Waqt - A waste!

Ok so I went to see a Hindi movie in the theatre. Yeah it wasn’t the first. No I didn’t like it. How would I know it was going to be so bad? Of course I had something better to do. Like what you say… like NOTHING! Or perhaps foraging around in some metaphorical haystack for a bloody metaphorical pin (OK needle if you insist). I went under peer pressure. What will you do at home anyways? Is someone coming over? You don’t like our company? All of which are purely rhetorical. Any answer to any of the above questions would have put me and my activities under severe scrutiny. Now I really wouldn’t want this to happen. No Siree! Not when at 23 I haven’t too many restrictions. Well all I did to fend these off was to open my mouth the first few times as of to say AH and then let it sort of drag into a UMMMNN… and the next few times to vehemently deny it with a strong NO, but well it went into the same effect. Then came the emotional blackmail. “You never come (Of course not! I don’t like the stuff)”, “You need to be more Indian (More Indian than what? I do pay all my taxes)” “Maybe you are afraid you won’t understand or not get any of the jokes. (OK this hurt me. I mean I have lived in Mumbai long enough to get most of the jokes). The bottom line is that I went.

There were five of us, my dearly beloved Mom, Sis, Uncle and Aunt and self. The ladies moved out in time to get the opening song sequence where as Uncle (S) and self lingered with our food and of course the Confederations cup match between Argentina and Tunisia. Twenty minutes into the game, about three phone calls (All with a similar theme “Where the heck are the both of you’ll) and consequentially three false reassurances later we left for the movie hall. We reached well in time for what was perhaps the 3rd or the 4th song sequence in that half hour of edited film. (Seems like they could have edited it a bit more and done away with a few song and dance sequence). Regrets aside, I endured that tree boogie and sundry other beating about the bush.

The thing with Hindi movies is that you can walk in at any time during the movie and within five minutes of dialogue pick up the story. They were fixing up the arranged marriage about the time I got in and when I awoke five minutes later to a well-placed and determined elbow, the son (Call him Ambitious A) had run away and got married to Pretty P (Yes she was the highlight of the movie). Well he brings her home and like the understanding parents Mr. Big B and wife Mrs. Salty S accepts her. A lives a carefree life and is doting father (who owns a toy factory) indulges him. S chides her husband for giving in to his every whim. The father-in-law Nutty N is always involved in some kind of one-uppism with B. Well B gives A a deadline to make a lakh of rupees. He Doesn’t meet the deadline so he is kicked out of the house. His lovely wife P tags along understanding the moral of the story that everyone has guessed by now. B is trying to bring A on track and is in nearing the final stages of cancer. (Clichéd!).

Upon waking up a little later to a smart, well-aimed rap to the back of my head (Oh yeah there was a comment to the effect “If you wanted to sleep you should have stayed at home!” HALLO!!) I found them in the middle of another dance sequence. As it was the festival of Holi, there was a rain dance in white clothes. (Standard fare for the lecherous public.) It was on a boat of sorts that was connected to land by streamers. (Yeah the boat. Yeah I was wondering too what the heck was going on) I took care of that by concentrating on the rain dance (the key words being rain, white and wet).
Then thankfully the intermission interrupted the movie and as the light came on, I was subject to a couple of cold looks (I told you I didn’t want to come… but no, nobody listens). After the well-deserved break was over and the movie resumed there was a complete switch in the sentiment portrayed. From the slapstick humour of the man-servant (who was probably the head man of the village ‘of’ idiots), it changed to an excessively maudlin episode. There were sniffles from almost all the 20 people sitting there (read as hopeless movie = no takers). As the rift between the Big B and Ambitious A is increasing, B is dying but is more adamant in reforming A. A is determined to make something of his life by winning a contest that will be his ticket to movie stardom.

Anyways by now if you aren’t thinking of leaving this post and going back to doing whatever it was you were doing I won’t feel offended. I completely understand.

The race is against A winning the competition to prove a point to his dad – B and against A staying alive to see his grandchild. In the true infallible ‘Hindi’ movie style all the 3 events converge unto the same hour.

At the end A is dying as he holds his grandson in his arms and his entire family is around him telling him to name the kid. I mean WHAT PRESSURE!! Poor old man is dying, and instead of giving him an oxygen mask and a drip all around him are like “Name your grandson! Name him!”
AAARRGGGHHHH!!
Goodbye O cruel and unrelenting world! Goodbye! Call him whatever the heck you want. You people just can’t let me even die in peace.

Waqt… A complete waste of!