Chez Moi

‘Mr.Chandramouli! Mr.Chandramouli!!’
To me, and possibly many others, this is the first thing that comes to mind, when we think of the movie Mouna Ragam. That name and Karthik’s actions are embedded in my mind and are totally unforgettable. Arguably, one of Mani Ratnam’s best efforts, Mouna Ragam is a classic example of Mani’s work, a simple tale, well told. The lead actors do a fantastic job of it (I never thought I’d say this about po-faced Mohan) and it is, in my opinion, one of the best movies of my generation.

Revathy is a regular, young middle-class who’s quite content to maintain the status quo of her life. But when her parents decide to get her married off to someone they deem as a ‘good boy’, she rebels by staying out all evening on the day the ‘boy’s visiting her house to ’see’ her. After a spot of singing and dancing in the rain, she finally saunters in quite late, full of glee of having outwitted her parents. She gets the shock of her life when she finds the ‘boy’, Mohan, still sitting there, patiently awaiting her arrival.

Furious with herself, she decides to go for broke and confesses to Mohan her aversion to the whole arranged set-up, even passing some disparaging comments about herself to help him along. When he hears the same words he was rehearsing, Mohan changes his mind and his feeling about arranged marriage and agrees to marry her. Off they go to Delhi, a stone-faced Revathy determined to get away from her marriage as soon as possible. She shuns Mohan and his attempts to get to know her. To celebrate their first month together, he buys her some beautiful anklets. But she prefers an annulment and off they go to a lawyer to start the proceedings. The shocked lawyer tells them that they have to give their marriage a shot at least for a year before the courts can call it off.

Thus starts Revathy’s sentence - or so she thinks. When asked why she hates him so, she tells Mohan of the boy she loved. The happy-go-lucky, rowdy Karthik, with a zest for life and a hair trigger temper, which frequently results in local fights and altercations with the police. But slowly and surely, the love of a good woman decides his fate for him and he makes his mind to turn over a new life. Knowing her parents would not allow their union, Revathy and Karthik decide to get married in secret. As she’s waiting in front of the Registrar’s office, Karthik runs up the steps later than he promised - but is shot dead by mistake, by the police.

When it becomes clear to Mohan that it is the ghost of a past boyfriend that is standing in between them, he decides to step back and lets his wife have her head. They lead separate lives within the four walls of their house, counting the days till the year runs out and they can be legally separated. But slowly, Revathy starts to understand her husband and unbeknown to her, falls in love with him, little by little. How they sort their feelings for each other and end up together is a story beautifully woven by the director.

There are some really funny bits in the movie. Revathy’s attempts to teach her Punjabi neighbour Tamil is one of the most hilarious and memorable funny scenes from the annals of Tamil cinema. Showing her impish, naughty side, Revathy teaches her poor neighbour what he assumes to be polite words to impress his Tamil boss. When the boss visits the Sardar and says ‘namaste, he is told poda dai, much to his amazement. He is then not-too-politely to sit down (okkaru da somberi). The eagerness on the Sardar’s face as he utters the words, imagining him to be the epitome of hospitality, made me nearly wet myself in glee, the first time I saw the film.

The music for the movie is by none other than the Maestro himself, Ilaiyaraja. It has been so long since I actually listened to the songs but I still remember the tunes of every single one of them. My favourite of all of them is the slow Manram Vandha, where the haunting quality of the music seems somehow echoed in the movement of the car, as Mohan and Revathy drive on. The melodious Nilave Vaa is another good number, sung beautifully by SPB. All the songs in the movie are hummable and even after more than a decade; I can still remember the words and the tunes of the songs. You cannot ask for more, can you?

