Couch Potato Bollywood Flashback

Fat Southie actress in dubbed item song - looks like a golden caterpillar. 

Too much shiny gold stuff on her ball gown, separated only by fat folds revealed in between with cutaways; skin always works for Bollywood.  

It seems impossible to demarcate the line of actual separation between breasts and stomach.

Everything's big, even the hair- 80s perm – the colour combinations reek of that lost decade.

Writhing moves on maroon carpet enchant the watching man as he sips Vat 69.

This quasi-villain with mandatory moustache tries to seduce Ms Caterpillar with Rajnikant-style dance moves.

In fact he seems to be an all-out Rajnikant imitator – no wait, he is the Hero.

Thoda aur intezar kijiye, she croons between bum and boob shakes.

Song ends and he proposes to her, she seems troubled by the thought.

Lightning interrupts the scene and a new villain in the form of Om Shivpuri enters the scene.  

Suddenly many men are beating each other up while Ms Caterpillar acts cool and sits reading a film magazine on the sofa nonchalantly.  

Jackie Shroff appears in a totally unconnected flashback somewhere in between the whole fracas.

Villain tries to strangle her and hero shoots him. No one asks why the gun wasn't used before.

Jackie appears again - suddenly the fat caterpillar is driving a car and meets him on road.

Yeh pyaar ka mausam hai, tujhe kitna pyar kare?

Song bursts out new flashbacks once more.

She drives away abruptly – and is next seen praying to the Mother Goddess at a temple.

Meaningless monologues about her troubled and meaningless life ensue.

A villainous looking Police inspector watches her from outside the temple, unbeknownst to the Golden Caterpillar who has not changed her ballroom gown from the original song as yet.

Suddenly, even Hema Malini has arrived and speaks her Southie accented Hindi, apparently advising Ms Caterpillar on life matters. 

The Bad Inspector suddenly appears once more and begins to blackmail the girl- her origins are revealed – are they to be believed?

Thankfully a commercial break arrives to save the audience from mental breakdown.

Jaani Dushman suddenly seems like a really great movie!

The Tavern

The night grew on at the tavern. Yet, not weary as it might have seemed given the laggard week that it was to end, or begin whichever way you looked at it. The regulars always came in with no clock to predict their movements. A pattern formed of habit. Habit formed of years and possibly evolutionary in it's own form.

The deejay interrupts my musings with a call to share a smoke break. The evening is easy on him, in a way not unlike my own situation. The pressures of life are eased down. A deejay can walk away from his console on a night like this. We are brothers on autopilot tonight.

The kids speak loudly of being gay and what it means to look gay. I wonder what truly makes them gay in a happy way. Like what life was before popular convention prescribed urban lifestyles. Oh, to be under the stars with the float feeling.

A nudge at my elbow wakes me once again from my reverie. As always. One of the many loudspeakers asks me, albeit respectfully, if I might share a light with him. He is respectful in a way that his generation has not taught him to be.

This is the respect of men and between men. Borne through the times in the way of the animal instinct, more so in men. Men not clouded in judgment by the frivolity that often overtakes women on such nights. He sees the old school in me through my youthful persona.

I laugh and offer him match. When you grow up, we might share a whisky, Son. 
For now just smoke your cigarette.

So what are you doing after this? Sharing a match lights up a new avenue of friendship. I look at the eyes of youth, lit with the gaze and haze of the night. Her image shines through it all into the night of my reckoning. I smile quietly to myself.

Life is here to be enjoyed. And I will do just that.