It’s been a while eh? Well, still don’t know what to write about, so we shall ramble… this post can be skipped. I guess… or it might turn out alright… We don’t know yet. We should press click press/click enter and start typing about something in particular if we wish to find out what is to become of this post. So here goes…
So yesterday, I got one of those emails: 14 day trial offer!, from some online film rental site. Instead of ignoring it, the lack of excitement/energy/plans for the weekend made me click on it and made me sign up. It also made me create my rental queue (basically I went through lots of lists of movies, and searched some and selected them and saved that list). What I realised after saving this list was that
a. it was a very long list, and I was afraid they would start charging me.
b. most of them were either “classics” or “chick flicks”.
So I stared at the list and tried to clean it up, and shorten it to say 20 odd movies (I have 50 on it right now!). I am trying to reduce “mindless trash” or “sappy romantic shit”, named so by people around me who are forced to watch the “escapist” genre of films with me. It is not trash, its just “escapist in nature” and dreamy and makes you forget…
My love for Bollywood and movies categorised under ‘Romance’ is very well known. Well, I do love the movies like Fight Club, Snatch, The Godfather, etc but when I want to sit on my own and eat popcorn and ice-cream and not think, I watch Princess Diaries (it’s the princess complex), Bridget Jones’ Diary and graduate to Shakespeare in Love, Happenstance, Reality Bites, Before Sunrise & Sunset…… More importantly, I can say I have grown up on a staple diet of Bollywood (it’s apparently a genetic thing, I’m told my Grandfather watched a first-day-first-show every Friday!, come what may, or he would feel restless and ill and catch a movie over the weekend!). I love watching movies in the ‘cinema hall’ :) and love Paalika Bazaar! My all time favourite escapist movie would be DDLJ… another one Dil Toh Pagal Hai… Its just that I am a sucker for Romance and this is the first time realisation has struck!
We are all such suckers (for things that cannot happen). Such admirers of beauty, rags to riches stories, the Cinderella stories! We adore our celebrities or at least follow news about them (of course it’s not difficult at all, considering the media FEEDS us even their sizes and diets!). Even if you roll your eyes at Bollywood, and say it is expected from movies that are still musicals and shot in ice-capped mountains with the actresses wearing chiffon! We can take care of your doubts too! Let’s see, even Sex and the City? Where does that happen? You know, I know, we all know, there’s no Mr Big waiting to slide on the Manolo Blahnik on to our foot! If he runs from the wedding. He runs. And Pretty Woman! Will a millionaire who has a fear of heights ever climb up a fire escape to go get his one true love despite the fact that she’s a prostitute?!? Is pulling off a Sabrina possible? All in all, no matter how it started off, the practical wins over the romantic, in the relationship. Its quite saddening… for the movies never told me that! Hardly. They just talk about the wooing and the wine-ing and dining…
And so much so, it has turned me into a hopeless romantic who swore never to settle for mediocrity. I am so hopeless that I quote from Dream for an Insomniac and Before Sunrise and Before Sunset! I swoon when Ethan Hawke (in Reality Bites) says, “You have no idea what she needs”. I even get excited when SRK finds the ridiculous cowbell and says, “Main aa raha hoon, Simran!”. So, just like you and her and him, I too have fed myself this nonsense and made myself believe that mad passionate extraordinary love is possible and get-able. It’s totally unfair. These movies, books and sitcoms…! They really do turn you into a believer and then before you know it, you start expecting it. We all do. Aye aye sir!
Tell me the last time you were attracted to someone because you found out you were compatible. Or that you figured their habits would suit your lifestyle! That doesn’t happen. Nah. The things that make you fall are (just a few of the gazillion telling points…) -
- You can’t take your eyes off them.
- You go weak in knees and you giggle (if you’re a girl).
- You just know they’ll have the softest lips when you finally manage to kiss them.
- You just cannot believe the sparks or how amazing they smell…
- Or you forget about time, space and all that jazz when they are around.
But does this really happen? Or are we conditioned to make it happen? Do we hallucinate it all? Is it all their fault? Of course! They made us imagine all of it… Did they think we’ll be happy (I guess a little eh…!)? Peple are so hooked on to finding true love that shady/shoddy Reality dating game-shows are all the rage! GAH! There are enough love songs/ poems/ stories/ movies in this world to last us our lifetimes! And we keep on asking for more! Hoping and sighing and giggling and crying. It’s pathetic. When in the end, the sparks and the wow-ness disappears… Was it just lust? Well, at least it would all make sense then! ‘It’ would be the 7 year itch, now the 7 month itch or in some cases the 7 week itch! When all the ‘can’t keep your hands off each other’ and the ‘5 hour phone conversations’ slowly stops (well, you can’t keep on behaving that way forever! GAH! Why not?) and the ‘Do you want to plan something for the weekend?’-messages start being exchanged on Wednesdays! You know its the itch. Suddenly, you find each other’s ‘adorable’ quirks so annoying that you want to strangle each other. You need to “work” on spending time together. You don’t want to watch that match or that chick flick with him/her. And then you start - Arguing -> Fighting -> Sulking! -> Talking to your friends! The friends don’t know what to say… And you are left with the following options - Talk/ Discuss… Argue/ Fight… and WORK on a relationship that had seemed no less than perfect a few months ago. The butterflies are dead and are replaced with a gnawing… a gnawing so terrible it hurts. And you wonder where did the passion disappear? When did love become so difficult? And I blame the actors, the directors, the writers, the poets, etc. No one looks beautiful in the mornings! Morning breath is not nice. Nobody really willingly dies for love, or gets beaten up (its more the guy’s pride than his love for the girl).
Why couldn’t they just come out and say it - Men want sex. Women give sex. A lot of games are played to ensure this give and take. So enjoy. Go feel like shit. Go feel like a queen. Go feel like a slut. Go feel like a prude. etc. etc. etc. Just make sure you come. Hah! If people could just make lists and share them! If they could just tell the truth and get it over with, then precious time and effort and energy and money won’t be spent on winning love, then celebrating love and then mourning the lack of love. Oh how it starts so innocently, when you giggle and hope and pray that they will just look at you! The first Crush. The first time you hold hands. The first kiss. And then it becomes complicated. And what happens to us? Us with our talks and discussions. What to say, what to do, what to wear, what not to say. The Games. The Ego. The Pride. The this and the that.
Oh crap. I don’t know where I am going with this. All I wanted to do was order some movies! Well… Question: When did everything become so effing difficult!
