The "Boy Without A Social Life"

When I was younger and even today, I watched tons and tons of Indian movies, mainly because they're idealistic and give you hope that one day you too can run around fields singing songs with your true love. I don't know about you, but I like fields and I like running in saris so I am strongly holding onto this hope that I too one day can coordinate my sari with a yellow field of flowers and synchronize dance with my true love. I would never give it up for the world and I pity the fool that thinks they're above this. The only thing you're really above is a tub of ice cream with a spoon deciding which way you want to dig into the carton to get that whole piece of cookie out without breaking it and then put it in your mouth so that you too can get that happy dancing-in-the-field- with-my-sari-on feeling. Back to the subject, the only problem that arises in my planning is what song I want to sing and dance to. There are a couple of actors that are infamous for running through fields, and they look good doing it too. Namely, Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit, they're field dancing excellence is portrayed quite perfectly in the Bollywood Superhit Dil to Pagal Hai. I mean, if I could run through fields, or even find a field to run through (I live in Texas, there are many fields, but none like the ones in a Bollywood Superhit), I would do it like Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit. They're quite the cute on-screen couple, but they still don't have the same chemistry as Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan. Nonetheless, Dil to Pagal Hai is by far one of my two favorite Hindi movies of all time (Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is the other). All throughout Dil to Pagal Hai, Madhuri Dixit whose name is Pooja in the movie, kept dancing around in fields by herself because she had no friends or a boyfriend or a sibling or anyone to dance with her. And she would just run around the fields by herself dreaming of a man, with her oordani (scarf) in the air, waving it around and humming and singing. In the movie, on Valentine's Day, she spends the night by herself, in her room, hugging a heart-shaped pillow ,and singing and dancing. I'm happy she's an optimist and all, but the girl definitely has no social life. So I coined her the name, "The Girl Without A Social Life" (As evidenced in the picture above, Madhuri Dixit would just run around fields in her white kameez and spin and frolic all by herself). Nicki, who also used to watch this movie with me every weekend, reviewed the facts that I had presented and even found other instances where Pooja's social life was really lacking. She then agreed that this was a befitting name to give Pooja and that Pooja really in fact was "The Girl Without A Social Life." Pooja and her lack of a social life only made us feel better because we definitely had a social life, each other. How cool were we? I know, I know, you wish your childhood was this cool too.

As you can see, I was an analytical thinker from a very early age. When I was younger and that movie had just come out, Nicki and I would sit at her place in Burleson (Kelly Clarkson's hometown... It's stupid to mention Burleson and not plug Kelly Clarkson. It's the biggest thing that's ever happened there) and watch it literally every Saturday afternoon for a good couple of months. I was only twelve or thirteen years old because that was the year Nicki got me a track suit for my thirteenth birthday since I was FINALLY becoming a teenager and entering the big leagues which she, the eleven year old, could never fully understand. I mean just because you're in the double digits doesn't mean you're as smart as a teenager. Not even someone that is 99 years old is as smart as a teenager. In true Mamta fashion, I went around telling everyone that, "I'm thirteen, teen! teen! teen!" Yeah, I was quite the corny 13 year old as were many other 13 year olds in my day and age. Hey, better corny that making babies, right?

Well back to the story, on one ordinary Saturday afternoon, Nicki and I were watching Dil to Pagal Hai and we didn't want to watch the dialogue part of the movie so we fastforwarded to all the songs. At this time in my life, I loved Indian movies because they had songs and American movies did not. Songs really make a movie better but Hollywood still hasn't figure out how to do this correctly and hence when they do try to make musicals they absolutely suck at them. Moulin Rouge may have been the closest they got, but still that doesn't compare to a Bollywood movie like Devdas where all the songs are glammed out and the sets are blinged out and the dance moves are just phenomenal. Indian dancing has 1,000,000 up on any other type of dancing, except for maybe river dancing. This is a topic for another blog on another day.