This is Karthik’s best performance ever, I think. Under Mani’s skilful guidance, he curbs his tendency to overact and turns out a beautiful rendition of a rowdyish young man, who turns over a new leaf willy-nilly after falling in love. Revathy, as always, plays her role to perfection. She is such a fantastic artiste, with the most expressive eyes and one immediately empathises with her, first with her aversion to the arranged marriage, then her feelings for the boy she loved and lost, her initial anti feelings towards the husband foisted on her, her impish nature as she teaches her neighbour Tamil and finally, the growing love in her, for the man she married. A superb portrayal by a consummate actress. Mohan has never been a favourite of mine - I never felt this was a man who could act but this once, he proved me wrong by playing the role of a patient husband beautifully.

The movie tackles a subject that, funnily enough, still holds our culture and society in sway - that of arranged vs. love marriages. In a deeper level, the movie also deals with the difficulties involved in sustaining any relationship and the gentle strands of love that slowly bind people together; even without them realising it. It is an utterly romantic story and Mani has told it superbly. A must-see movie for any good movie buff.

The sun shone brightly in the blue, cloudless sky. Birds were twittering, there was a slight breeze that cooled our brows and it was lushly green as far as our eyes could see. As I stood next to the lapping water, I so wished I could just lay down here, for ever and never be taken away from this beautiful vista surrounding me.

I was at Hever Castle, in Kent, England, childhood home of Anne Boleyn, the mother of Queen Elizabeth I. I can honestly say that it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in. Whichever direction I turned, there were picture postcard perfect scenes. Tall, shadowy trees, stood whispering through the skies. Despite the screaming children and the milling families, there was a sense of calm and serenity in the air.

The castle started its life as an ordinary farmhouse in 1270 AD. When its owner, Geoffrey Bullen (Anne’s great grandfather), was made the Lord Mayor of London, the house was upgraded to a manor house, as befitted a Lord Mayor. From 1505, the castle was the home of Sir Thomas Boleyn, the 1st Earl of Wiltshire and 1st Earl of Ormonde and Anne’s father. Though it is unclear if Anne was born here, there are loads of references to suggest that Anne, along with her siblings Mary and George, spent her childhood years here. Upon her death, the castle became the property of her husband, King Henry VIII, who gave it to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, as a part of her divorce settlement.

Tudor Village
The castle then changed hands a few times, fell into disrepair and was finally bought by the rich American family of William Waldorf Astor. When Astor moved to England, he bought the dilapidated castle and upgraded it to an extremely high standard. He constructed the famous “Tudor Village” to accommodate guests and built the gardens and the lake.

The current owners bought the castle in 1983 and opened it up to the general public. There are some magnificient 16th century portraits on display, as well as Anne Boleyn’s prayer books and some scenes from her life. The main draw, however, are the splendid gardens. Astor expanded the existing garden to include the Italian Garden, to house his collection of Italian sculptures. There is also a beautiful Rose Garden, touted to house more than 3,000 plants. Astor also got the lake constructed, which took 748 labourers to dig and two whole years before it was ready. The latest owners are credited with the Millennium Fountain and the hugely popular Water Maze.

Water Maze
Situated around 30 miles from London, this is a local favourite. On a clear sunny day, it makes for a fantastic picnic spot. With acres of flowers, boating facilities on the lake and three mazes, the castle offers something for every member of the family. Entrance is priced at a modest £10.40 and is well worth every penny.

Fellow blogger and one of my oldest mates, apu tagged me on this. And she says we have good ole Ams to thank for it. As it is a tag, I’d like to tag my fellow fem bloggers - Suj, Dee, Premalatha as well as my fellow mommy bloggers - Mad Momma and Tharini, as well as Kishore to take the baton from me.

Right, now let’s get started. What is feminism, exactly? According to the dictionary, feminism is the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. Feminism in an Indian (or desi) context is a wierd thing. It is like Antartica - everyone knows what it is but no one wants to go there. To most, life goes on as it always had, as if feminism never existed.

Like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I realised what feminism truly is and that I am a feminist only after I started blogging actively. Till then, I was going along with the Antartic effect. Having been brought up to be fiercely independent, I did not question my right to do things my way. I always thought that that was mostly thanks to my folks’ outlook towards most things concerning self and sibling. But I realise now, it is thanks to them being feminists (in their own setting) that they could go with the choices they made, which in turn made it easy for me to go with my choices, my way.

