Tuesday, December 23, 2008 

i love this ad.


dostana is a bollywood rendition of "i now pronounce you chuck and larry"... and "toast khana" is a clever ad... :) so cute :)

Tuesday, December 23, 2008 | |

 

the myopic worldview of bandra.

"bandra" is the part of bombay where all the cool kids live. literally.
it is actually the place where 99% of bollywood celebs, media types and socialites dwell... and for these individuals, bandra is the beginning and the end of bombay. they are the types of people who try to tell me things like poverty hardly exists in india today and who yell at me if i mention the fact that actually, the number of nepali girls trafficked every year to india is increasing, not decreasing. the people in bandra are comfortable. think "gated american community".
don't get me wrong, as myopic as it is, i do love bandra. i do.

the other day i was hanging at a coffee shop looking out into the sea (but not getting too close, because i promise that water is toxic) and really loving the bandra life. laptop, americano, sea... what more can a girl desire? wi-fi, damn it, a girl wants wi-fi. the city, and most of india for that matter, has cut off the wi-fi connections as a heightened security measure because of the terrorist attacks.

"you go to mr. khan's house... and then you turn right," the barista said when i asked where i could find a net cafe.
"mr....?" (obviously i knew he must be referring to a bollywood actor, but i was a bit caught off guard)
"mr. salman khan's house... go there, then turn right - you will find an internet cafe there."
"i don't actually know where salman khan's house is..."
"okay, but madam you just go to mr. salman sir's house and there is a net cafe near to there. simple."

in case you need to find his house, i now know that he supposedly has a huge, pimped out camper parked outside... and according to google images, the building looks something like the picture to the left.

i told a bandra boy to meet me at juhu beach the other day (yes, also outside of bandra, but still hip enough because this is the beach and a place with a lot of 5 star hotels). the boy was running on "indian stretchable time" (meaning, he was late) but unfortunately for him, when it comes to boys, i don't do late.  i follow strict advice of a dear german friend of mine - "a boy should never keep a girl or soup waiting...because they both get cold." after 45 minutes of waiting, even the bombay temperature couldn't warm up this frigid girl.

next to bandra is another pretty hip area called andheri. during no traffic it takes a total of 15 minutes to drive from the beaches of bandra to andheri. andheri is the home of yari road and yari road is the home of all those individuals who are trying to "make it" in the industry. actors, models, lyricists, directors, agents, you name it.... if they aren't someone but want to be, they probably live near or on yari road.  this is the road that inspired me to write a column about the daft experiences of the "yari road strugglers".  i haven't done it, but the idea's a good one.  trust me. 

after i had had enough of waiting for the boy, i left juhu and went to a friend's house in andheri. the late boy called in a frantic state of mind wondering why on earth i had left because he was "only" 45 minutes late... ill do anything." for a boy from bandra, this means driving beyond bandra, past juhu, and all the way into very foreign world of andheri. be in only 15 minutes away, for the average boy from bandra to go to andheri is like an east texan going to timor leste for any other reason but proselytising.

and he did, what for him, constituted as the wild escapades of "anything"; he came all the way to andheri.  

reluctantly, i agreed to meet the boy... i mean, he did make all that effort to come out of his comfort zone and while for a restless soul like me this seemed almost absurd, i knew it was actually a big deal for this bandra boy. funny thing is, in the two hours i spent with him he called 4 of his friends who reside in andheri to tell him he had emerged from his world and was present on their turf. "i'm in andheri!!!" each exclamation elicited a response of shock from his andheri friends who know just how hard it is for the bandra-ites to step outside of bandra. the boy even confessed; it was the first time in two years he had come to andheri.

"why would i come to andheri? everything is in bandra! the good clubs, good pubs, the beach... everything."
"how about just to expand your worldview?" i question.
"oh come on...."

i think he said that because bandra people think they already understand the world...because it revolves around bandra.

the same boy took me to a very hi-so party filled with bandra-types on a different night. it was a rather intimate affair in a rented room of an already expensive, exclusive club where the Very Very VIPs could sit behind a glass wall and be better than the ordinary VIPs of the club. So, from behind the glass partition separating the cool from the even cooler Mumbaikars, my friend casually pointed to the various guests and whispered in my ear, "He is related to the richest guy in India..." or "He is the most famous......." and things of that nature.  when i asked the friend who brought me if we could leave the glass room and go dance on the normal dance floor he said, "why?  that's for the 'normal' people."  

i guess he didn't realise he was with a girl who much prefers chappal to heals and who never wears socks.

I'm a bit of a sociologist at times, so I just sat back and observed the interactions of people. My curious glances caused the host, India's most famous something or another, to hone right in on me. I know what you are thinking. "Emma, he was hitting on you." But, no, really, he wasn't. If there is one thing I know in life, it is when a guy is hitting on me.

"I really never talk to new people," he started out. I am sure he was telling the truth, too. People from his ilk are usually too cool to approach others...

"But, for some reason in this room... I notice that you are the only person here who is above all this shit."

I took that to mean he thought I was arrogant, because every now and again people mistake me for such.

"No, no, not arrogant. What I mean is... well, this is all a facade, " he waved his hand out to his guests, "this bullshit life. It's all fake... but there are only two people in this room who know it. One is me and one is you."
I didn't say much.

"You see, the thing i know already, is that these people only like me because I am ______. They like me because of that and because I have money... and the minute that being ______ means nothing and the minute that I don't have any money... every one of these people will disappear. Right now, they all stay so close to me, but if I was nobody, then none of them would be anywhere near me.... So you see, none of it's real."

I had just got done telling the boy who brought me that he should stop referring to these people as friends and that he should start referring to them as acquaintances because a friend is someone who is genuinely in your life... not just someone you socialise with.

I think the host was half right. I did know it was all a facade and so did he... but the reality is, I think that deep, down inside, every person in that room of Bandra who's who knows that its all fake. But it's funny... it's funny how our hearts know the difference between what is fake and what is real, but we still continue to forcibly consume the fake, just hoping that it will somehow transpire into what is real.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008 | |

Friday, December 12, 2008 

this is my friend shin.  i have talked about him before... but in case you don't remember, he is the coolest north korean refugee ever... and my mother sent me this article from the washington post today that talks about my boy, shin. i miss you, friend.  you've touched my life so much more than you could ever imagine. 

Friday, December 12, 2008 | |

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 

promotional tears?

apparently, this is shah rukh khan "crying" for the victims of 26/11 in bombay. what's with that cigarette? people say shah rukh has a man on set whose sole job is to make sure he always has a cigarette when he needs one...talk about addiction... anyway, mr. khan didn't "feel right" about promoting his new movie in light of the situation... but somehow his tears and his feelings towards not promoting the movie landed on the homepage of msn india. "I can't tell people it will get you out of your sadness, but I can assure you that the two hours and 20 minutes is going to be great fun," khan says... hmm.. nope, that doesn't sound like promotion at all. rab ne bana di jodi (a match made in heaven) is releasing dec 12...

Tuesday, December 09, 2008 | |

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