Malayalam cinema – fondly known as Mollywood is similar to Bollywood and Tollywood in many ways. Many beliefs and superstitions are associated with its film makers and actors as well. Changing name to get luck, wearing a particular dress code or dress for shooting or choosing certain locations are the most common superstitious beliefs associated with Bollywood cinema. For everything ‘Muharat’ and ‘Pooja ceremony’ are also needed. These beliefs may be true or false, but film producers are not at all willing to take risk as a lot of money is involved in a project. Is it the insecurity feeling that prompts them to believe in strange things? It is applicable not only to film field but also to all sectors including business and sports. A few such thoughts look funny, interesting and mysterious too. Let us go to the fourth biggest film industry of India – Mollywood and know what interesting superstitious beliefs are associated with film field of Kerala. In most cases, I have avoided the people’s names of the events.

‘Ordinary’ was not an ordinary movie

This story has happened in the commercial film capital of Kerala – Kochi. Kochi is regarded as ‘Madras/Madirasi’ of Malayalam and whole Mollywood is concentrated here.

A young director along with its script writers were waiting at the reception of a hotel. Their minds were filled with dreams. It took two years for them to complete the script and today, a top star of Mollywood has agreed to come at the hotel to hear the script. It was the director debut of the story writer who wrote this story. The hero came as promised and the team entered hotel room with right foot first. The script writer prayed God and started reading the first scene.

Suddenly villain entered the first scene itself! How it happened? Villain was not a robber, dacoit or heroine’s father; but ‘he’ was KSEB. Let me tell you, KSEB is the abbreviated form of ‘Kerala State Electricity Board’. As an unpredicted strike, power went off for a minute. Looking at the bulb, hero told in mind, ‘Omens are not good’. Neglecting hero’s thoughts script writers continued with the work. Power came back and lights were on. 

Script writer took a deep breath and started reading again. Hero was interested in the first few scenes and suddenly ‘villain’ returned back. Hero stood up and gave shake hand to the director and script writers telling, ‘We shall think about another story’. The team of three persons stood shocked as if villain ‘electricity’ has given them a terrible electricity shock. KSEB has not just given darkness to the room for a while, but gifted ‘night’ to the future of these three new generation filmmakers of Mollywood who have not started yet.

It was just a temporary power cut. The director searched a new hero for the movie and ran ‘that ORDINARY KSRTC Passenger bus’ houseful for many days! The movie was none other than the first blockbuster hit of 2012 ‘Ordinary’. ‘Ordinary’ ran houseful for weeks. Though the movie was about KSRTC bus running through the beautiful lonely mountains of Gavy, people travelled in this ‘hill station’ bus full-packed.

Even in the decade of new generation cinema we can find young heroes who believe that power cuts while hearing the script indirectly implies the movie will break down at box office. Yes, when it comes to the topics of superstitions, astrology and beliefs, new generation cinema and film directors are also not free of it. From the senior director to younger director, we can find artists in search of luck and fortunes by changing the spelling of their names or changing their name as whole also.

Most recently, friends of a super hit director who delivered series of hits teased the director saying, “Let him take of the shirt. We want to pray before him. His body is filled with ‘Taweez’, pictures of deities and mantra threads”. Beliefs have failed in box office several times. Yet film makers are not willing to free themselves from beliefs they are holding with. Majority asks this question, “Why should I take risk? Why should I leave them as if I am taking revenge?”

Now let me tell you a few interesting beliefs related with Mollywood.

If first shot is OK, film is super hit!

The most tension-filled days of producers/directors are the first shooting days and the day which film sees light. If the first shot is not OK, then both producer and director loss their sleep till the movie is released. So, some ‘intelligent’ directors start their first shot with picture of God or sun. Then it’s 100% guarantee that no retakes needed. God or sun never asks to shoot the first shot again. What an idea Sirji! Well began is half done too!