But to many, this is not the case. I have heard of many, many cases where the girls were so ‘protected’ that many had hardly ventured into the Big Bad World on their own. S frequently jokes that I had a lot more freedom growing up than he did!

In that sense, I feel feminism is linked to your basic freedom as a child. If you, as a girl, are raised as an equal to your male siblings, then you (and your siblings) will grow up to think the same way. If, on the other hand, you are told right from the time you were a child that you must defer to your male siblings or that they come first, then chances of both sexes retaining this and forming a template to their lives, is very high.

So, what has feminism given me. Well, it has given me the right to be me. I can be my own person and not be defined as someone’s child or wife or sibling or mother. I can be my own person, in my own right, charting my life the way I want. It lets me be what I want to be. Heck, it gives me the right to make that choice. It puts me in the driving seat of my life.

This basic right is denied loads of women across the country. For them, the alpha male has to make the decision - should they work full-time, do they stay at home,
can they do this or should they do that. Every time a woman is unable to act independently, she is denied the right to freedom.

In my opinion, feminism is synonymous with freedom. And for feminism to truly flourish in a desi setting, it is imperative for not just the women, but the men to become feminists as well.

Read Ams’ and Apu’s view points.

????? ?????, ????? ?????.

???? ???? ???? ?????? ?????? ??????, ?????? ????????? ?????????????. ????????, ?????????????, ???????? ??????? ???? ???????????? ?????? ???????????????.

??????

????, ????? ?????? ?????????. ?????, ????? ??????? ???, ??? ??????? ????????. ?? ??????? ??????? ????????????, ???????

????-??.

There is a rather unfortunate habit amongst us expats to view some things (or most, depending on one’s perspective) with the rather jaundiced viewpoint of ‘oh are they ill-treating me because I am an Indian / non-white?’ Whilst I am not a card-carrying member of this group, I will definitely put my hand up and admit that there have been a few occasions when I have asked myself that. More often than not, the offending situation would resolve itself to make me rethink my views. But some times, certain situations pan out in a certain way that more or less cements my belief that no matter how ‘accepting’ or ‘open’ a society prides itself to be, the reality is often a totally different concept. Last Saturday, something happened to reinforce my thinking and I would be greatly interested to see which way the readers of this post align themselves.

The past couple of weeks, I had been harbouring a hankering for a good margarita. S also kept hinting at the long overdue meet we were planning with a good (fellow Indian) mate of his from work and his wife. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I suggested we head for Chilies Restaurant and Bar at Basildon, which was local enough for all of us and which, more importantly, served some amazing cocktails. Plans were made and on ringing the venue, we were told that as long as we were in a group of less than eight members, we would be given a table with minimum fuss and delay. We got one within thirty minutes and I counted ourselves lucky as I recalled a past visit when we visited for a record two hours and forty-five minutes for a table for four (P was two years old then)!

We sat at our table, chatting and managed to come to a reasonably quick decision regarding the menu – made easy by the fact that three of us were vegetarian and we had just two or three mind-bending choices to make. Then we waited.
We talked about our families, which part of the country each of us were from, the languages we each spoke, our colleges, the different cities we each had lived, how we were finding living in the UK and my blogging. Still no sign of a waiter / maitre’d. And we waited.

P was getting impatient and quite a bit peckish. His enthusiasm with the kiddies pack had exhausted itself by now and he had made up his mind about what he wanted to eat. But still, there was no sign of a soul.

The restaurant was full and all around us, the staff were running around taking orders, bringing in the food, generally making sure the people were getting fed. But no one seemed to be paying us a blind bit of notice.

After waiting patiently, we decided enough was enough and we flagged one of the girls down. Who took our orders and we specified that we preferred the drinks, starters and P’s order to come in first. So it did – well, almost. One starter and P’s mains arrived together and we started tucking in, mentally imagining the beautiful pitcher of margarita.

