After a prolonged hiatus, I’m back to blogging. My excuse for the benefit of my (all-of-two) readers: a grey, prosaic life that did not merit space on the www. The monotony of work life has been relieved only by a series of indistinguishable coffee dos, lunches, movies and such like, as well as the very welcome addition of my new housemate, “Ms Germany”, as I have fondly come to address her. Here, I would like to insert, that Ms Germany (first name: Verena, last name: unpronounceable and, perhaps, better left avoided in publicly-accessible space) has proffered on me the distinguished title of ‘India Life Manager’.
However, Ms G was not the muse who has reinitiated me into the fine art of blogging. Today, my dull life was unsuspectedly injected with a dose of colour and frivolity, thanks to having watched the latest off-Bollywood flick, Bride & Prejudice. Beautiful people, do-die-for bodies: in my decidedly objective opinion those were the only two redemptive features of this film that seemed keen on parodying itself. A wooden script remained dead thanks to the high-school actor dialogue delivery of the plastic Aishwarya and the unenticing, vanilla performance of her co-star whose name I don’t want to bother myself with. Sure, Mr Whoever may have looked like a distant cousin of Tom Cruise, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he had the audience in splits every time he attempted to say anything remotely serious. As the movie wore on, Ash simply got more annoying with her defensive hey-I’ve-got-a-brain demeanour and her unfettered love for her mother land. Without a doubt, her clipped Brit accent, with traces of American thrown in, fit her thorough-bred guddiya-from-Amritsar persona to the T. But, all that would have been digestible had she not got into Ms Nightingale mode ever so often, prancing in Beverly Hills in a see-through chiffon saree, her playback voice singing high-pitched English songs, the clipped British giving way to a lilting desi-ism.
Whoa, I just realise that I sound like I haven’t recovered from the fact that my first-ever crush at age 12 worshipped the ground that Ash walked on. Maybe the movie has evoked spectres from the past… reawakened the embers of unrequited love and so forth. Maybe if you leave your mind behind at home, swallow your irritation with Ash’s plastered, pouty smile, are willing to be bhangra-d out and have no alternative diversion for two hours on a weekday morning, you should catch Bride & Prejudice.