Now let us go to the first day shooting of two great blockbusters of Malayalam cinema. These two movies are regarded as best classic comedies of modern cinema i.e. late 80’s. Let me begin with Priyadarshan movie. Year 1988. Film set – three people are enjoyed themselves in chit chat, Director Priyadarshan and actors Mohan Lal and Nedumudi Venu. Priyadarshan’s mind was cloudy; he didn’t get his favourite heroine Revathy for the movie. Revathy was substituted with Renjini, not a big name as Revathy. For film producer, this movie is like a ‘come back’ after a series of flops and he needs a hit at any cost. Director told ‘Action!’ to the first shot and quite unexpectedly, a bulb got fused and broke to pieces. When it got scattered the whole unit became shocked for a while. But Priyadarshan smiled. The whole industry told that this movie will also scatter at box office like this incandescent bulb. But when it got released, it was something like a festival season and this movie run for a year in many releasing theatres. The movie was ‘Chitram’. Priyadarshan has delivered many successes with Mohan Lal. Revathy was a part of his team along with Mohan Lal in mega blockbuster ‘Kilukkam’. Yet the movie ‘Chitram’ is still everyone’s favourite even after years. 

Now, let us move forward one year and go to Alappuzha. A shooting location, but not a big crowd to watch it as directors and actors are new faces. Both the leading hero and heroine are debuts. When the first shot was taken, an owl suddenly passed in front of the camera. No one even knew from where owl has come! ‘Golmaal hai bhai sab kuch gol maal hai’, its Malayalam translation was yet to release in 1990. So, no one was there to sing that song for the team. Owl is not considered as a good omen to film industry, similar to common Indian people. On a Friday morning 1989, the movie got released in Kerala. This small cinema entertained the crowd for years and decades and even after 2 decades, it has not lost its charm. The movie is none other than ‘Ramji Rao Speaking’ and along with Innocent and Mukesh, Sai Kumar entertained the crowd with crackers of comedy. The debut heroine was Rekha, a south Indian leading actress. The director duo hit makers, Siddhique-Lal who debut with this movie has given numerous success comedy movies to Mollywood too. 

Not only that, the movie has created a Tsunami in Bollywood comedy movies too. It was none other than ‘Hera Pheri’ directed by Priyadarshan with stars Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal and Tabu in the year 2000. This movie placed director Priyadarshan among the top slot of directors, Paresh Rawal as the most successful comedian and gave popularity to leading heroes too. Let me add one more thing, one among those successful Malayalam directors Siddhique has most recently entered Bollywood with mega blockbuster ‘Body Guard’. They have given a new belief to Mollywood too, ‘If owl flies in front of the camera while the first shot is taken, the movie will definitely become blockbuster!’

Luck of Sonagachi in films

A few years back, a film maker spread a belief that if your girl friend is shown in the first shot, the movie will definitely become a super hit. Perhaps that film maker desired to help his girl friend some way! Thus one by one, filmmakers began to promote their love interests in movies. But very soon, another rumour was spread. Prostitute in the first shot is enough to make the movie a hit. Thus many ladies who didn’t know even the ‘ABCD’ of movies got opportunity to stand before the camera. Similar to ‘Karayogam President’ of Malayalam movie ‘Azhakiya Ravanan’ (played by comedian Innocent), they repeated mistakes in front of camera eating a lot of film rolls and made directors drink a lot of water. As producers believed that prostitutes will definitely bring fortune with them, they spent money lavishly and were patient enough to bear those losses.

Then a strange incident happened in Mollywood. A production team reached Kolkata to shoot a full length movie there. Though Kolatta is a metro city, it is also known for rickshaw-walas, leprosy patients and Sonagachi Red Street. As a movie with a first shot with prostitute runs for 100 days, a movie shot in the Red street should run for at least 365 days continuously – Why shouldn’t Film makers assume so? Though beautiful locations of Hugli River and Kalighat were there in Bengal, they placed their camera in Sonagachi. 

Next day morning whole unit reached the location. The hotel where they stayed was beneath the water. The receptionist says, “Such an incident has never happened before!” Then the camera man fixed camera under direct sun. But rain bathed them fully. Series of similar incidents occurred, thus dragging their project in Kolkata. The film set who landed Kolkata with the oath, ‘we will finish the whole scenes here’, completed the shots in Kerala’s own Kochi. Yet they comforted themselves thinking Sonagachi will definitely bring them fortune. But the movie left theatres with less collections and no news!

