Why it’s good when the husband is a technology dodo

I have spent a significant amount of my married life ranting about the husband’s complete lack of interest and knowledge of technology i.e. He does not use a smart phone, is not sure what is whatsapp, logs on to Facebook twice a year and keeps bugging me with questions like “what happens if I Like this?” or “how can I comment on this?” Or “what is the difference between Facebook and Twitter?”
Therefore I have to do all the online work like paying bills, booking movie tickets, planning holidays, ordering books,etc. Yeah! It’s very frustrating.
But then in a sudden moment of epiphany I realized that this virtually non-existent husband has some advantages too.

1. No sharing of the internet –
That is a HuGE advantage for me because we have limited internet connection here like 10GB. (Don’t get me started on that). Imagine if both of us were the ‘forever online’ kinds, we would exhaust the limit in three days flat. Now I can hoard all the bandwidth and use it for my excessive recipe reading, youtube watching, downloading books, reading about books, etc.

2. Escape all the boring jobs
This is a great advantage to have. Sample this –
Husband – can you make tea?
Me – But I am booking tickets for tomorrow’s movie. Sorry….can you?
Score!!!

Me- Please read the story to the daughter (for the fortieth time)
Husband – Why can’t you do that?
Me – I am paying the electricity bill online…..
Ha ha!

3. Your choices always
The husband and I almost always do not agree on anything. That is also true for our choice of movies. I am a movie lover but there is only so much of sci-fi or illogical action flicks I can take in a year. So when we are picking out the movie to go –

Husband – Lets watch Fast and furious 47
Me – I would love to (Yawn!) but there seems to be something wrong in the website. I am simply unable to book the seats…
Husband- Oh no!
Me – But guess what, the tickets for the latest Ajith movie are available. No choice now…let’s for it.
Husband – Sigh! Ok.

4. You can trade in favors for the World Cup score –
I know this is not something everyone enjoys because it is a very seasonal advantage and most people have some way to get cricket scores. But when you live in a non-cricket country and your legal cable channel will not let you watch the World Cup without taking your iPhone 6 and your kidney in return, you have a very big advantage. So, this is what has been happening for the past two weekends at home –
Husband – What’s the score?
Me- What do I get?
Husband – An additional piece of the Lindt
Me – Hmm, ok. let me check on whatsapp.
Hehe!

5. Win all arguments
I know this is not an easy connection to make and requires months, if not years, of practice. First, you have to get all arguments to be decided on ‘Majority Wins’. Second, you have to convince the husband that the majority is on your side. How? By using the magical line ” Everyone online says so”.
See. For example –
Husband – Kids need to be potty trained as soon as they are one.
Me – No, you have to wait till they are two.
Husband – One
Me – Two
Husband – How do you know that?
Me – (slowly, enunciating each word followed by an effective pause) – Everyone online says so.
Husband – *Shrugs*

So, I think I will now actively start blocking any efforts of the husband to become more tech savvy. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Disclaimer – This is about a friend and has no connection with me or my daily life with the husband in any manner whatsoever 😉

Movies are better than the books

I am a bibliomaniac and have been one forever. When I look back at life, most of my memories are about sitting or lying down with a book devouring it like an obsessive compulsive maniac with the constant fear of it being snatched away from me before I finished reading the whole book.
And I have maintained, always, that the book is better than the movie. Every time, without doubt. The logic is simple. Books paint a scene and allow you to visualize and fill in the gaps the way you like. When it says ‘a large house’ it is completely left to your imagination as to how large the house is and what it looks like. A movie shows you and does not allow you to imagine further.
I was heartbroken when I saw Pride and Prejudice, the movie. Mr.Darcy looked so handsome and hot in my head. He was not Colin Firth…not even close. My Darcy was taller, thinner, with his nose in the air and an air of confidence that did not come across in the movie. It took me a lot of time and effort to remove Colin Firth from my mind and get back to my sexy Darcy. Then on, I was very careful about watching movies inspired by the books I love. Why risk?
But then I saw the movie Julie and Julia which I loved. I had not read the book. My only thought throughout the movie was ‘if the movie is so good, how awesome would the book be’. I just had to read it. And I am reading it now and it is nowhere close to the movie. The movie had panache and chutzpah which I am at a loss to find in the book. Just half way through and I am already dragging my feet. I have to finish it though…..it’s going to be hard. Wish me luck…and some more!

