Back to normal

They came back a few days ago, my lads did, and the homestead is back to its usual decibel levels. In our little home, we do not take something as said unless it is spoken loud enough to melt earwax. The honorable exception is Sheela who finds it impossible to speak louder than a butterfly's sneeze. But her rank (commander-in-chief) ensures that she gets complete attention and she gets by.

The lads were feeling a bit blue when they got back, primarily because it was back to the grind, but they soon shrugged it off and went outside to play. When they came back inside, Gautham asked me if I knew how to catch a squirrel. I replied in the negative. "Climb up a tree and pretend to be a nut". Vyaas considered this carefully and added "in your case, you don't need to pretend" and ran away before I could clout him one. Kids!

We went the other day to see the great "Om Shanti Om", a movie starring SRK. It is supposed to be a smash hit and a great movie, but in my considered opinion, it has even less of a credible story than "Justice Chaudhary" my all time greatest movie ever, where the Chief Justice of India stands on his mahogany desk (the Supreme Court is in session of course) and sings a song. (It would be great to have judgments in verse
The accused is guilty/Of crimes most foul/We're filled with outrage/Please wait while we howl/We can't give him life/We're afraid, that's law/But if someone in prison/Should break his jaw/We won't be trying him/We won't be crying, yeah yeah yeah/)

As I was saying, they forgot to put in a story. They had one all along, of course, a very good story, but Farah Khan, the director, forgot to bring it to the shooting and it was too late to go back and get it. So they made one up, from bits of 70s movies and put in a few gags and hoped no one would notice. And no one has. There are the few oddballs (like your present correspondent) who expect, most unreasonably, that Hindi movies should have a plot. Some of us were heckling in the movie theater, but we got only angry stares from the vast majority. The plot, roughly is like this. A small time extra falls in love in a star. She falls in love with him. They're both killed by the baddie. The small timer is reborn. He becomes a big star. And fixes the baddie. And I'm the King of Denmark. I've read more sophisticated stories in Twinkle. The grand number in the movie is a song which goes on for about 17 hours, in which almost all the current actors and actresses in Bollywood perform. This is about as exciting as road construction. In short, don't see it unless you have a detachable brain and have a good place to check it in at the movie hall.

Mumbai is cooling down (climate wise) though the stock market is still as frothy as "chaaya" or tea in Kerala. I still get a lot of stock advice, including from, but not limited to, the chap who sells eggs and bread on the corner who urges me to buy "Larsen". I think he has a one-on-one with their CEO.