During this time in our innocent and carefree lives, Nicki and I were still part of Indu Auntie's hell-for-the-soul dance classes where we would practice endlessly the dances that Indu Auntie and Neha would choreograph (they weren't as good as they thought, but then again I was a crappy dancer, I have no room to talk). Let me go into Indu Auntie and her utter lack of tact, personality, or any hint of warmth in her communication with children. As a child, I abhorred her. As did many others. She did not have even one vocal cord that could accidentally say something sweet. The only advice she ever gave us when we were dancing was, "JERK IT!" She meant our hips; we never emphasized them enough and that was why we, the junior girls, sucked and would never be senior girls according to Indu Auntie (Senior girls were not necessarily better or worse dancers, they were just older, and hence, the "senior girls," if I hadn't quit, I would've been a senior girl at age 16). Well, that year my brother was in the little kids group and I must say he followed in my footsteps. He too sucked enough to where he was also placed in the back of the dance. Indu Auntie always tried to make me feel better by saying that I was tall and that's why she put me in the back. The song they did was "Koi Ladki Hai" from Dil to Pagal Hai and it was by far the best songs done that year, well except for our dance, "Radha Roopardhi." This was when my brother was cute, rambunctious, really gullible, and lots of fun to make fun of. This was also the one time when I wasn't better than him. This is where it all started; he became better than me in one thing at the ripe age of 8 and since then he gets better and better than me in other things. After a while, the only thing I'm going to be better than him at is sitting on my ass. He was also diagnosed with ADHD at this time so when he didn't take his ridlin, which was the case during the summers because academics weren't a pressing issue and hence, focus was not necessary, he was this over-hyper kid that could never concentrate a lick and ran around the house all day long. No wonder he's such a bean pole. His attention was in a million places at once at all times. So you can only imagine how a 60 year old, impatient, intolerant, tantrum-throwing woman like Indu Auntie must have felt with an uncontrollable

Vishal sucked so much at dancing that the three hours a day in dance class were not enough for him to learn the dance moves to about 20 seconds of a song. Just not enough. This is also the time when Vishal and I could not, no matter how much we didn't try, get along. At all. No way, no how. Thank goodness Nicki was with us at the time, she would spend time after dance class teaching Vishal how to dance while I would sit in the gameroom going, "Nicki you're teaching him all wrong, you're no good at this." Yeah, I was a mean kid. Nicki and Vishal could probably write a blog about it and keep it going for at least a year if they both wrote stories in it. I might actually write a some of my favorite stories about how I was mean to both of them. It was fun. I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

I digress. Poor Nicki, she had to learn the moves for not only our junior girls' dance but then also Vishal's dance. Vishal's lack of coordination and inability to synchronize dance really scored him some loser points, not only with me, but with his peers as well. The charm that he has now, wasn't quite developed back then. He would go to class and have no one talk to him and he would sit by himself and play with only one of the 6 boys in his dance. That boy would only hang out with Vishal only when the other boys weren't around. The one boy only befriended Vishal because 1) his sister was in my dance so he had to wait for her and 2) the other boys weren't around. During our dance practice was the only time when the other boy and my brother would hang out. When the other boys were around, Vishal might as well have been a fly on the wall. He was always excluded. It was really sad. Vishal had become "The Boy Without A Social Life." His social life consisted of Nicki and me. I was nice to him at dance practice but only at dance practice because I felt sorry for him and he was my brother and even then, I would have kicked anyone's ass if they messed with him because he was such a bailo (mamma's boy) and he couldn't fend for himself.

"The Boy Without A Social Life" did not have an oordani or a field to dance in. He had no music in the background to frolic to. The only thing he had was no friends or coordination or any dance moves. That is how "The Boy Without A Social Life" came about. He has a social life now, but that only happened after he had a growth spurt. He has charm now and he is no longer diagnosed with ADHD. He is still a bailo however as he just won the Bailo Award from his youth group. Some things just don't change. Don't think for even a minute that "The Boy Without A Social Life" got screwed when he was younger though. When he actually did do his dance at India Night that year he did really well. At the show, when some of the other boys messed up, he didn't. He hit every dance move right and he was spectacular. He blew Indu Auntie out of the water. He did well in the clutch, which is when and where it only counts; he gets that from his sister.