If the movie had run successfully in theatres for weeks, no doubt, many directors would have landed in this red street with cameras in hand! Many people might have thought, ‘Taking full movie in Sonagachi is also not good’.

From lucky cameras to unbroken coconuts!

Good script, excellent performances and director as a captain of ship – are these factors enough to make a movie hit? Not at all, believes many. It depends on coconut broken in the first day of pooja of the set and the horoscope of a choreographer who directs 5 minute lengthy item song of the movie – says many.  

A few years back, a camera was imported from Kodambakkam to Kerala giving high rent. It’s for the significance of that particular camera and the ‘raasi’ (luck factor) it carries. This particular camera has witnessed many successful movies of Tamil film industry in the recent times. Obviously the magic is with this camera, not with the director or actors – believed the Malayalam producer. Even the Kerala directors see Mani Ratnam as their inspiration. This camera was used by Mani Sir (as people often call him) for the critically well acclaimed movie ‘Bombay’. Then without looking forward or backward, the producer spend money to buy ‘Mani’s’ camera. But it gave only ‘money loss’ to producer one after the other. Then someone told so, “This camera is lucky only in Tamil Nadu. As it has crossed Valayaar checkpost, its luck has changed!” 

If the story of camera is so pathetic, what more to tell about luck of heroines and other technicians of the movie! During 1980’s a casting director was there in Malayalam film industry. His name was Kora. As soon as producer and director approach him with script, he uses cards to cast all artists for the movie. 

Now let me tell you the interesting story of a Chennai born Australian actress who worked for a few Malayalam movies. As she was not in our country, she was unaware of superstitious beliefs related to Indian film industry. Before her debut movie opposite super star got released, she got a lot of roles in the industry. Many people in the industry predicted that it’s her time in the industry. But all the movies flopped one after the other. But a director and hero advised her to add a letter to her name according to numerology and told her that change of name will surely bring her a lot of fortune. They did so in good means, as they really wanted to see her successful. They tried to advise a new generation heroine and got its quick sharp reply as well, “If your movie is bad, people will shout in the theatres. The heroine who comes in just a few scenes and songs has nothing significant to do in present day movies. So, if I change my name nothing can happen.” She didn’t change her name and entered Tamil and Kannada industry. Surprisingly she became successful. “She doesn’t have luck in Malayalam movies”, someone gave this opinion!

If the coconut broken during the pooja of the movie doesn’t break properly, it may take the sleep of the director, producer and leading actors for weeks.

Myths surrounding Thrissur main town

Thrissur – Now Thrissur language is most commonly used in Malayalam movies. Many success movies were shot from Thrissur too. Malayalam movie ‘Pranchiyettan and the Saint’ in 2010 made Saint Francis of Assisi speak Malayalam in Thrissur accent. The movie Thiruvambady Thamban, fully concentrated on life style of Thrissur and Thrissur accent was also released last year. It was not the case a few years ago. A few years back, Thrissur also had a few fairy tales to tell. Someone rumoured that if shooting location of a movie is Thrissur, the movie will be a disaster at box office. So, in case a production team happened to reach Thrissur town, they take a round of Swaraj round and travels to Guruvayur, Ottappalam or Kozhikode in search of a destination. 

The myth was broken in the year 1997 when the movie ‘Chintavishtayaya Shyamala’ was released. It was done by hero/ producer/ scriptwriter/ director of the movie. Shooting of this movie was done in Thrissur main town. This comedy was a roaring success at box office and earned critical acclamation too. This movie is still considered as the best classic movie made by the genius, Srinivasan. After that, many directors began to think about Thrissur and mega hit movies like ‘Kasthuri maan’ and ‘Pranchiyettan’ were pictured here.

Why less shots taken from Munnar for Malayalam?

