There are many ways to show you love someone. Some people cook elaborate meals for their partners. Some may serenade their better halves. A person can even go to the extent of building something that will last for centuries, like the Taj Mahal. Although as per NCERT this someone was Modi who inaugurated it along with 4 new airports in U.P to show his undying love for the cow belt.
Mali took me to John Wick 4. A movie franchise that she has as much interest in as I do in Star Wars.
Yes, I am actually more likely to watch a biopic of Sunil Shetty called the Mangalorean.
I randomly discovered John Wick in 2015 and I fell in love with the movie within the first 15 minutes. It combined the fight choreography I loved in Jason Bourne and Hong Kong action movies with long single take shots I had last seen in a Scorsese movie. And not since Hachiko have I been so invested in a dog on screen.
And I’ve seen every instalment since in a theatre. The one before John Wick 4 I saw in Delhi. And I watched John Wick 2 in Berlin. One of my first visits to a theatre in Europe.
Macha I can buy beer here??
The fact that the 4th one was one of the best of the lot, makes the entire series an outlier. A lot of things can’t even make it to three instalments without becoming super annoying. Like my student loan payments. Or Arjun Reddy remakes. Or Chetan Bhagat book titles that have numbers/fractions in them.
3 mistakes of my life
2 states
1/2 girlfriend
1 book too many etc.
One that I have felt acutely is Hindi Tuition teachers. I studied Hindi till the 10th standard and yet I managed to run through 3 different ones. To this day I don’t know my parents found them.
The first one was a walk from my house. A lady in her mid 50s, she had started these tuitions as a way to keep herself occupied. Although now to my trained startup eye, given the butts sitting on the floor of her hall, she was probably making more money than Unacademy is now.
I went to her for a year and it did absolutely nothing for my results. 58/100 (not to be confused with a new Chetan Bhagat book).
Call me a bigot. But I think this was because she was south Indian. Going to a Palakkad Iyer for Hindi tuition is like going to Sagar Ratna for south Indian food. It also made my class participation at school even worse.
“Premchand ne kya likha tha”
“Usne lika ki inge vandhu-”
“HINDI MAIN BOLO”
”NYAN HINDI LE DHAAN CHOLREN”
As insult to injury, my dad pointed out that it had also made my Tamil worse.
The second teacher I went to was a little further away from my house. She was a small made, mild mannered lady who taught in a college. Firstly, she was already an upgrade because she was north Indian. Secondly, the fact that her name was Manjeet probably meant she was the creme de la creme.
Unfortunately, her tutelage had a limited impact on my results. It did put my marks in the same category of the average age of India’s leaders - somewhere in the 60s.
And then came miss Manju. The 3rd teacher I went to in 3 years. I found her through a friend who had been going to her for a year.
The medical term for this is ‘last ditch effort’. Or as I heard an uncle say it when we were sipping coffee at a Darshini
“Saar first Allopathy, if that doesn’t work means then Homeopathy, if that also fail means then Tirupati”
She was north Indian. And the fact that she was teaching my friend meant she liked a challenge. Or as she told both of us a few weeks later
“Agar tum donon ko 60 bhi milta hain toh mera naam badal loongi”
Ok maybe she doesn’t like challenges that much.
But she was persistent. A prompt phone call would be made to my mother every time I bunked.
“100% fail karne wala hai”
Or like that time I bunked 2 days in a row when my mom was out of town. She kept calling her till she picked up.
“Do din nahin aaya hai”
“Ok Ma’am usko samjha-”
“Usko boldo ki meri pass percentage na khara-”
“Ma’am! Bol dunga. Abhi London main hoon, ye call roaming pe hai”
“LONDON?! Accha?? Kaisa hai London??!”
“….”
I wonder if my mom hadn’t ended the call then if she would have asked if you get beer in the theatre there.
But all of that harassment and haranguing paid off like none of my earlier attempts had. In my 10th standard board exam, she helped me get an 80. For the first time ever in my life. A bigger diversion from the mean will not exist until the day Modi offers to take a photo of someone else instead of taking a selfie.
How likely is Amal to have this experience?
It’s a stretch to even classify it as some Indian rite of passage. Hindi tuition must be uniquely south Indian. As I’d find out later, the equivalent for my friends up north was just to pray that their exam papers would be corrected in the south.
“Nyan acha marks kudukaren”
There are already some things she does which scream that she’s from Bangalore. The first is her walk which looks like its stolen from some tipsy uncle walking down Church Street. Add to that her tendency of taking abrupt U turns with no signal.
The other is the undivided attention she will pay to the slightest tamasha happening in public. Like dogs aggressively fighting over a ball or a car backing up into an electricity pole. She will stop whatever she’s doing and look so intently that I feel the sudden craving for some congress kadle to have some snacks for this timepass.
She’s also got the Bangalorean knack for picking up different languages like her old man. She will inject some Tamil (Strawberry venum), Kannada (Chill maadi thatha) and Urdu (Clean the matti matti matti appa) into random conversations.
But if she takes after me, this skill will not extend to academic results while learning and testing in language. Which in her case here would be French.
I can see it now. I would enrol her for french tuition. Only I wont make the mistake of putting her in the class of some Ms. Anuradha who’s sole qualification is that she’s from Pondicherry.
“Bonjour Amal”
“Bonjour professeur”
“C'est va?”
“Nyan French le cholren”
Nice one Dubs. Ok I won't teach French to Amal. Promise.