Brothers :D :D ## Part 1

Have you watched the movie, “Hare Rama, Hare Krishna” ?

I watch it in bits and pieces, every Rakshabandhan [they air it every year, as a rule!]; although the rest of it is pretty boring, I kinda like the brother-sister sequence.

Esp: the song “phoolon ka taaron ka, sabka kehna hai..”, which the young Devanand sings for his thumbsucking cute li’l sister (deprived of adequate love and attention from their forever quibbling, overly rich and cosmetically socialite parents *stereotypical I know!*)

… you can watch it here : http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQA8k7TlJg

And it is such a sweeeeet sequence- Oh you must watch it! Even the lyrics are so contextual, and so very sweet and touching. The portrayal of all the characters .. is quite natural, and strikes a chord.

Somehow, everytime I watch this song, I get swayed by the context, and end up shedding more than a few tears :O !

Li’l Jaspreet (who grows up to be Zeenat Amaan) and Prashant (Devanand) get separated at a tender age, following the divorce of their parents. Prashant is sort of better off, since he gets to live in the custody of his Mother- a decent woman. The father comes across as more frivolous, and ends up bringing a terribly indifferent stepmum for Jaspreet, who then falls into the trap of drugs and drug addicts, to beat her blues. Those were the days of the Hippie Movement, remember [grossly misnomered as “Hare Rama, Hare Krishna” movement]

*hence the Title of the movie btw:*

Then, when Prashant grows up, he vows to track down his sister, and bring her back into their family [meaning he and his mother]- only to discover, that she has renounced the sane world, and walked into oblivion with her gang of hippies, who find pseudo-solace from their lives’ woes, in drugs, smoke and in general degeneration of the mind and body.

Actually, the song “dum maaro dum, mit jaaye gum.. bolo subah sham, hare Krishna hare raam” is quite deeply meaningful. It captures the defeatist, escapist mentality of such youngsters belonging to the Hippie clan [this was a fad in that age] . Such disoriented youth, often, under the garb of “mindless devotion, selfless bhakti” – calling for renunciation of “Wordly issues” – go on a path of reckless self-destruction. All this, citing a “purposeful, higher” existence!

The lines that Devanand sings in this sequence, addressing this gang (to the latter’s chagrin, though) .. are quite thoughtful ..

“Dekho O deewanon, tum yeh kaam na karo,

Ram ka naam, badnaam na karo,

badnaam na karo…

Jeevan naam hai kaam ka,

Aaraam na karo,

Ram ka naam, badnaam na karo …”

:)

It is only towards the climax, that Jaspreet [who is now rechristened as “Jasmine” – I think!] discovers that this guy is her own long-lost brother!

And unable to take the pain of the reality, to bridge the gulf between the two worlds- hers and her brothers.. she commits suicide …

How she discovers his identity .. is quite a scene! When Prashant confronts her- by singing the same old song.. with really touching lyrics .. Uh, Pls lemme write those down too ! I loooooouu this bit :D

“hum tum dono toh hain,

Ek daali ke phool,

Main na bhoola,

Mujhko- tu kaise gayi bhool!” ….

Err… although, I wish Zeenat Amaan had acted better in this sequence … she almost undoes the magic created by Devanand, with her very superficially dramatic.. *accent* “pruh—shaant, merey bhaaai!” .. repeated ten miserable times. And very clinically :-/

Anyhow! My purpose was to celebrate the phenomenon called “Brothers” :D

Thank you, God, for creating such a wonderful breed!

And I want to document some little things about all these creatures in my life .. :)

I’ll pick my favorites though .. m not going for the extended family tree!

To begin with the youngest .. Om and Namo :D :D

Cutest, brightest little devils you will evvvver come across! [they do have real names though :) .. which I won’t share unnecessarily]

Powerhouses of energy, witticisms, cute antics, snappy, and yet innocent replies … that leave you with smiles and grins of amusement for ages! ..