Now let us shift our location to Munnar. Everybody knows Munnar is the best hill station of Kerala and a wonderful tourist destination. Its greenery, tea plantations and mist attract nature lovers. Yet why Malayalam directors always choose Ooty as their favourite shooting destination? Though Munnar is the favourite place for script writers and music composers to do their work, directors never prefer this beautiful location. They arrive here only to celebrate. If they want a beautiful hill station for song shooting or as script demands, they take thick blankets in hands to move to Ooty or Kodaikanal. Munnar was shown so beautiful in the academy winner movie, ‘Life of Pi’. But why didn’t directors of Malayalam didn’t make use of it, even a little bit? Some believers may even challenge producers of this movie to take a full length movie from Munnar. Myth associated with Munnar is that, movie will never get released. It will get buried similar to deep valleys in the mist of Munnar. Even if it happened to release, the movie will be a disaster; people will never enter theatres to see the movie.

Now you people may ask, how did Ram Gopal Varma directed critically well acclaimed movie of Amitabh Bachchan and Jiah Khan ‘Nishabd’ in Munnar? In true means, Nishabd was a big flop at box office though the acting skills of Jiah and Big B were noticed. It’s also believed that seeing the mesmerizing beauty of Munnar, when Ram Gopal Varma was dragged to Munnar, the fairy tales reached his ears too – the unsuccessful stories of Munnar. He completed the project by taking a shot at Mumbai. He might have thought a little bit, “Why should I take risk with Munnar?”

When a death scene is shot

If a character is shot dead in a Malayalam movie, one more scene is shot along with it; the scene where the actor stands up and walk for a while in a jolly mood. Otherwise it may happen in his life! Many such unfortunate incidents have quoted before also. It may be true or may not be linked with this shot. But every director extends his ‘death shots’ in such a way.

Once a villain went for a Tamil movie shooting and he was appreciated for its climax scene. But he asked the director to take a shot where he walks with a smile on his face. Then only Tollywood came to know about that strange superstition of Mollywood. Someone commented like this, “If so, if a marriage scene is shot in movies, we should shoot their divorce scene too. Right?” The whole set was filled with laughs and applause.

Lucky star Janardhanan

This belief is many decades old. There is a belief among Malayalam directors. If a movie is started with actor Janardhanan in the first shot, the movie will definitely become success. It has happened in many movies like Mannar Mathai Speaking, Twenty 20 and so on. Among the list of numerous hit movies, a few flop movies are also there. Yet, who loves to remember failures and flops? He is still regarded as the lucky star of Malayalam.

What’s common in Kamal and Spielberg?

Directors of our country worship the cameras with which they shoot movies. But seeing the recent photograph of Steven Spielberg in net, many people remained shocked. The biggest hit maker of world cinema posed for the shot by placing his foot on his camera. According to him, camera is just an instrument to shoot movies.

Now a few words on the versatile film maker of present times. He is none other than actor-director Kamal Hassan. He never conducts pooja for his movies or do break coconut. According to his beliefs, he loves movies more than anything in the world. Karma is God and he does his Karma neat and tidy, so no need of separate worships or rituals. 

Now let me conclude

You may be laughing at a few incidents I have quoted above. But in true sense, people including me hold certain beliefs even if we are not sure of its outcomes. In most cases, such beliefs are associated with bad outcomes and things which we can’t predict. If fear grasps us for a particular situation to occur, it’s definitely sure, we search for some methods to get rid of it. Obviously certain beliefs become our companions. They may be true or not, I can’t say. But they can definitely increase your confidence level. Personally I feel that, beginning something new taking God’s name gives us a lot of positive energy and confidence to move forward. We may depend on certain beliefs in our insecurity feelings, but never allow them to mislead you and your mind to wrong directions. That’s the only thing I want to tell you.

Recently the CEO's of all the airlines operating in India met and decided to levy Supplementary charges as follows:

1) The passengers will have to pay 10% of the basic fare for booking seats of choice.

2) Passengers who do not exercise any seat of choice will be charged 110% of the basic fare.

3) There will be no free supply of food/eatables to passengers irrespective of their class of travel.

4) Passengers who book in advance, their food requirements during the flight, will be charged 10% of the item cost as booking charges.