A coincidence and then not so much

There are very few things the husband and I agree on. Really….it’s as cliche as chalk and cheese. If you pick any topic, incident, book or movie, you can safely and rightly assume we will have diametrically opposite view points. Always!
So I try to avoid too many discussions since we talk, discuss, debate and finally reach a full blown fight. Both of us end up getting very passionate about our view point and it escalates all too easily.
Yesterday, we had a rare moment when the daughter was too busy with her toys to bother about us while we sipped tea watching the rains. A lazy round of the remote landed us at Yaadein. The husband was aghast that I stopped to watch it while I thought it would be a good time for a laugh. (See!). While we debated on the merits (one or two) and demerits (innumerable) of the movie, the husband remarked “Hrithik Roshan is a lousy actor”. That set me off. You see, I have this theory about Hrithik Roshan. I believe he is probably the most talented actor in the country today. He is. But his choice of movies, primarily the burden of having to act in his father’s films, has led him to being just ‘a good looking guy who can act’ instead of ‘the best actor we have seen in a long long time’.
To sooth my very ruffled feathers, the husband decided we needed to come up with Hrithik’s best five films which would tell us what each of us think about him. Sounded fair. So, the husband’s top 5 were (in no particular order) – Zindagi na milegi dobara, Luck by chance, Lakshya, Agneepath and Mission Kashmir. That was the biggest coincidence ever- we almost agreed. Our top 4 were the same. I only wanted to replace Mission Kashmir with Jodha Akbar.
Yeah, I know you are laughing. Jodha Akbar?! Yes. The best part about Hrithik Roshan is his little reactions and expressions which express a lot more than lengthy dialogues or carefully choreographed dance. His mischievous smile when he notices Jodha voyeuristically staring at him and then showing off for her or his simmering anger when he thinks she has betrayed him to meet a former fiancé or his broken heart when he finds out he was being deceived by a woman he thought was more than his mother coupled with his guilt over doubting his wife. Jodha Akbar was full of these small expressions and actions that made us fall for the love story of the king who was just another man wooing his woman.

But then, the husband and I realized that our agreeing to each other was not a coincidence at all. His good movies were so few that there were not too many to choose from. These were the default choices. What else could we have chosen? Krish or Mai Prem ki Diwani Hoon? Damn! And here I thought we were actually getting to understand each other!

To cut a long story short

I have often wondered as to why Hollywood movies are better than our Hindi or Tamil movies. They are, at least according to me. But I have not been able to come up with a satisfactory explanation for it. I do love Hindi and Tamil movies. They were what I grew up on. I did see the occasional English movie but it was mostly the big hits like Jurassic Park or Titanic. My staple diet started including English movies only after I married an English movie buff and I watched them first under duress and then with forbearance and finally with relish.

It was then I started thinking as to why they were better. Even the not so good ones could be seen at least once without much difficulty. The main reason, I concluded, is the length of the movie. Of course, the songs are to blame for the length. But more than that it is the long winding way we take to get to the point. (something like this blog post!) The first half of most of the movies can be done away with. They don’t do much to further the storyline. Most movies have a first half in which the hero is enjoying life, falls in love with the heroine and respects his parents / has a loving home. The story begins towards the end of the first half. Somewhere 15 minutes before the interval we get a glimpse of what could be a potential problem in the hero’s life. He then faces it and quickly solves it within an hour and finishes the movie easily.

Take, for example, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge. The story synopsis would be – carefree boy meets introvert girl, they fall in love, parents oppose and finally relent. But in order to get to the point, it takes them half of Europe and 3 songs. Yeah, we get it. They fall in love and are bound to each other for the rest of their seven lives. Move on.

I saw this movie yesterday – Velai Iladha Pattadhari. It was about this guy who had an engineering degree but no job. Finally his mother dies after which he gets the passion to do something, lands a job and finishes a huge construction project despite various obstacles. Again, we spend more than an hour to know that his father and mother are concerned about his joblessness. His younger brother has a job which is even more frustrating for him and as luck would have it, his pretty dentist neighbor loves him. The rest of the story is done in a jiffy.

Wouldn’t it be a richer story if we focus on the real plot instead of the fluff? If we could spend some time with the hero, understand his thoughts and more importantly his fears. How he did stuff despite being scared of them and what it means for him to win. How he savors his victory. We could have movies almost as long as we have them now but wouldn’t they be better? Get to the point asap!

There is a popular saying for writers “Start as close to the end as possible”. Should that not be true for movies as well?

 

 

 

NaBloPoMo – Day 15

How often do you eat a meal from a restaurant? How do you decide when to cook or when to eat out?

It looks like my posts are getting repetitive. It can be either because all the questions are connected or that I, in my over-excitement, exceed the brief and give you all sorts of unnecessary information.

Like I mentioned in my previous posts, I eat out mostly because we have family and friends over and there are too many people to cook for. Or its a lazy Sunday morning and the husband and I look for ample variety with least effort. We probably eat out once in ten days or sometimes once a week. This eating out is usually take out and from our neighbouring Udipi style restaurant where the total bill for our breakfast has never exceeded hundred bucks despite everything that we order.

The actual fine dine type of dining out is rare. We don’t go more than once in four to six months. These outings are usually for a special occasion like a birthday or anniversary. Or sometimes we go just for the heck of it because someone we trust and many online reviews talk extremely favorably about a particular restaurant.

Now all this food talk is making me hungry. Lemme go and munch something. Ciao!