Once, the elder one swallowed the handy-dandy screwdriver and calmly told the younger brother about it, and also his mum (who thought it was a silly joke)

Minutes later, she hears the younger one calling his dad in the office, to her HORROR..

“Umm.. Daddy, Bhaa-ya says he’s dyyyin’, and that I can take his Yo-yo cards.. Can I please do that?”

I rem. When the elder one was hardly an year old, (and I was kinda young too :( struggling to come to terms with the fact that my Masi *his mum* had to be shared with a new little creature now), we all met in Delhi for a brief period, n I threw a fit:

I wanted us to visit our favourite restaurant nearby ‘just like the old days’

Masi couldn’t take the li’l one along. And legally, she couldn’t leave him alone with our grandmum either. [he was tinny!!]

But, I pouted, senti-ed and she relented! [Shipra di kept throwing me deadly looks of contempt throughout, for my tantrums though :-/ ]

We came back home after 2 HOURS, to find the li’l thing near the door .. face stained with tears, voice hoarse with crying [“Mamaaa…” he leaped at her, the moment she entered] .. and hands full of pots and pans! … yeah! He had this fascination with pots and pans, for some strange reason :D

I was guilty, yeah :( but had still got what I wanted [yeah.. m no prize catch for an elder sis *sad look*]

A few years later, both the brothers – ages 4 and 6 I think … spent good two months with me! And boy, how I will always cherish those days!

I never knew I could handle kids .. and do it willingly! :) But they were a joy to be around. It started as a one-odd experiment: me helping the elder one to shower .. after an initial awkward look of plea at his mum to do the honours instead :P, he went ahead with the experiment. And we were done very soon. That was a real ice-breaking session :)

And all this while, the younger one – who is a tough nut to crack, and does not let every odd person in his domain, watched us .. to gauge whether I was the approvable material, to act the the mum-substitute at times :D …

The next day, Masi took a tentative shot “Om, would you want Shruti di, to help u out in the shower, or do u want me to do that?”

*I looked up, in anticipation, towards this 2 foot kid- who was a star in his own right, with all of us *

“Al go with deedee, it’s okay.”

*me and masi looked at each other eyes wide open* I was ecstatic.

And Proud! I must be a real good elder figure, to have obtained His approval!

And after that, the kids would get into the shower TOGETHER … my screams of “one by one ” notwithstanding!

It was a nightmare!.. They were quite a handful! While I handled one with the soap business, the other one would be merrily trying to climb into the huge water drum, ten times his size. My screams “what on earth are you doing?!!”, would be met with a calm, amused grin “I am jus’ tryin’ to get in!”

[oh, and to get them into the shower at nights was a project unto itself! They were HOOKED onto their playstations- since they had no other real friends or distractions out here.. and to get them unhooked for even a 15 minute shower, was a herculean task!

I tried everything: threats, pleas, emotional blackmails, will-tell-mummy, no-choco-milk tonight.. everything!! But they took AGES to relent. I think my moment of glory was the night I was really tired, n kept threatening to switch off their games if they did not pause those. Li’l one casually, to elder one ”hang on, bha-yya, she won’t switch it aawwwff! – 2 more min. deeedee”

Oh yeah?! You watch this kid!

I turned off the playstations- just when they were jumping about having beaten some stupid Ludo somebody, “without weapons” ..

*ha! Zapped/ silence*

Both sets of jaws dropped open.

*younger one: half-shocked, half-awestruck.. wide eyed*

“She actually SWITCHED it off…”

The elder one mumbles ..”I know!!” .

... and both meekly walk into the bathroom, to get the job done with!]

*and I was all grins and pats on my own back* :D

I must have never screamed at any kid that much. Never told off anybody that many times. Never cooked for anyone!!! But I did all of that for them!