5) Passengers who demand food items in flight, will be charged 25% of the item cost as supply on demand fees.

6) Free drinking water will be supplied but will be limited to only 50 ml and only once during the entire flight duration.

7) Passengers will be supplied extra drinking water  in 500ml bottles at Rs 100 per bottle.

8) The free use of toilets will no  longer be permitted.

9) Passengers wishing to use the toilets will have to pay at the rate of Rs 100  per visit, the duration of which will be maximum 9 minutes.

10) Use vof toilets beyond 9 minutes will be charged extra, at the rate of Rs 20 per minute and this will have to be paid through an opening to be activated by the cabin crew. Only after payment is confirmed, the crew will open the toilet door to let the passenger come out.

11) Reading material will be provide to passengers at a fees of Rs 50 per Indian newspaper, Rs 100 per international newspaper and  Rs 150 per magazine.

12) Passengers are encouraged to bring their own seat belts into the aircraft. Such passengers will be given a cash credit of Rs 100, to be adjusted in their next flight. All other passengers will be charged at the rate of Rs 250 per flight per belt.

13) Passengers who want to exit from the plane on priority basis will have to pay a priority discharge fees at Rs 300 per passenger.

14) Passengers will be now permitted to a free baggage allowance of 10 kg in the economy class, 12 kg in Business classs and 15 kg in First class.

15) Excess baggage will be charged at the rate of Rs 300 per kg upto 500 kms, Rs 500 upto 1000 kms and Rs 1500 beyond 1000 kms air miles distance in domestic flights.

16) X ray charges at the airports will be at the  rate of Rs 150 per baggage piece.

17) The use of airport lounge chairs will now be on a chargeble basis at the rate of Rs 100 per chair per hour.

18) All the above charges will have to be paid in cash (except at the time of booking) and proper receipts will be issued by the concerend airlines.

19) These charges are strictly non refundable. No complaint will be entertained regarding them.

20) The basic fares are to be revised upwards by 200% with immediate effect.

20) Airlines shall review these charges every quarter and also reserve the right to revise them at any time.

It was noted by them that in spite of the introduction of above very nominal charges the airlines will still take a long time to come out of red.

PS: The Indian Railways are carefully studying the proposed airlines supplementary charges. 

God save the Indian traveller !!!!!!

India's fate in various fields has too often been influenced by persons or events or otherwise whose surname or name begins with the alphabet 'M' or it is present in between them. It is both revealing and interesting. It however happens to be the thirteenth letter of the English language. Perhaps lucky for some and unlucky for some. The epic which has a profound effect on our culture and lives is the Mahabharata. It was under the Mauryan kings that India reached its zenith in the ancient times. Lord Mahavira was the founder of the Jain religion. Islam founded by prophet Muhammed is followed by Muslims who are a significant minority in India.The most important Muslim rulers in India were the Mughals.

India won its independence under the leadership of Mahatama Gandhi or Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Mohammed Ali Jinnah formed Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten played a very critical role during the time of India's independence and its partition. V P Menon was the key aide of Sardar Patel and played a very vital role in amalgamation of princely States into the Indian Union.  Maulana Azad was India's first Education Minister. Krishna Menon was India's first High Commissioner to UK and later on was the Defence Minister during the Indo-China War in 1962. India's first scamster after independence was named Mundra. 

In sports we are all aware of the legendary Milkha Singh and his exploits.Michael Ferriera was the second Indian world champion after Wilson Jones in billiards. Jaideep Mukherjee was one of the first tennis players from India to make a name in international tennis. Sania Mirza is India's first world class female tennis player. Manuel Aaron was perhaps India's first international grandmaster in Chess. In cricket Mohinder Amarnath bowled India to victory in its first World Cup title in 1983 in London and Mahinder Singh Dhoni won the T20 World Cup. Then there were the legendary cricketers like fast bowler Mohd. Nissar, or the batsmen Vijay Merchant, Vijay Manjrekar, Mushtaq Ali, Mansur Ali Pataudi and Sunil M Gavaskar. Murlitharan is the highest wicket taker in Test cricket.

