The Holy Grail, Life of Brian) to the only two Bollywood movies making the cut (Taare Zameen Par & 3 Idiots(yeah, only Aamir Khan movies!)), every possible variety is included in The List. I might have missed some other diversity as it’s too long. But all in all, to watch all these movies was an exhilarating experience (well, certainly most of these!)

The final movie!! Stalker

                                                            

But at the end, a time came when I just couldn’t put myself to watch a movie at all. It’s similar to a punishment sequence shown in the movie A Clockwork Orange in which the protagonist is forced to listen to Beethoven’s music among other things. And then a time comes when he just cannot put himself to listening to Beethoven again. It sounds crazy, but now I understand it can surely happen. So the end was really tough. Anyways, I did complete it. And its an achievement even SRT doesn’t have (at least for now :P)!

And certainly, the hollow that remains now will be difficult to fill! So I have gone back to good old books again. Now may be the focus would also shift to composing more songs (Amen!)

Vote of Thanks:

Firstly, the vote of thanks would definitely be to the IMDB site makers. Had it not been for them, I would still have been watching FRIENDS again and again. Secondly, thank you is in order to the torrentz people, without whom I couldn’t have access to all these movies.

Turning to the human thanks, it definitely has to go to my dear friend Rahul Saraf for the invitation, inspiration and competition in this amazing quest. And even the writing of this blog has been inspired by him (not even half as good! But something is always better than nothing!)

And most importantly, a big thanks to my loving wife Minakshi. Thanks that you have such a peaceful sleep which is not disturbed by the constant khatar-patar of my dabba laptops. Thanks for letting me watch the movies in peace. I know a lot of people would be jealous of me today because I have you. I love you J J J (I promise a lot more songs would be composed for you only!!)

Statistics/Milestones/Rankings:

Top 3 movies:

1.       The Godfather

2.       Life is Beautiful

3.       Schindler’s List

Top 3 performances from actors:

1.       Marlon Brando in The Godfather

2.       Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

3.       Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs

Top 3 performances from actresses:

1.       Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs

2.       Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby

3.       Audrey Tautou in Amelie

Top 3 quotes:

1.       “Here’s looking at you kid!” – Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

2.       “I’ll make him an offer which he can’t refuse!” – Marlon Brando in The Godfather

3.       “I’m as mad as hell, and I can’t take this anymore!” – Peter Finch in Network

 The Milestones:

1.       100^th movie – Full Metal jacket

2.       200^th movie – Rain Man

3.       250^th movie – Stalker

Most Beautiful Actress (just had to put it here):

Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca, Notorious)

Movie requiring most sittings:

Das Boot

Most movies seen in a day:

6 (Six)

Worst/Most Boring 3 movies:

1.       8 ½

2.       2001: A Space Odyssey

3.       Stalker