Cliches.

I have a huge issue over heroines. We watched Raees recently and the protagonist female artist was Mahira Khan acting as Raees’s beautiful wife Aasiya.

Did I say beautiful? Flawless white skin, doe-like soft brown eyes, long, long hair, a slightly long nose, well proportioned featuers, especially high cheekbones- do you get the picture? Basically, a cliché.

I don’t have problems with clichés as long as they are well executed. Clichés can be charming just as they can also be utterly disgusting. The many Mary Sues of our immense world just happen to be 1. Exceptional.
2. Beautiful.
3. Intelligent.
4. Witty.
5. Funny.
6. Every other feature that makes you prima donna for the lady-to-be to woo his body and soul.

Just wow.

When a friend at school whispers furiously into my ear as a visiting British college-counsellor illustrates the benefits of his college to us- me and another friend(who happens to exceedingly fair) – that he is being partial to us and only paying attention to us, unlike our Snow White friend I don’t chide her for being ‘silly’.

I nod and curse his white bear-like face with his overgrown black beard sharply contrasting his pale skin to go to hell and rot with black serpents and cows. And then I resume looking happy-go-lucky again.

The last time I saw a heroine who was put on a pedestal as a lovable being who was dark skinned or not at all conventionally pretty, I guess it was when I wasn’t even born.

Alright, abandoning hyperbole, we have Wake up Sid! Konkona Sen is perfect.

Prostitutes who can be loved are featured in Talaash (where again, she is Kareena Kapoor, of course since the very beginning you feel: Ah, a good prostitute. Do you feel the same way looking at a real prostitute? What is hell is good?) and in Pyaasa, all those movies of yore.

 The way love stories are played out. She has to fall in love with him in the end eventually.

I have to admit, the first time I read a story about two people in a relationship who did not remain together in the end, I felt unsatisfied. Both the people involved left the other to pursue their individual dreams. Of course, there were issues of failed communication as well (this ticks me off majorly) wherein the gal did not fall for him in the end eventually, but the basic underline was: together no more.

And I was surprised at myself over how deeply unsatisfied and sad I felt. This is modern living!- I tried to tell myself. I have to be open minded! I have to expand my thinking! My own parents do the same thing all the time. I know so many other people, my closest friend included, whose lives are the same way.

Well what do you know; I ended up reading that clichéd Love Story by Erich Segal to get over my heartache. What heartache? In Sociology we have this very important term called Socialization. Basic underline: You see your momma and daddy being cozy with each other and you think, “Hey, a normal relationship is one where a guy and a gal stay together forever!” A process where you learn how society works by observing what is around you and in your culture. Our culture has shaped us to believe that long lasting relationships are the norm and are perfect. Fidelity is valued to be the pinnacle of relationship perfection. Well, true, I have an old fashioned romantic heart; I love it when the guy in the book is a stable partner, loving his One True Woman forever. Insert hearts all around. Maybe I have been socialized too long, but oh well. If you keep observing what is right and what is wrong for too long, you fail out on meeting more people and encountering more stories.

 Love Story was nice. I hated that part though, “Love means never having to say sorry,” but maybe purists will argue that I did not get the meaning of that phrase. If my friend in Mumbai does not apologies to me for ignoring me for weeks at end, Erich Segal will receive a very angry letter from me.

As I type this, my sister is shrieking for our mama to change the channel. Apparently Happy New Year is being viewed. He wants to watch Golmaal 3. I can’t afford to be a snob all the time and tell them to not watch anything at all, I mean, they need their entertainment. But handling such movies for me is impossible- the immaculately dressed women, how united they are in disregarding their own personalities, or how utterly conventional their personalities are- it just gets to me.

Give me Chihiro’s ‘nagging’ (as some people call it) over Aasiya’s self-righteous pouts as Raees fails to be her In-Love Servant, any day. I scoff. Let me be a snob.

She’s won the shrieking match and they’re watching Happy New Year. A hulk just defeated six or seven guys because Shah Rukh Khan’s character told this hulk that these guys insulted his mother by calling her horny.

When I was returning home in November, a month after this movie had release a few years ago, I heard a little guy yell ‘Mata ji ko horny bola’ at our bus conductor, who in turn laughed and calmed the little guy down. The little guy deferred to be taught control, and kept shrieking this phrase again and again. I laughed and wanted to pinch this little kid. Turning to the kid beside me, another brat, who had been laughing hysterically at Mata ji’s sexual drive, I said: Papa ji ko horny bola!

’Twas confounding. The brat stared at me for a full minute, thoroughly nonplussed. I sensed having utterly smashed his jolly mood. He never sat with me in the bus again, but I was deeply satisfied at the terrified expression which would cross his face when he would spot me in the bus.

I can be an immature brat too. I just cannot see why only Mata ji should get all the fun.

My hair is longer now. It’s funny, I had this angst-y hatred of girls with long hair because they were so conventional. Now when I have long hair, I laugh when someone finds me weird to look at, because I remember 10 year old me hating seniors with long beautiful hair. Determined to have short hair forever. Forever is too long, and I’m getting my hair cut again after exams. Long hair was a good experience, but it’s just not me. But I don’t even know who I am, so an XD and lol pretty hard and am an immature brat again.

 Well I suppose it is better to have flawless skin and be healthy compared to being a cribbing, ruffled, passive aggressive, slightly obese, lover of the unconventional, geeky, pasty, pimply, teenager. But at least in my love stories and my school stories I have better dialogues than Aasiya. I count that as a point in my favor.