Two Tales, Two Thathas.

Well, the title should have been long. I was planning for 'Two tales on Two elderly gentlemen, one @ dusk and one @ dawn'. Very very long... =(

Two of my experiences on consecutive days. Here they go.

Tale 1:

Had been to one telco's office to get a connection for my mother yesterday. While I was discussing plans with a representative, an elderly gentleman entered the office with a grim face.

The moment he came, he started scolding another rep black n blue; reason being excess amount on his broadband bill. The sales rep/installation crew who had installed broadband in his house and had promised the old guy that the bill wont cross Rs 500/-

Probably this thatha is tech savvy or atleast internet savvy. To his bad luck, I think his plan wasnt an unlimited connection. He has crossed the limits and had got a lumpsome bill of Rs 1.7k and change. Poor fellow is now baffled and has travelled 4km from his house to the telco office to enquire. Guess he doesnt know about customer care (not that they're any better, but alteast that would've avoided his travel)

He was not satisfied by the justification given by the helpless rep. Now, the rep called the installer, his higher officials n whosoever are concerned but in vain of help to thatha.

He continued his swearings... in fact, increased them two folds... All the stupids, rascals etc came outa his mouth. Irritated employee asked him to stay quiet but it was of no use.

Meanwhile thatha made some calls scolding the person on the other side. He must be the installer. Rep was insisting him to speak him in Kannadaif he could coz the other party isnt well versed in any other lingo, he would start a sentence in Kannada and switch over to English. No comments...

I got my connection while thatha continued swearing.

Tale 2:

Wakey wakey... This morning I had to visit supermarket as my father was busy with some other work. Gotta get some milk, vegitables etc. Now, this supermarket, is say 200 steps from my house, fresh stocks come everyday @ 08:15 am. I went there by 8:10, to make sure that the precious commodity, milk doesnt get over. There are instances wherein I have returned back going by 9 o' clock. I dont wanna take chances.

I saw some familiar faces of which one of them is another thatha. Never have I spoken with them but they are familiar.

Okay! 8:15, no news about the delivery truck. Welcome sign for my othla sense. I roamed around the mart, checkin things out. The same old beans, carrots, oats etc. Meanwhile I saw this thatha speaking to the wardboys n stewardesses sometimes cuddling them. Normal thatha behavior. 8:25 and still the truck hasnt arrived. I continued.

8:30 it passed by. Its a narrow road, it went ahead to park in the opposite direction so that it can just go once the delivery is complete. It came but there was a Santro in the usual place of its parking. The driver was waiting...

It happened to be a customer's santro who was billing. His mom was also by his side billing. He had a long list. Took a lot of time to complete. It was already 8:45 and thatha lost his temper. He started scolding. Asked him to move the vehicle. Hesitant customer (lets call him Mr. X for short) never cared and continued with the billing. Even the wardboys requested to move, he said, he is almost done with the billing and would take the car once its done.

Thatha started swearing bastards n bullshits on this person. Mr. X in his late thirtys or early fortys got enraged and counter sweared thatha though he was done with the billing. His mother intervened for no use. This went on for another 15 minutes. Rest were silent including me.

One of the stewardess came in between now, talking to Mr. X in Telugu to calm down and take his car. He never budged and asked support on his side rather moving his vehicle. Seems this thatha is also a teluguite. Now the conversation shifted to telugu from English (Sadly no Kannada)

9:15, still the truck was waiting for its parking place with these two quarelling with all swearings. Even the mother joined with Mr. X swearing 'Gudd mooskond pora' to thatha. Havoc...

Enough was enough. I was bored of watchin stuffs n wastin time watchin these stupids fight, I intervened, and asked X to move the vehicle instead of quarrelling. Though I was indifferent, (probably partially on behalf of thatha, as I was waiting for milk).

Now this thatha come over me, swearing that 'nobody has the guts to fight injustice! blah blah blah!!!' I ignored them while Mr. X pleaded me to explain the same to thatha. Thatha now turned his complete attention to me and started to blame my escapism. Again I ignored and came inside while X moved to move his vehicle.

As he was moving, this short tempered, lunatic thatha continued the swearings on X. Thank god, I was saved. Things didnt get over. X parked the vehicle some meters ahead, made way for the truck, came back and started quarrelling with thatha.

Bah!! 3-4 stewardesses came to the rescue of their supermarket, many people from streets barged in and somehow consoled them both. One of them scolded thatha and asked him to leave the premises after his purchase. He continued swearings ad infinitum and was gone in 5 minutes after getting milk.

Thats it of the tales.

At the end, what I wanted to say was that some of these elderly gentlemen are very very short tempered. I meet such creatures atleast once in a week. They just want everything their way and any small mistake enrages them to the peak. They dont care about the etiquettes, dignity and just want the opposite side to be tamed. What I suggest in such scenarios is to justify your stand once, if it is not welcomed, you better walk out or else, the whole day you'll be irritated by the fight...

Your comments please...

Another funny (ironic) tale from College.

Caution:

1. Intended to be taken in a lighter sense.

2. Those who know the characters here are asked to keep their mouth shut.

3. My intention is not to make fun of the people but to show you all the lighter part of it.

4. This post is the result of my blogging mood which was outa topics to write on.

Okay... Lemme describe it in short.

