Beyond the Happily Ever After!

We grew up listening to our parents and grandparents go on and on about it. We were woken up at 6 on sunday mornings so we wouldn't miss out on the wonderful show on Doordarshan. We were given all sorts of different versions of the epic. We were taken to temples weekly to pray to the idol of the god in the avataar of man. We would witness elders blessing the daughters of the family saying "May you get a husband like Rama!"
Yes, I am talking about Ramayana.
The Ramayana that ended with Rama rescuing Sita from the clutches of Ravana and them returning to Ayodhya, with Rama being crowned king. Happily ever after!
Content with the happy ending, we never bothered much to find out what happened after, did we? How ignorant were we. The story that made our beliefs what they are today is dismembered and was told to us in parts.
There was more to the happily ever after, which is a pregnant Sita being abandoned by her husband to live out in the woods. Why? Because being a righteous man was more important than being a good husband for the Mahapurush! And his righteousness lay in doubting the integrity and chasteness of a woman who left all her royal comforts for 14 years of celibacy and a life of exile!

What he should have done is not giving a rat's ass to what other people say and show some faith in his wife. Yes, that would have been good!

Sita deserved every ounce of respect as an individual, as a fellow human being. Instead she was subject to a humiliating agnipariksha, out of which she emerged triumphant. Wasn't this proof enough of her chasteness?  Sita, despite all her endurance and strength, remains a woman who must bear her fate with fortitude—an unchanging archetype. Her values of unyielding loyalty, steadfast devotion and unconditional love despite hardships hurled at her by a patriarchal system are seen as ideal attributes for the Indian woman.

She was forsaken by her husband because some common man commented on her integrity. Being in the position that he was, Rama could have shut them up in no time. Instead he chose to desert his wife. If a husband cannot stand up to his wife, I'm sorry but he can't be portryaed as the ideal husband.

I think blessing someone with a husband like Rama has become passe now, and that the girls would rather you blessed them with someone more relatable in the present, someone who'd not just make tall claims of love, but be a good husband and father!

Till death do us part! ;)

I can safely and proudly say that i'm one of those people who have not one, but a couple of ladies that hold the best friend status in my life. Lucky me :D
 So here it goes to the best people of my life, the people who have selflessly been there throughout, my chuddy-buddies, my best friends forever.
I'm gonna introduce you to three fantastic people here, my personal power puff girls. :)



I walk into my new school all scared and sweaty to see baboons in the name of kids in class. Enters mademoiselle Shivani. Walks straight up to me and tells me we could be bestfriends. Yeah right, best friends in the first go. Beat that! And there! Our friendship began.
Throughout school she was my savior. When girls would be busy chatting away their time, the two of us would be running around, playing games like wild untamed beasts.
Her enemies in school automatically became my enemies, and vice versa. It was always understood.
She saw me through my good, bad and awkward phases and stuck with me. While i was a complete introvert in my junior classes, she was 'the' dude. She had a gazillion friends and she knew almost everyone in town! We met in fourth grade. Its been fourteen years now and we've separated in terms of distance, but that changes nothing between us.
She is the girl you go to with your problems, no matter what they are, and she solves them no matter what!
She's that girl who'll chase down hot guys on the road till it reaches the point of pure stalking. :P
She's the girl who'll leave all her important jobs to sit with you and browse through endless sites to fish for you the perfect birthday dress.
She's the girl you want to tell all your embarrassing secrets to, but also not want to tell them, for she will make fun of you for the rest of your life!
She still is the love of my life :D




Next comes Shreyaa. Oh good lord! One look at her and you'll know she's the naughtiest kid of the gang. She has the complexion of a dove, wears nerdy glasses(is anything but a nerd) and has a very hot fashion sense.
She's the girl who'll introduce you to someone saying "She's so and so from so and so..bla bla bla..and btw, she has a great ass" and you just stand there red faced not knowing what to do. She'll kiss you on your lips and be ecstatic about it. She'll flatter your mother no end and totally hit on her like a roadside romeo. :P
She's the most spontaneous and random girl ever. She is also one of the silliest, most spastic, cheesiest people I've ever known. She might even seem dysfunctional to some, but her idiosyncrasies feel normal to me now :P
She's the life of our group and i love her no end. :)



My third power puff girl is Supriya. She keeps innocence intact in our group. :P
She's the homely kind. She's the kind of girl a guy looks for to marry! Totally lovable, soft and ladylike. I don't know how she puts up with us manly hooligans!
Unlike us random people, she actually plans stuff in advance. She has a steady boyfriend for ten years or so and i'm sure she'll end up marrying him only :)
She's the quiet one, the one who keeps us somewhat sane.
We would be nothing without her!





How I wish, the four of us could live together. Life would be crazy fun. If it were up to me to decide, i would make you all shift to a common neighborhood and then we all could live next door happily. :P
I miss you guys. I miss all of you. We may go weeks without talking at times, but you're still the first people i dial whenever anything important happens!
I know we have an unbreakable bond. I hope it only grows stronger with time. :)
I lurrvvvvvv you bawa log :D

Before Midnight

A dialogue from the film says-“I guess when you are young you think that you will meet a lot of people that you would connect with. As you grow older you realize that these connections are rare.”
We Indians love straightforward love stories with happy endings. Anything that is a twisty, messy,rocky romantic tale frightens us.
The spontaneous, impulsive characters Jesse and Celine of 'Before sunrise' who meet on a train, get off the train together and later fall in love, come together in 'Before Sunset' nine years later as long lost lovers. The movie ends with the unanswered spine-tingler question, 'Will they or will they not get together?'
In the third sequel 'Before Midnight' we see them as two lovers who didn't take the conventional route to get married but they are now together share a pair of beautiful twins.

This goofy couple makes you love their movies instantly. The anything-but-ordinary way they fall in love makes you believe in romance. They meet, spend a mesmerizing day together, and part making a promise that they would meet on a fixed date. Such is the faith, they do not exchange numbers or their address. In the second part however, we find that due to an unexpected turn of events they couldn't meet. Their love doesn't fail them. They meet 9 years later and have the courage to admit their love to one another. The movie ends there.
Then comes Before Midnight.
The bourgeois couple in their forties. It is anything but a happily ever after. It is melancholic if anything. The flawless love story of them both is now terribly flawed. You witness them bickering all the time. That's when the reality hits you in the face. It can't be rosy all the time. It is about the turbulence and how these prickly couples get past them.
This film definitely cannot match up to the standards of the prequels since they portrayed love the way we imagine it to be, while the third part shows the bitter reality of people in a relationship.  it covers the uncomfortable yet inevitable aspects of long term love, and does so with frightening realism. However ,the best part in the movie is that despite all the arguments, they do not give up on the their efforts of rekindling their flame.
There are several moments of levity, but this is by and large the most dramatic and dark film of this series. The film ends on not a very bright note I would say, but yes, a satisfactory ending with both of them sitting by the waters engaging in playful banter.
The movie can be summed up in this dialogue Jesse gives at the ending trying to make things fine with Celine: "If you think there is some other kind of true love out there, I hate to tell you, but that is a fairy tale. This is true love."