In Hindi films there were the legendary singers like Mohd. Rafi, Mukesh, Mana Dey,Talat Mehmud, Mahendra Kapoor and the nightangle Lata Mangeshkar. The heroines like Madhubala, Meena Kumari, Madhuri Dixit, Waheeda Rehman and the comedian Mehmood. Heroes like Amitabh, Dharmendra, Rajinder Kumar, Raj Kumar, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan. Bollywood is well established in Mumbai which is in Maharashtra.

Mukesh Ambani and Laxmi Mittal are the richest Indians. Kumara Manglam Birla is the doyen of Aditya Birla group. Narayan Murthy was a founder of Infosys. Azim Premji is the founder of Wipro. Jamshed Tata founded the Tata group as did Ghansyamdas Birla the Birla group.

However it is in today's politics that M is playing a very important role. There is the wily Mulayam, the fiery Mayawati, the unpredictable Mamata, the ever silent Manmohan Singh, the hot and cold M K Karunanidhi and the ambitiousr Narendra Modi. Pranabh Mukherjee  is out of the PM's race. In the past we had for a brief period Morajee Desai as the Prime Minister. Narsimha Rao was an effective PM for full five years.

So on the basis of M's we can say that Manmohan Singh has an edge over Narendra Modi in the race for PM during the 2014 elections, simply because he has two M's vs one M in Modi. Rahul Gandhi on this theory does not stand a chance. Before some of you are wondering how come the Nehru-Gandhis have ruled for so long please note the fact that the base was laid by the powerful Motilal Nehru long back.

Crazy, but the letter M does bestow some advantage to the person in whose name it appears. You may agree or not agree. 

September 12th 2011

How do I start? Do I Introduce myself? No, I don’t think people do that while they are writing diaries, they simply write what they want to, not really bothering about formalities. But supposing tomorrow after I am gone, when this is found, how will anyone know who it belonged to? , so I better introduce myself so that everything is methodical and in order. Let me write down a few details about myself !

I am Shalini Rao, a middle aged lady, bored and fed up of life because...not now, I will come to that later! I am 59 years old and feel as though I am 112 years old and frankly ready to call it a day. I have lived all my life in this house and spent most of my days within the confines of this room where I am now sitting on my bed and writing this - whatever one may call it , a blog, a diary or a narrative or a suicide note! I got the idea of writing down my memoirs (sounds grand doesn’t it) from a C grade hindi serial, no not Ekta Kapoor’s ( her serials get the highest trps ) but someone similar with similar ambitions of making it big, though frankly I had my own doubts about that and when the serial was taken off after the first 6 episodes I was justified in my thinking.....However, let me not stray from the main idea of why I am planning to write  this memoir, diary, narrative or whatever !!!

The reason why I hit upon the idea was to tell my family, being my parents, elder sister and my two sons, why I took this drastic step and decision of ending my life. At this juncture I hope no one would think of calling the police and the ambulance - That is if someone reads this or snoops around which often happens in my house when I have my in laws around! 

September 17th

Where was I ? So, let me start from the very beginning.

I come from a middle- middle class family and the sole ambition of my parents was to get me married to a steady ‘boy’ belonging to the same community, gotra and sub class as ours and they found one for sure in my dear husband, who later showed all his true colors in a way I couldn’t even have imagined ( no more straying from the narrative, I promise). I saw or rather I was shown, to my would be husband Sreenidhi Rao at a wedding reception and felt that he was ok looking (I genuinely consider myself much better looking than him).

Right from the beginning or should I say right from the early days I realised that he was a very shrewd person who never missed a single opportunity that came his way, whether it was in the form of good money, career option or a pretty face, of course a female one! That way he was straight, no complaints about that! Anyway, things worked out for me and for my parents and I was congratulated by all the members of my family close and distant, for having caught the eye of one of the most eligible bachelors in our community and I was blessed indeed to have been approved by him.