First semester of Engineering. As you all might know, mine was the first batch. We had no seniors. Guess it was the second month of the semester. I got down from the bus and was walking towards the college to find two of my batchmates (none from my stream) quarelling with each other. Both of them were from the same locality. We could see them quarrelling with their drafters... (as knives??)

Swearing was superfluous. All the ninn **** na k*** (you can substitute anything for those asterisks) I was wondering for their creative scoldings. Few of my batchmates went ahead, grabbed both of them and seperated them while they were angrily kickin each other.

On investigation, we found the reason why. Both of them were in love (aaaaah!!) with the same girl. To add onto the complexity, even she was from the same locality and was the classmate of one of the quareller. I'm not here to describe that girl but the general notion built on that girl was that she is a devil when it comes to looks though she was good academically.

Both of them didnt speak to each other for months. Things went cooler later on and they began talking to each other. May be they were still secretly admiring the girl??!! I dont know. I dunno whether the girl knew all this quarelling stuff. I was least bothered to know. Nothing serious happened after this till we finished college.

If it was just this, I wouldnt have blogged it. After all, why would I?

Gotto know some facts after my college and hence this post.

I had a collegue in my office who came from the same school as the girl in this story came from. I need not mention that he was also from the same locality. He claimed to be notorious in the class sometimes and had teased this girl for bossing over the classmates for no reason. He and his gang wanted to teach her a lesson and teased her to hell. They made her cry several times. Well again the notion about the girl's look was almost the same as we had in our college.

Someday we had discussed about his school and his classmates. We had a lot of friends in common who came out from that school. While we were talking about our friends, the topic of this girl came and he described the way they teased that girl. I mentioned about the way two of my batchmates quarreled to love the same girl. He was laughing for a long while listening to this. He was wondering who would want to love that devil(??).

Though he was kinda mischievious, he used to get news of all his classmates. One day he said that the girl is getting married. He was wondering who was that bakra? Though I guess he went to the marriage. I dunno whether these quarrellers knew about the marriage.

Things moved forward. My collegue joined another company. One of the quarrelers who was also the girl's classmate joined the same company. They used to commute from the same cab and got to know each other. After the initial phase of friendship, my ex-collegue got to know that latter was my batchmate. He started discussing about me, our college, the discussed incidents I had told him.

One day, this conversation took place:

Collegue: Hey maga! do you know that girl?

Batchmate: Yes. She was my classmate.

C: Maga! we used to tease her a lot in school. She was full of attitude. Full scope ತೊಗೊತಿದ್ದ್ಲು maga!

B: Oh! is it? hu maga! She had that attitude.

C: Matte lo, Sandesh was telling that two of your batchmates quarrelled just to love her. I dont know maga? ಆ ಮೂತಿನೂ ಲವ್ ಮಾಡ್ಬೇಕು ಅನ್ನ್ಸತ್ತೇನೋ? ನಂಗಂತೂ ನಗು ತಡಿಯಕ್ಕಾಗ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ ಅವನ್ ಹೇಳಿದ್ದ ಕೇಳಿ. (Does anyone feel live loving that creature? I couldnt stop laughing once he said that.)

B: (baffled) ಹು ಮಗ! ಅಂಥವರು ಇದ್ದರು ನಮ್ಮ ಕಾಲೇಜ್ ಅಲ್ಲಿ. (Yeah buddy! we had such studs in our college.)

After this conversation, both of them had called me. First was my ex-collegue.

C: ಮಗಾ! B ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ್ದ. ಅವ್ನು ಈಗ ನಮ್ಮ ಕಂಪನಿ ಸೇರ್ಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದಾನೆ. (Dude! I had met B, he works for our company now)
Sandesh: ಹೌದಾ ಮಗ? ಒಳ್ಳೇದು. (Oh Is it? good.)
C: ನಿನ್ನ್ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಕಾಲೇಜ್ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲ ಮಾತಾಡ್ತಾ ಇದ್ದ್ವಿ. (we talked about you, your college n stuff)
Sandesh: ಲೋ, ಅಂದಹಾಗೆ ಅವ್ನೆ ಕಣೋ ಆ ಹುಡುಗಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಜಗಳ ಮಾಡ್ಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದು. (btw, he was the quarreler on that girl's issue)
C: ಹೌದಾ ಮಗ?ಲೋ, ಅವಳ್ ವಿಷಯ ಎಲ್ಲ ಮಾತಾಡಿ ಆ ಜಗಳ ಮಾಡಿದೊವ್ರ್ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿ ನಗಾಡಿದ್ವಲ್ಲೋ? (Shit man! Is it? I laughed like hell on that issue buddy!!)
.........

After another 15 minutes, B had called me pretending casual. He just told me that he was working with my ex-collegue. ranted for a while (I could sense, kinda self pity, guilty conciousness in his voice) He never spoke a word on that girl's issue episode.

I was laughing once he cut the call.

Things move further, B got married last year. But whenever I meet my ex-collegue and talk abt this incident, we would be laughing like hell.