How many times they must have tiptoed into my room, to ask…

“errrm.. shrooteee deedee, can I get some mur-khoo and Koh-shur Chai??” **

** murku = is a madrasi food item/ snack kinds.

“Kashur Chai” = a kind of black, milkless, falvoured Kashmiri Chai, better known as “kaava” – u might have heard/ seen in movies :D

“Can I get some Choco-mee?” [:D that was chocolate milk]

Reason why all such requests started being directed to me instead of their mum: I was really liberal with the amount of chocolate used, and Maggi served :P :P

Every morning, before I left for college, one of them would (instructed by masi) groggily but diligently wish me “Bhagwaanas Hawala” [in kashmiri, that means, “may you be safe in God’s hands” :) ]

I remember this really funny episode with the little one – who would throw unbelievable dramatic fits when being asked to sit down to study [“I am feeling giddy” “mamma.. my fingers won’t move”, “I am weak” , “I think I need choco-mee” :( :( ] … and all of this, tears streaming down his face, while I would melt in pity, and tell his mum- let go, how can u be so heartless.

She knew better. She would tell him COLDLY. I’ll wait for when you stop feeling giddy, just stay put :P ..

And eventually, he’d give in.

One day, after this entire session of tears, and forced lesson in counting till TWELVE, Masi left for the kitchen, asking him to work on spelling THIRTEEN to TWENTY.

And oohhh … that was a Kodak moment… he kept going … (eyeing his playstation helplessly) .. “Thirteen,.. Thirteen.. how do you spell thirteen” ..

*elder brother steps in, to help him cheat, when he catches my look of disapproval*

*li’l one.. gets off the couch and tip toes into the kitchen to his mum*

*meekly..*

“mamma, I can’t spell THUr-teeen”

‘why can’t you?’ *stern look*

“I dunnoooo …” *helpless tone*

‘You just spelt Tweleve. I’m sorry, figure it out urself.’

*sighing loudly, n dejectedly, tiptoeing back to our room, protesting loudly*

“Mamma, comeon!! Twelve was eee-zeee … Thur-teeen is tuuuuuuuufffff!”

I tell you, I haven’t seen anything more cute than that scene!!

…

His reaction to the news about my Chicken Pox was classic too :P

When Masi anxiously told him about it, he goes

“ha.. haaa.. haa !”

Masi: *no-messing-with-me look* ‘what’s funny about that? ’

*promptly getting the signal, n taking a 180 degree turn*

“Oh, you said chicken Pox! .. I heard something else! Mom.. that can’t be good, she’ll miss school!” :P :P

Oh .. there are lots and lots of real stories about this pair [which when performed live, have the real impact :D] .. but on this occasion of Rakhshabandhan, I am reminded of these two li’l episodes:

Once we had a verrrry naughty li’l kid over. UDDAND BALAK, really!

He was all over the place, and he was full of purposeless punches! [his idea of affection and fun- though it HURT!]

For some reason, he kept making me miserable throughout; I did not say much, and let it pass, with mild “NO’s”..

Then the elder one does something sweet, digs out his playstation and gives it to him to keep him busy. [mind u- they don’t let anyone come a mile near their playstations]

And he requests masi to step aside for a private conversation, and tells her, “that kid is hurting Shruti deedee. Mamma, you ask him to stop, else I’ll have to tell him off!” [:D :D, an 8 year old kid, this!! ]

And yeah …

Our first farewell moment. That year, When I went to see them off, it was a whole lot of memories !! This time, more with the kids than with masi.

I remember shedding silent tears, in dignity, without letting anyone notice, when the li’l boy waves across the glass screen, and signals me silently to wipe off the tears.

The same whining, complaining little boy who would give me hell with his holiday homework!

There he stood, about to walk away for another year.. n showing sparks of maturity..totallly unexpected from a kid his age and kind!

:)

Gawd ..i devoted a whole lot of space to these kids!! And I still think I have just scribbled a few random thoughts!! :)

Will do the others in the next post I guess!