But there was no sign of the ambrosia and we had finished devouring the garlic bread. We were desperately thirsty now and P was beginning to chant for his OJ. Another frantic hand waving resulted in a supremely uninterested girl plonking some side plates and cutlery in the middle of the table and vanishing into thin air the next minute.

This was the first time any of us had been to a proper restaurant and ended up doing part of the staff’s job ourselves. Joints like Nando’s pride themselves on their casual approach but as other patrons had had the luxury of the staff setting the table for them, we had assumed, foolishly, the same would be available to us too.

After a colossal thirty minutes, when we saw our neighbours finish their meal and exit the restaurant, we got our drinks – a pitcher of margarita, with some beer glasses. We first thought they had made a mistake. When we pointed out the fact that we were missing cocktail glasses, the girl who brought our drinks coolly explained they had run out of glasses and we had to make do.

By now, we were getting a few degrees ahead of peeved but still were determined to have a good time. So, we gamely drank our delightful margaritas out of beer glasses, imagining the salted rims and the still-absent tostada chips. Some time later, our pitcher was nearing empty, P had finished his dinner and the garlic bread was a distant memory. There was still no sign of our food – the remaining starter or our main courses.

Deciding enough was enough, we asked for a passing waitress if we could speak to the manager. The manager materialised in a few minutes, with the standard ‘hope you are having a good time’. She did not seem too shocked by our ‘no, not really.’ After complaining for a few minutes, our friend finished semi-jovially, ‘I hope you are not making us wait for our food ‘cos we are Indians’.

To which she replied: ‘No, I don’t think so.’

I was gaping at that. Having got used to a PC Britain, where at least in public people put on a politically correct mask, this nonchalance was surprising, to say the very least. The slight matter of a few patrons waiting for their food and of cocktails served in beer glasses didn’t seem to matter much and after some half-hearted platitudes, she went away to investigate. She came back, with our main courses and useless starter, and a laughable explanation of why we had been sitting there for the better part of an hour, twiddling our thumbs. The kind lady, who was ‘in charge’ of our table, was having a bad day and it was all getting a bit too much for her. Enjoy your meal now that you’ve got it.

I could not bite my tongue any more and reamed into her at the disgusting treatment meted out to us. Not once did we get a heartfelt apology or horror at having some seriously irate patrons, complaining away about every single thing.

We ate our food then in silence, most of it turning to ash in our mouths. A promising evening ruined and I couldn’t even enjoy my margarita. That was when a lady we had never seen before put in an appearance. She bustled in, full of apologies and we assured her everything was okay, all the time wondering who the heck she was. She explained that she was so busy that she was unable to pay any attention to us and she felt so close to tears to know how awful we felt.

WTF? This was not the girl who took our orders. Not unless she aged a good decade in the time since we saw her last. This was definitely the lady who was serving our neighbours and now was apologising profusely. This farce was getting ridiculous and after placating the woman we tried to carry on with our food. A few minutes later, the lady materialised one more time, armed with a scoop of ice cream for P, who gobbled it all up.

The bill, I must say, arrived without any delay and we found our delightful experience was not cheap by half. Though I wasn’t betting on it, I had thought that the management would have had the courtesy to deduct some bit off our bill, as a goodwill gesture. Well, it was obvious that goodwill was in short supply that night, especially when we were at the receiving end of it.

The only thrill we got was walking off without tipping them for treating us so nicely and making the evening a memorable one.

To think I told a friend last week that Chilies was my favourite restaurant in Britain. How things can change in the span of a few days! I think the joint should do what I suggested and put up a big board stating in no uncertain terms that folks of our sort were not welcome to partake food there. Do not start being a hypocrite at this late hour, Chilies and stick to your guns like you did last Saturday night and display the same nonchalant spirit in showing everyone what you stand for. At least this way, your august establishments will not be soiled and your staff, needlessly overworked.