So, what did you want to do when you grew up?
Last night, I watched Govind Nihalani’s Party, a star studded example from the 80s parallel cinema period. Rather than list who is in it, it’s quicker to say who isn’t - Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil and oh, Kulbhusan Kharbanda are some actors you might miss. Almost everyone else you might remember from those days is in the movie.
I was eight years old when this movie came out, if it had a theatrical release, that is. My parents were not, are not, interested in movies like Party. And even if they were, they certainly wouldn’t have taken an eight year old to watch Rohini Hattangadi topless (yes, this is that movie, as I found out yesterday). But thanks to growing up with Doordarshan, I do remember watching other movies from the 80s. Back then, I hadn’t discovered the joys of existential angst (which sounds like an oxymoronic idea, but really isn’t), and didn’t understand these movies, but because there was nothing else to watch, watch them, I did. And drew all sorts of messages from them, which would no doubt surprise the jolna-pai clad crowd that made these movies.
I simply assumed that that is what one did when one grew up - an adult in Delhi went to “parties” (in a Padmini if one had a smarts to make enough money to afford one), had endlessly boring conversations with people there, while drinking what looked like watered down Thums Up (but which Amma disapproved of even more than Thums Up - I decided I’d summon the courage to ask for watered down GoldSpot when my time came, even if it was terribly rude to make such demands as a guest), coming home and carrying on the same boring conversation / argument (like the difference matters to a 10 year old) with my husband. Occasionally, I’d have to scream and rant and tear out this husband person’s shirts (my mom never did this with my dad, but she was a Madrasi who clearly did not know the ways of Delhi). I was game for this because it looked like a lot of fun.
In these movies, all the dressed up people at parties rarely looked like they were having fun. But I didn’t see anything abnormal about it. If I had to eat standing up and was given nothing to drink but watered down Campa Cola, I’d be pissed, too. But I did feel that they should express some sort of gratitude, given that they were being allowed to drink these beverages from a “glass tumbler” as opposed to the “ever-silver” tumblers we had to make do with at home. Teen-aged kids in these movies had fancy “two-in-ones”, on which they listened to “pop music”, and they even danced to this music, occasionally. I somehow knew that there was only heart-break in wanting this - even if by some miracle, I got hold of a two-in-one, Amma would never allow me to listen to loud music, and Appa would think me foolish for even thinking of what these kids were doing as dancing - chumma, kai-um kaalum attana, dance aayiduma?
I wonder how much of a struggle it was for my parents to move to Delhi. In those days, it was a culture completely alien to our lives in Madras. I remember insisting on having a birthday party, since everyone in my class had one. My parents proposed a compromise - I could have the cake, but not the party. Our friends (who were all Tamil) weren’t the sort who had birthday parties, and it would have seemed too odd for us to have one, I suppose. I still remember my dad objecting to my blowing out the candles on the cake - nalla naal athuvuma, velakku ethu vangala, anaippaangala? Since my school started at 7:30, birthdays meant having to wake up sooner than usual to do the whole cake thing before I left for school. We couldn’t do it in the evening, as it would be too late by the time Appa got back. By the third year, I was ready to give up the whole Cake thing if it could get me a ½ hour of extra sleep.
We never went to any parties (birthday parties weren’t an exception), like the folks in the movies always seemed to. Colleagues of my father, all of them Tamil, save one Bengali, lived in nearby MIG flats, and we’d go over or have them come over (although I don’t remember the Bengali family ever in our Tamil gatherings - they probably did mysterious Bengali things of their own, then). Sometimes, we’d have picnics with these friends - a very Tamil picnic with lemon rice and puli saadam and thair saadam and oorga and potato chips - in the parak (In the first year or so of our moving to Delhi, all three of us laughed at our neighbors who called a park “parak”, till we started calling it “parak” too).
Watching the movie yesterday reminded me of my old “partying” ambitions. This time around, I understood the conversation, and knew that the stuff in the glass tumbler isn’t what I used to think it was. I found the shirt tearing scene sad, not amusing. And with even greater sadness, I have to dismiss this movie as being not as great as many other ensemble pieces. The fact that the women in this movie smoke and drink and seduce men and swear doesn’t feel very odd now, although it must have seemed scandalous then. I vaguely remember talk of Rohini Hattangadi’s shocking behavior - but the most persistent image of her in my mind today is her playing Kasturba Gandhi and more recently as Munna Bhai’s mom. It was nice to see those 80s hotties - Jayanth Kriplani and Benjamin Gilani and Soni Razdan and Deepa Sahi? Wonder what they’re doing now?
Is it complete folly to have ambitions as a child? By the time you grow up, so much of what you want isn’t even available any more. I’m not saying that I spent the last 20 years acquiring the skills I thought I’ll need to be a socialite (see, even the term has become negative now), but I can drive a car, even handle a stick shift, if not a Padmini with its steering wheel gears, and today, I probably could make actual conversation with the people from the Party in this movie. But the people from this movie are all gone. I’d scandalize no one (other than my mom) by drinking or smoking. And you’d impress no one by calling someone else a bitch (indeed, you’re expected to be proud of being one).
So if you see your kid or niece or nephew wishing they were Paris Hilton, wish them luck. Nothing will come of it.
Comments (2 comments)
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கில்லி - Gilli » what did you want to do when you grew up? / November 19th, 2006, 1:51 pm / #
This is so wierd…I watched Party a few days ago too (for the first time). Must have been a shocker when it came out. Though I’m still recovering from the Rohini Hattangady scene-I wasn’t prepared for that!
sk / November 19th, 2006, 3:17 pm / #
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