It was one of those customary thrice-a-week conversations with Amma; twenty minutes spent bitching about Gundu and catching up on family gossip, when we are not spitting fire on each other, that is. When suddenly, Amma says, “Hey Moni. I am acting in one Telugu play, you know a?”
I am stumped. It takes a few seconds for me to collect myself before I can congratulate her and express my genuine thrill for her. But after I hang up on an enthusiastic Amma, I can’t help but reminisce.
Flashback to some five years back. (Gulp I am old). College brings with it all these super ideas of doing these really cool things, like dye-ing your hair the colour of vomit, punching holes into every available square millimeter on both ears, and the like. My super cool idea was doing theatre. It’s not that insane, you know. Anyone who says they have never pretended to be a star in front of a mirror, delivering an Oscar/Filmfare acceptance speech ever in their lives, is an effing liar. Of course, you grow up (or you don’t) and these aspirations disappear (or they don’t. Ahem). You and your Amma spend all the 18 years of your life spewing venom on every female face that appears on the TV. Seriously, no one is beautiful enough or talented enough to be in the movies. “If that bonda mooku can be heroine, so can I,” you say in all earnestness, and go to bed dreaming of delivering that acceptance speech. Then of course, spoilsport morning comes, and with it, the full force of your early morning ugliness and absolute lack of glamour in your PJs, to douse your face with well-deserved cold water. And life goes on.
Then suddenly college comes, and this theatre thing becomes a very possible thing to do. Not school dramatics level, but as an adult, like… being a real actress! Suddenly, praise for being a great actress is not that impossible a dream, you know. With stars in your eyes, you hop to your parents and announce that you are going to be an actress. Like a real actress. On stage. Because apparently a lot of people do it – I can do it too, and I can be better than everyone else! What say?
Appa looks striken. After wringing his hands and frowning a great deal, he comes up with an eloquent “Chi”. That you counter with an even more articulate “Huh?” (Is this my uber-cool Appa I am talking to?) By now, the initial revulsion has passed, and you can see the wheels inside his head turn. “No kanna. People in our family don’t act. Now you’ll say theatre, later you’ll say movies. You can’t be a koothadi.” You inadvertently laugh at the ludicrousness of it all, before you explain to him that it is not at ALL like that. But he walks off. No way, Moni. Can’t allow it.
Poker-faced Appa doesn’t know a thing about expressing himself, about the catharsis in acting. That’s why he can’t appreciate it, ha. But aforementioned Appa is a formidable man when he is angry. Helplessly, you turn to Amma, that kindred spirit drama queen who wanted to appear at least in one padam as Rahul Khanna’s amma. And the traitor, she says nothing. There’s a flash of compassion before her eyes steel over and she nods a firm No. It’s fun to say all that, but not practical.
You lose it, stomp your feet, tremble in rebellious teenage angst and throw a tantrum that the whole of K K Nagar can hear. Which angers the potential poker champion even more. Tapping his own hidden potential for drama, OVER MY DEAD BODY YOU WILL DO THEATRE, he thunders. Copious tears are in vain. The silence is deafening. And you swear you’ll never talk to the parents again.
Until, auditions are announced a few months later. On the sly, you attend auditions, after taking the blessings of Thatha, comedian par excellence who was into drama for ages, while Ammamma stands in the corner with a smile on her face, secretly praying you won’t make it. But of course you make it, superstar that you are. You march purposefully towards the parents and say look. I’ve made it. Don’t say no, give me a chance. And they reluctantly do, JUST this once, making you promise that in four months, you’ll end everything, and work towards an MBA. Not fair! But under the circumstances…
Those four months are joyous, the workshops, the rehearsals, while the family goes mad. An uncle takes you and cousin T – also into theatre – aside, to convince you to quit asap, because our house girls just don’t do these things. (T, most ironically, went on to be Mani Ratnam’s assistant. Ha.) The grandmothers are clucking about. Tension is rife in the air. When the D-Day comes however, the family is supportive enough. Amma, Appa, Thatha, Ammamma – everyone comes to the play and sits through it, even if, to put it mildly, have nothing nice to say about it (The Cut of Hamlet by evam, for those from Madras). One nice review mentions you (although not by name), and exactly one boy in the audience thought you were cute. Not so bad. And then, snap, the dream is over.
But, things have changed since, they really have. Some four years later, shy Gundu wants to get into the panto, and with not as much as a whimper of protest, the parents say yes, even take her to rehearsals every week. (Maybe because her hormones aren’t raging yet, and she won’t insist on getting into the movies, and eventually, into compromising positions with men. Or so they think.) Then, Amma, through her gult networking from working for gult bank, gets this chance to do this little TV anchor part in gult play for AIR, which was also going to be staged.
And she does it, in front of a packed audience. And gets a picture of hers to appear in Eenadu. Ammamma, the darling that she is, is apparently accusing Amma of yemathifying Appa. Very cutely, Amma also did her lines for me on the phone. Although I (and Appa) hate Amma’s Telugu propensities (because we have been historically left out of gult conversations when her gult colleagues come home), we are endlessly thrilled. Yentra babloo? Baaga unnara?
The moral of this looong story is: we are a family of hypocrites. Or alternatively, I am the trendsetter in this house, the beacon of light that leads this family out of darkness into Enlightenment. I prefer the latter.
Disclaimer, just so I still get my kaju katli and ribbon pakoda when the parents come down for graduation in a month: My parents are the coolest people in the world, super liberal and very modern. This was the only scenario in life where I had any trouble with them. And I say this very seriously. So next year, if I tell them I want to poke around in Africa after I get myself tattooed and braided, they’ll say yes. Really they will.
