Mujhe kuch kehna hai...

“Mujhe kuch kehna hai. Kaise kahu ?” that one line by Pallavi Joshi created an unprecedented surge of curiosity. What was she talking about ? ‘Whisper’, the name itself oozed a sense of mystery. With all the knowledge I had until then I concluded that - ' Boys could pee anywhere in the open. What about the girls ?' It must have been an extension of the baby diapers.

Few years later as one pretty girl on TV was about to set on a train journey, her bhabhi came to hand over a pack of sanitary napkins. Now trains had restrooms. The mystery grew deeper. And the peeing theory which I had come to believe so strongly had to be thrown out of the window. One day I found the answers. The ‘body column’ of the ‘Woman’s Era’ magazine cleared the mystery. It was the only source of sex education in those tough times.

Why didn’t we hear about all this before Pallavi Joshi opened the Pandora's box. Our society has a way of keeping things under wraps with secret codes of all kinds. I choose not to reveal any of them for fear of copyright violation. From ‘Kaise kahun’ to ‘Fly high with Ultra Wings’ it’s an indication of the change our society has seen.

In the mid 80’s this song was a rage, “Hum tum dono jab mil jaayenge. Ek naya itihaas rachaayenge”. My Hindi was all the bits and pieces I had picked up from the Hindi movies I had seen. I used to wonder why were these 2 guys going to this never before heard place called Jabmil and how would they create history !

We all have these mis-pronounced words when we are young.

While playing – 'templease' for ‘time please’ with the spit on the palm mandatory for the ‘time please’ to be valid. 'Hide n sick' for 'Hide and seek'.

‘Two two zaa four’ for ‘Two twos are four’

'Ambyasatter' for 'Ambassador'.

'Kinner' for the truck 'cleaner'.

And a brilliant idea struck me as I watched a balloon in the sky.

Just fly high in a big balloon or something. Hang in there while the earth rotates. And when you are above your destination just drop down.

Gravity betrayed me.

On an entirely different note, I liked to believe that all beautiful heroines from movies did not shit. They were too beautiful to get dirty. And I thought I was abnormal to like the rape scenes when I was supposed to detest them. Heavily influenced by the smuggler-police movies of those days I wanted to grow up to become a police inspector. ‘Engineer’ meant just building houses and I remember telling my grandma that I would build a house for her when I became one.

I also told everyone that my brother could run faster than a Maruti-800 car and I believed it too !

P.S. - I was tagged by Madhavi. Check out her post on the same topic.