That ends the irony.

Colored Pants and the Foreign Streets...

Had logged into blogger 2 hours back... Was feeling like blogging but no topic came to mind. Two or three random things turned up but none became concrete.

Just posted the day's links on my link blog, and logged off. Still my mind was revolving around a topic to blog out. Was listening to some trance later on, thought of blogging on it while it was time for our weekly Pooje. got downstairs to attend it. Once it was over, mother asked me to have dinner.

While I was having it, others were randomly browsing thru the channels on TV. On U2, our infamous 'Hey! Hey Paaro' was getting played. Though this song isnt directly connected to the topic, I thanked TV to lend me this interesting topic.



Before I start, I should tell you about the colored pants. It dates back to the dawn of eastman colored movies, especially the tamil ones (Some do include them till date). Thank god for Black n White movies, we couldnt notice the color.

Scenarios like deep orange pant and dark blue shirt, yellow shirt and pale green pant or be it pink shirt with blood red pant were pretty common. To add onto this, they had these bell bottomed pants as the trend. Be it a song sequence or a fighting scene, you could see the hero (sometimes the heroine as well) wearing them with their hands resting on their hips with their mouth wide open. It was total comedy.

Not that you couldnt find such combinations in Kannada movies, it was rare. may be 1 in 50 movies of the 70s.I've seen Rajkumar wearing some in some of his early movies, also Vishnu, Ambareesh and Srinath. May be 2-3 films in their career.

I saw these combinations on TV when there was no cable network. In those days where DD1 was the only channel, everyday of the week was reserved for 1 regional language songs to be telecasted. It was Thursday for Kannada, dont remember for other languages. But sometimes when we were playing in the hall, we used to see some songs of other languages... the NTRs, Chiranjeevi, MGRs, Rajanikanth, Vijayakanth who else, all could be seen wearing Blue shirt and Red pant with a green scarf... sometimes with a black hat. Goodness... Almost all the songs.

More of tamil songs I saw were in one of my Uncle's house. He was fond of Tamil movies (I still dunno why) and during my summer holidays, we used to stay in his house playing with my cousins. I was wondering who was the costume designer for such songs. Havent watched much of Hindi movies/songs. Can't comment on them.

After the 80's one hardly could see such color combos in Kannada movies. It was the time when the Nags, Kashinath ruled the KFI. Movies were sensible n entertaining too. Also, all movies of the big heads Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan and Ambareesh had good script as always. 90s were again with Ravichandran, Shivarajkumar, Shashikumar... No traces of colored pants.

Since the 00's there started a bad trend of remaking Telugu/Tamil movies. Some were inspired (as per the directors/producers). Or atleast some movies based on rowdism had what they now call an ITEM song. A catchy number. In such scenarios, they were dressed in all possible combinations (again inspired by the T & T movies).

Initially all such songs were picturised within the country. Thanks to our 'American' Director Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar to set up the trend to shoot most of the movie scenes as well as songs abroad. Later a trend came up where songs were shot abroad. That was a marketing strategy where the posters had the tag, 'capturizing the scenic beauty of so and so country...'

Initially, the trend was to shoot some songs in a decent manner. Then came the worse. This went onto a level where all songs in a movie should be shooted abroad. Some heroes were/still are refusing to sign the deal if this scenario isnt met.

Thanks to TnT movies, we saw some tappangucchi numbers being shot abroad. The herd wearing lungies/petas with fishnet vests smoking beedis (watch Yuvaraja remake of a telugu movie Tammudu) I was dumbstruck watching that song. Worse was when they used the foreign artists in our local attire. It was SO funny.

Want something more worse? They performing in the busy foreign streets with tappangucchi and the public watchin them with their jaws wide open. You can see some of the foreigners laughin the the song itself. Tell me, what impression do they get of our country n culture?

They've visited almost all major countries. America, Australia, New Zealand, Most of Europe which includes Austria, Switzerland, UK, France, Venice, Italy what not?

I sometime see them dancing to the tunes with these colored pants. Damn it! Whose the choreographer? Doesnt he possess the least sense?

All current heroes are culprits here. Puneeth was afar from this but recently watched his 'Raam'. Look at this song, 'Hosa Gaana Bajaana', as a proof. Major culprits being Darshan, Upendra, Sudeep, Shivarajkumar, Auditya...

Let them perform the way they want in lonely streets/locations... Why on the busy roads?

We have a new face to the list, thanks that he hasnt performed in foreign streets but he has one or the other song with such color combination. He is Yogesh a.k.a Loose Maada. Atleast one song will be having weird costumes with songs modulated to machine like voice. Watch Jinke Marina, Maja Maja En Majano of Nanda <3 Nanditha, Chakkli Nippat thinnkandu of Ravana or Sarasooo of Ambaari to get a glimpse of it.

Who is supposed to be blamed for this shit? Collectively all. Most of the times, it is the producers who force the director to add atleast one such song to the movie. Sometimes its the directors fault and sometimes its the hero's fault.

Again, the final question I want to ask them is dont they get ashamed to act lunatically in the unknown crowd? Is it good for them to impart a false image onto the foreigner's brain?

Hope they think in this direction.