The other day , Geeta and I were walking around the neighborhood- a very pretty place with lovely trees and flowering bushes and I noticed a strange black animal slowly crawling on the grass. It looked a bit like the Meerkat minus the long tail. It was black and large eyed and the size of small cat. So I stopped to stare. Geeta, who likes to keep a mile between her and any animal urged me to come on and I did so obediently. Later I learnt it was a skunk. The animal, if it takes a dislike to you, turns around , it’s butt facing you and squirts an awful juice at you that is supposed be such a stink that you can become a social outcast instantly! I was told that you need to take a bath in tomato ketchup to clean up and get the smell off your person!
There is a lot of wild deer and rabbits in the area. In India you would see a dead dog on the highways- here you see dead deer. There are road signs that indicate “Deer Crossing”- apparently the deer use the same route ! And I have seen deer grazing in specific locations of the town…
One of the fist things I did , on Geeta’s request, is to get a “Indian language TV channels” So we get Zee and Sony and a couple of others. One channel is dedicated to Murari Bapu! The Sony channel plays very old movies of the 70’s that would get a Hindi movie buff salivating! And , since we do not have much of a choice, I join Geeta to watch the stuff that passed for movies in those times. The recent one was an Amitabh movie. The cast included Sridevi, Vinod Mehra…Amitabh is , well, a Police Officer, who is being blackmailed by the villain , played by the famous Bengali actor ( the Villain in Amanush) whose name escapes me now ( can someone help me?***). Amitabh is running with the bad guys . The Police, Inspector Shafi Inamdar is on his tail. He reaches the crime scene always a little late- after the bad guys have scooted out. Shafi comes in to the crime scene , waving a baton menacingly with a serious look on his face, picks up the ash tray and the camera does a close up of the cigarette buts – cut to close up of Shafi chewing his lip. Now the Guarding of the Law knows which brand they smoked! When the crime rate ups the Police Commissioner gets involved. Cut to room with map of India and a Gandhi portrait on the wall- Iftekar in full regalia is seated at a table with a green top-looking a bit lost .. Later in the movie Amitabh surrenders , he has just mowed down some politicians with a submachine gun. and decides that it is time to turn himself in. Iftekar and Shafi are there to do the honors. Amitabh hands over the gun in the direction of Iftekar and iftekat turns to Shafi and commands him to take charge- Shafi accepts the gun while wrapping it with a large handkerchief to avoid adding his fingerprints to the gun! I was rolling on the carpet…
On my flight back to the US from Brussels in July . I was surfing the “Vintage Hindi hits” on the in-flight music system. RD has been a favorite composer but I have not been able to get an album of the “best“ of his songs so far. So Imagine my delight at seeing all my RD memorables listed!. My all time favorite : Ghar aaja ke ghir aye. . This is my most favorite Lata song ever. I die a little bit whenever I hear it- it is so wonderful!
It is from Chote Nawab – Pancham’s first movie. Lata does the introduction to the album and says that when she heard the first few lines of the song she knew RD had arrived and would go places. I listened to it repeatedly… The other songs are Chanda o chanda, Dil haye mera Dil, Yeh jo mohabbat hai, raina bheeti jaiye, Chingari koi Bhadke…I believe the album is titled Legends RD Burman. If you find it , rush it to me- please…
As I type this I hear a knocking sound at my window and, lo and behold , there is this beautiful squirrel standing up with it’s two front legs resting on the glass. He had a brief look at me and ran away. Talking of squirrels, last week , I was driving to a store with the significant half beside me when suddenly she says in Tamil, ” Turn back fellow !”. I looked at her incredulously and she says, “Not you, there was this squirrel coming our of the garden patch and had crawled up into the road ahead and as if he could hear me, turned back into the grass safely!”. Not all have a safe trip across the roads though. You find them plastered on the road – a squash of flesh and blood. A couple of days ago, when driving to work on the highway- a six lane road with a center wall of around 3 feet height in the median, I noticed a squirrel dart across the road and climb up the center wall. I do not know if he made it across to the other side but it got me thinking. What was it on the other side th...
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