So sorry for the lateness, but like I said before, my sis is here and I'm basically taking her around the UK so my time at IF is limited for the next week or so. That, plus school assingments means that real life is coming after me with a vengeance! But fear not, I can't not be in this club and chat with all you fantastic people!

Thanks for inviting me- I'm honored and flattered.

So intros:

Please call me Saana. I'm actually from North India, but was taken to the U.S when I was 10 years old, so I'm born and raised there. And I totally agree with one of Shri's posts- whenever I go to North India, especially Delhi, I am appalled by the attitude there towards women- you're made to feel more like a piece of meat rather than a human being in some places.

Sorry for the tangent, but felt it needed to be said. Hope I did not offend anybody!

Worked in New York for a few years in the finance industry, loved it but not enough to make it a lifetime thing. Currently in the UK studying International Studies, which is a major change- but I adore it, so hopefully it'll stick and I'll make a career out of it!

Like all of you, like Madhubala, dislike the lives of the real actors interfering with the show (less PDA-new andolaan!), and hope things will get better- this show is supposed to be a break from stress, not the source of more stress. I write fanfic in my spare time since I'll never get to see the type of passion I want onscreen. Good way to channel frustration. Shri has been helping me with RK's characterization, so shoutout to you sweetie!

Thanks for having me guys- I look forward to all out chats!

This past week my head feels almost too full - it was just a relief to read your ideas that we are not necessarily going to solve these problems - it may be enough of a challenge for us to meet our everyday obligations to life and to dharm and see where the path may lead. Maybe if I can learn too to see this way I can let go of some of this sadness which seems to pop out from nowhere and seep its toxic way into my thoughts.  

I felt sorry, too, to hear your husband was made so terribly anxious in India!  But I recognised each and everything in your description. The mad traffic, the cacaphony, the riot of colour and people and grime and heat - definitely it is an environment that can disorganise even the most tranquil of minds.  It seemed strange to me that things would operate so differently in NYC even though it is one of the world's great metropolises. I wonder, what are the cultural undercurrents which underpin these contrasts?  Americans must surely be more law-abiding, I would think.  And also - more guarded and respectful of personal space.  That is just a guess, but it seems to fit the culture in the tiny way I understand it. Sometimes I think people from Delhi can take a misguided pride in the idea that their city runs on jungle law - that one must be almost Darwinianly selected to survive there - sharp of wit, red in tooth and claw. For people like me it is nothing but a sharp fingernail running straight up the naked spine.

Also, your comments made me remember a scene from an SRK starrer - Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - where Surinder and Bobby are standing in the auto shop, lamenting over Bobby's motorcycle which Surinder had borrowed to ride as his cool alter ego, Raj.  Bobby is furious not that the cycle is damaged, but that Suri had damaged his "macho" by letting bhabhi ride in front and go at high speeds while Suri sat behind holding her handbag. There follows a short discourse on "macho" wherein Bobby instructs Suri.  He says that, just as with the bike, in the car, in the home, in life...the man's hand should be firmly upon the steering handle.  Any imposition upon that arrangement by the female and a tight slap is in order.  (It is clear from the plot that Suri would not hit Taani, but I was just remembering these particular dialogues.) So did your description of the stereotypical strong male remind me. In charge, overbearing, shoring up his sense of self by mocking, belittling and abusing. 

My own marriage also began that way; my husband's father was very clear with him about how one had to treat a wife at first in order to establish the correct authority for life.  But I think I was very lucky in that, after a few months like that, where I literally probably said ten words in total, my husband came under the cover with me one night and said "Bhakti...I don't really like bossing you around.  I just feel cruel all the time.  Do you think you will respect me if I just talk normally?"  It is to his undying credit that he did not throw me out of the window because I burst out laughing so hard.  I cannot even tell why, but, like a lot of things in life, the whole thing struck me so funny, absurd really.  Here we were trying desperately like fools to uphold this social more that neither one of us understood even in the slightest.  We were play acting.  He looked completely shocked, but then he started to laugh, too.  That was one of the times I have laughed the happiest in my life.  I think, in a way, our actual marriage started only after that night.

I am glad you are able to be the strong support of your husband. Men must also learn to accept care - to give and be given are just pleats in the same cloth.  he is lucky to have you!

 

Merry Christmas all.

 

I guess aage aage dekhtein hain hota hain kya!!

@everyone who ever watched MB  - I don't know if any of you were GHSP fans, but in the beginning of the story line with MSK there - yaaron it was ekdum the same - ki GC was going to get married, he was under the thumb of his aunty-cum-would-be-wife, he and DD were thanda thanda in their scenes together - the forum could not stop about these things!  Then, after a bit, he married, things settled down, and the leads got really comfortable with each other.  As smoldering as they were on screen, though, they always maintained respectful limits off stage.  They were friendly, yes, and gave mazedar interviews, etc., but there was always a professional line drawn between reel and real. I have been surprised all along to see things taking exactly the same path with VD and DD.  So - not sure if this is just something that crops up and we just don't see the bigger picture, or if these two really are a bit off in their chemistry? Also, VD received this same criticism in his work on PKYEK - ki his earlier romantic scenes with Sukirti Kandpal were very awkward.  Maybe we are faulting Vahbbiz unnecessarily - maybe romantic scenes simply aren't his forte? Khair - I know it is in the job description, but it must be hard to overcome the human limits.  Perhaps, as many have said, the director and head of photography need to crank up their collective brain cells and think up some innovative ways to shoot the sharmilas. And no need to reinvent the wheel - it is Indian drama, after all - we already have the slow dissolve, the kiss obscured by firelight, the conveniently wind-blown parda, the ridiculously angled camera - if we were all to take our training from these amorous techniques, we woud all be experts at clandestine romance (or completely confused as to the actual workings of the human body!)  Ah...sweet mystery of love...