Have I ever mentioned that I totally and unconditionally adore Mel Brooks? There’s an episode of Mad About You where Paul and his cousin go to their Uncle Phil’s apartment to move a couch. (Grainy video. Bad sound. Totally worth watching!) Uncle Phil, the source of all Buchman family history, is played by the inimitable Mel Brooks. After the move, they discover a stack of old photos under the couch. Uncle Phil looks at a picture, and proclaims ‘Paulie on a pony!’ He then holds it up to his face and changes his mind and declares it is ‘France!’ Thrilled that the same picture can be multiple things, he moves it back and forth, announcing — Paulie on a pony! France! Paulie on a pony! France! Paulie on a pony! France! Romania! The last bit is when he moves the picture really far away. Priceless moment, it is.

Now for the photo. It had been raining all day. But when the sun announced that it wanted to set, the poor clouds were compelled to take a breather. They stayed gray and overcast, sulking. But we’re not done!, they whined. But the sun ignored them and shone through anyway. Too bad, it said, making it clear who was the boss. And just like that, the rain on my windowpane turned into little drops of molten gold, reflecting the last rays of the sun, as it vanished into the indigo blue of the horizon, on its way to embellish another window and intimidate another cloud.

There’s two things I love about this shot. One, that the sun is nowhere, except within the rain, which is a lovely bit of irony. And two, that the picture looks like a world of spiraling galaxies, mysterious planets and flaming meteors from afar, and yet, up close, imprisons the infinite sunshine within a few drops of rain.

Today, I have my own Paulie on a Pony! France! moment. Happiness comes.

In which we provide an illustrative tutorial on song and dance routines in Hindi films.

Alright. Gather around peoples. It’s time to get on the soapbox.

Every time I see someone use the phrase running-around-trees to refer to current Bollywood song-and-dance routines, I get annoyed. Yes, Bollywood is escapist and unreal. But news flash. We do NOT run around trees. Not anymore. They stopped doing that, circa 1992. They’ve chopped up all the trees and replaced them with ostentatious sets that resemble space-age metropolises. (Or ostentatious red and gold, stained-glass sets if you go the Bhansali way.) Even the sarson ke khet loving Yash Chopra productions have retired their gaggle of giggly sahelis and instead prefer to feature hotties on the beaches of Sydney and Rio.

Now for those of you who don’t understand words, we have a simple illustrative example of song-and-dance routines in Bollywood, then and now. First Exhibit A, from 1970.

As you can see above, the 70s were a time when trees served many a purpose in Hindi films —

• To run around and sing songs.
• To hide behind and (presumably) kiss.
• To fill up background space when you didn’t have the budget to hire backup dancers. (Standard formula used — one banyan tree = 5.2 apsaraa girls.)
• For hero to hide behind, while chasing the villain with a gun containing a single bullet. (The hero being twice the width of the tree is of scant significance.)
• To sway menacingly to warn the audience of the storm (figurative and literal) that is soon to strike the hero-heroine. (A device used excessively in ghost stories just before villain puts buri nazar on heroine, kills her, and leaves her bhatakti aatmaa to torment audiences for rest of movie.)
• To topple over onto an obviously-fake miniature house to indicate a natural calamity of choice (earthquakes and floods being most popular) thus separating the hero and his family, only to have them be united in the end, after singing the ubiquitous family song. (For all of you who scoff at the idea — exactly how many of you have a pre-determined group song as part of your family contingency plan? Hah. I thought as much.)

Bottomline, trees were important in Hindi films and their importance in romance was no less. Without the tree, the hero had nowhere to trap the heroine so he could lean into her for a kiss. Without the tree, the heroine had nowhere to back into, before coyly giving in to the kiss. Without the tree, Jaya Bhaduri couldn’t annoyingly hide from Randhir Kapoor while singing main yahaan to his tum kahaan. Without the tree, Vyjayanthimala couldn’t hang off a branch, coyly swing her ghaghraa back and forth, and sing dil tadap tadap ke keh rahaa to Dilip Kumar. Well, you get the point. Trees — important.

Now we move on to Exhibit B. This is 2008. Notice. No trees. No nature. Just oodles of symbolism. Whoever said Hindi movies cannot be subtle?

So now you know. Movies of the 70s and 80s were more eco-friendly. And that is the convenient truth.

Lunchtime inspiration —

Q: What do you get if you make Rabindranath Tagore blush?
A: A Sharmila Tagore.

Damn, I kill myself sometimes. Pliss don’t kill me?

Three cups of coffee and almost no sleep. We are not responsible for anything that follows.

So the Lou-puddle has tagged us. It seems we have to go through our archives, find five recycle-worthy posts, and link to them. Yesh. You can barely contain your excitement, we can tell. As though once is not enough, we now have to pull wool over your eyes twice. Not that we mind fooling our readers again and again. All these past promises of posting regularly and then disappearing promptly should assure you that our intentions are always strictly dishonorable. But Puddle has declared my anniversary post a cop out! Sacré bleu! ^* The nerve! The cheek! The rest-of-human-body! His lame-ass recycling-old-posts idea is not a cop out. Naah. But my bootiful, 100% original, no-additives-added anniversary post, with a four-candle cake even. THAT is a cop out. Hah!

^* Notice how we have taken to nonchalantly throwing in French phrases to show off our Paris-returned-ness? Very blasé and subtil subtil we are. Oui oui.

Anyway, Puddle’s hypocrisy reminded us of this famous speech —

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.

Yes, like that only.

By the way, did we ever mention on this blog that we have a niece? Anyway, we do. She’s all of eight and a riot, a party and a hurricane all rolled into one. And naturally, she is the apple of our eye and the mango of our heart and what not. (I’ll pick whatever fruit and bodypart I want. My niece, my wish.) And she talks at the speed of two-hundred-thirty-four words a minute, give or take fifty. So yesterday, she calls. (Note: pinni is Telugu for mom’s younger sister.)

She: Happy Valentine’s Day, pinni!
Me: Thankoo, chutku!
She: Has anyone given you flowers yet?
Me: No, not yet.
She: Pah! All the boys you know are completely useless!

Yay. One more member of my family who passes mocking judgement on the men I know. Awesomeness only. Oh and apparently, they were selling flowers at her school, so she bought a rose for her mom and dad. Gave it to them after coming home with the declaration — I only will have to buy you flowers. You anyway don’t buy for each other. Pah. Happy Valentine’s day! Sigh. What a brat. And the family claims that she takes after me in personality. Which is suchhh an unfair thing to say. Nobody seems to value my wholesome tutti-fruiti goodness, these days. Something needs to be done about that.

And oh. We’re not doing the Puddle tag now. This was just a whine. Next post we do tag. Pakka. As some famous person once said —

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.
But my how we improve the score,
as we practice more and more.

Hee hee. Promises. Hee hee hee!