Mumbai Locals anyone??

7:57 ST, 7:43 PL

first three compartment ladies or a whole Ladies special

Overflowing locals

Little kids reaching handles

Jalad local

Dheemi local

Check-your-weight-for-5-bucks machines

Handicapped compartment with silent movies

Fragrant fisher women

Hurried home-work completion

Huge lugguage compartments

Windows show sketchy apartments

Stylish women with laptops

Bollywood music or hiphop

Innocent hands with comics

Sales calls on naive lips

Glaring women with stepped-on sarees

Lone policeman for scenes with scaries

Incredibly incomprehensible announcements for incredibly fast trains

Almost-everything-sells-here agents for harbour-line slow trains

Work-from-home-starting-salary-15000! ads

Diversified jaats in Matrimonial ads

Sleepy heads on compartment walls

Sale hangars with smiley balls

Departure enquiry from fellow companion

Reserving seats to avoid exhaustion

Artificial jewelery that comes cheap

Soggy palak that lies in a heap

Women busy with crochet or knitting

Others fighting or teeth gritting

Medical students with fat books

Engineering students with math looks!

Teenage girls with high-pitched chatter

Quiet aunties who've felt better

Later hours are not so loud

Dying down with thinning crowds

Empty trains with lights shut-out

Last run for its night-out

The assault on my senses

Yes, lately, my senses have been bruised and battered. The visual ones will be dead if I continue taking the assault any more.

It may sound funny when you hear it, but the daily Hindi soaps inflict this torture on me everyday (and I allow it to!).

I felt a new generation of soaps was coming up which would create awareness among the people about social issues. I was hopeful. But I was wrong. One such hope was the story of a slum child whose life was others’ leftovers. The story started well. But bloody went on the same track that others had so successfully used to glue unsuspecting housewives (no offence meant). The protagonist – the slum child – has a best friend – a rich kid – who longs for a friend. They both grow up continuing to be (supposedly) best friends.

The storywriter (I dunno who does this, I’m just giving a name) at this point I feel was completely out of his creativity (or maybe came under some other pressure). This I say because after bravely exploring the little nuances of a friendship so strange yet so true, the age-old formula of a love triangle (of all the things!) is used. And that too with the help of such feeble characters, that I can’t help but feel disgusted at their acting and dialog delivery. The protagonist of all the people lisps so heavily that I fail to suppress the irritation I feel when I hear it. That can still be ignored, if the behavior of the character was not a transverse wave with such deep crests and troughs. Sometimes, the character is so silent, that she can gulp all insult, humiliation and anger. And sometimes, she is so hyper and melodramatic (not to forget the stammering) that I feel like throwing a flowerpot at her! I don’t understand why all the death scenes need to have one hyper-ventilating female screeching at the top of her fricking voice! It’s just so unnatural; I mean you just can’t use the excuse that ‘this serial does not in any way depict real life people’. Also each expression is lengthened to 100 times the time it takes to actually show it. And the three-time-turning-of-the-head is a standing joke among my friends and family :D (well, they don’t do it so often now, but it just doesn’t feel complete without mentioning it :P )

I feel it was the serial maker’s strategy to stretch the episode to a full 30 mins, oh wait, let me rephrase, 25 mins. Because the remaining 5 mins (just a guess) are given to ads. Still, the actual story advances in a record 20 mins :P Because 5 more mins are used in the characters advancing in slow-mo and giving each other cold looks. J

Its amazing how after having so many complaints about these serials I manage to tolerate an episode. I think it’s the fun I get from evaluating and analyzing and sometimes ridiculing these stories that I enjoy. I feel, like the yin and yang, there are two types of soaps. First– the inspiring and feel-good types and second – the pathetically-scripted-so-stretched-that-a-rubber-band-would-be-ashamed types. Balance I guess. :D

Anyway, as they say:

All descriptions used in this post are fictional. Any resemblance to serials pathetic or good is purely coincidental. J

Goa in a few words...

happy

colorful

cheerful

vibrant

energetic

laser lights

fireworks

chilled-out

laid-back

coconut trees

sparkling waters

round pebbles

rocky beaches

sandy beaches

clear waters

shopping

firangs more than indians ;)

bike rides

cab rides

parties

Curlies

Artjuna cafe

hammocks

prawns vindaloo

spicy chicken curry

chai in tall glass

beans

banana pancakes

music

cancelled trains

busy buses