September 19th

To continue with my narrative

I was married and thereafter settled down into domestic bliss, for a while that is! Then came the children and along with that came problems too – hoards of them in all forms. Those were very trying times since my husband never believed in helping me out nor did he ever care about my own position and the innumerable problems that I had to face with regard to the children, his own family consisting of his parents who treated me more like a glorified ayah, whenever they decided to spend some time with their dear son and his family and his siblings who were least bothered about me anyway ..

September 21st

To come back to my own married life, As far as he was concerned, he had married me, hadn’t he ? also contributed in bringing those two children into this world, so now all that was required of me was to take the money that he gave me every month ( for household expenses and services rendered) and leave him alone, while I minded the house, children and of course myself. One thing to be told about him, he was generous where money was concerned and as for me ,having been brought up frugally and on middle class values, managing the household well with roughly 60% of what he gave was easy enough while I was able to save the rest of the money.

Thank god, I was not extravagant nor a spendthrift and had the sense to do that which, when I look back has been a blessing in disguise. Today, I can at least not worry about that part of my life! Something positive coming out of a hopeless situation ! Never thought of it that way!

September 23rd

Years passed, the children grew up and I and my husband steadily grew apart both physically and mentally and emotionally, so much so that we hardly had anything to say to each other while we were together. It was good that he had a job that took him away from home for at least a fortnight each month since he was a marketing manager.

This was the only silver lining in my otherwise torturous life which was becoming unbearable as months and years passed. I and my two children had a blast when their papa was away, we could be ourselves and do what we wanted, and not pretend to be some alien creature, a robot that moved around as approved and commanded by the lord and the master of the house. The children too were feeling the strain of these very stressful interactions with their father. However, thank the lord for those small mercies which would take him away from home sometimes for two weeks at a stretch.

September 25th

Now my children too are gone and the frigid atmosphere that was part of our household has shaped their personalities in such a way that they have grown distant from both of us. Mr Sreenidhi Rao , their papa of course doesn’t care since he has no time to waste on such trivialities, his mind, attention and eyes being engaged elsewhere in the form of Miss Eva, a bank officer ( this I have come to know day before yesterday from one of those ever helpful neighbors who get to hear and see everything ) and, I had thought that he had gone on one of his work related tours....

I better not say anything more since I don’t want to feel smaller than I already feel. This is because of what my older very critical sister and my very partial and one sided parents told me - About not being able of hold on to my man, so what else can be accepted, he is bound to look elsewhere etc etc; and that comment of theirs really hurt ! The hurt feeling has nothing to do with my overflowing love for my husband by the way, more about my own low self esteem.

September 28th

All in all, I have decided to end my life today itself instead of planning about it vaguely like I did in the beginning, since I don’t see anything much happening in my life. In fact, when I look into the near future, I can see my sons leading their own lives and growing even more distant , and Sreen ( apparently that is what he is now called by Miss Eva ) painting the town and local pubs red and orange with Eva hanging on to him and my close and dear relatives sniggering and gossiping behind my back , and I am sure making much of Sreen while he is around, talk about double standards !

Do I have any better choice, other than ending it all and pouring cold water on all those sniggers and gossips ! I am planning to take 45 sleeping tablets that I have painstakingly collected since the past few months, and  after the final phone call to my two sons and my dear husband too, I want to give him a piece of mind before I quit ...

3rd October

P.S : How life changes for the btter of course !

I have of course cancelled all my plans of suicide and now decided to fight back with hammer and tongs , this after my son hammered some good sense into me and advised me to hold on and teach Sreen (I like this name a lot better) a lesson. I have the finances ( thank god for the money that I have saved) and have some talent for writing so why not try my hand at writing ,painting and may be even go for some much needed cosmetology to help me restore my self esteem and fading looks.

Before I forget, I saw Sreen and Eva yesterday at the film theater where I had gone to see Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara with one of my many true friends (who incidentally has contributed in many ways in my downward journey and present status by not being there when I needed her). I looked back at them and waved gaily at  both and had the satisfaction of seeing them nearly fall off their seats after which they did the quick disappearing act. This act of mine also silenced my true friend. I am waiting for Sreen to come home, which by the way is registered in my name and he can do precious little to dislodge me from here...life looks much more interesting and challenging right now !