Sridevi’s demise: Impact on the star kids

I was lying on my bed, not wanting to get up early on a Sunday morning when my husband told me about the news of Sridevi‘s demise. Quickly, I grabbed my phone and spent one good hour absorbing whatever information that was floating on the cyberspace from her early movies in Tollywood to her recent, or rather say, the last trip to Dubai for a wedding. She was only 54 and had a huge comeback in 2012 with the movie English Vinglish after 15 years of absence from the silver screen. This is not an age to die. Even my father lived a span of 63 years on this earth with almost twenty years of diabetic history and two years of dialysis sessions.

 

Sridevi(13 Aug 1963 – 24 Feb 2018)

 

Every news feed page of all my social media accounts was full of pictures of Sridevi and condolence prayers, stories of her early struggles in the movie industry, her personal life, her two daughters and what not. In between, there were posts throwing light on cardiac arrest & heart attack for people like my neighbor Pummy Aunty who feeds on social networks so much so that she can even challenge a heart surgeon based on those articles. Some of them went to an extent of pen ing down the reason of her death: “pressure to maintain size zero” !!! Wait…… what?? Feminism has gone too far. Meanwhile, some people had copied the entire write up and shared it as their own … Phew … Too much going on in my newsfeed.

With her two daughters Jhanvi & Khushi

 

While making breakfast, something got me into thinking. What would happen to her elder daughter Jhanvi Kapoor, who has set out to follow her mother’s footsteps and would soon mark her debut in Bollywood? She was, in fact in the middle of a shooting schedule of her movie Dhadak and could not even be with her mother on her last breath. How would she cope up with this sudden crisis in her life and be ready for the silver screen?

 

With her elder daughter Jhanvi Kapoor

 

There is one more girl who is all set to enter the cinema alongside Jhanvi with her charismatic smile and a very pretty face whose genes & the royal blood is to blame for. She is Sara Ali Khan, the daughter of veteran actor Amrita Singh and her ex-husband, the Nawab of Pataudi, Saif Ali Khan. Sara, unlike Jhanvi who played it safe and came under the wings of Bollywood mafia Karan Johar, has made a script based choice and signed Abhishek Kapoor’s movie Kedarnath opposite Sushant Singh Rajput.

Sara Ali Khan

 

As they say, everything happens for a reason, you just have to find it. Maybe, Sridevi’s sudden demise is a sign, her daughter should not follow her footsteps, that her mother’s death is an inauspicious thing to happen when she is on the verge of marking her debut into showbiz. Maybe, her movie would be postponed, or, maybe she would take a pause and delay her debut until next year.

Would Jhanvi back off and make way for Sara?

Both Sara and Jhanvi are star kids with big movies under their vanity, daughters of strong women who ruled the movie industry for years, surrounded by who’s who of Bollywood whose mentoring and guidance can make anyone fly, debuting around the same time. And, the history has it in Bollywood that if two actors debut their career together, one will rise to shine and the other has to fall or struggle hard. It is evident that either of the two will get success from their first film. My personal choice is Sara for no apparent reason but her sharp features. I like Amrita Singh’s smile and I guess that’s how it worked.

Amrita Singh with her daughter Sara Ali Khan

 

Sara & Jhanvi

My afterward thoughts told me otherwise. Sara’s life was no fairy tale. She witnessed her parents divorce at a very young age and even had to attend her father’s marriage when she was in her teens. And Jhanvi’s life was smooth until now. I always believed that one has to go through pain to achieve pleasure. And now that the equation has somewhat settled, maybe, who knows, Jhanvi would emerge like a phoenix from the ashes, shine like a superstar.

Both the young girls are fresh air in this otherwise boring bollywood industry. Maybe, they create a new history. Maybe, they both rise to shine. Maybe, they both be superstars. Only time will tell.

Awaiting the release of Dhadak & Kedarnath.

 

And, condolences to the Kapoor family. May they overcome the grief and pain soon.

February 25, 2018 by Polashree Categories: Some thoughtsTags: #sridevi #death #bollywood #cinema #jhanvikapoor #saraalikhan #sailfalikhan #dhadak #kedarnath #sushantsinghrajput Leave a comment

The Perfect Chocolate Cake That Broke My Heart

I baked a chocolate cake one day, the perfect chocolate cake. And it was after, I don’t know, how many attempts or after how many half & full burnt/under-cooked cakes, but

I baked the perfect chocolate cake in the world.

At least that’s what I thought.

I couldn’t resist myself after getting tortured with overdose of bakery videos on YouTube. One of my friends had started a channel on YouTube and since then whenever I visit her place or vice-versa, I get to taste a whole new set of cakes & confectioneries made with different innovative scientific formulas which would even put Einstein to shame.

Well, I don’t mind the frequent intakes of extra calories as long as my sweet tooth allows me to. But I make sure to exercise that she eats half of everything she offers to me. What?? is it fair? Hell yeah! Tit for tat !! Remember??

If you want to ditch exercise and still have your favorite food, make new friends, look for fatter women, fatter than you, and stick with them forever. But if you are socially handicapped like me, go try to make your existing girlfriends fatter. How? This is actually what me & my YouTube friend does to each other, like literally.

So, one day, I thought to myself why not invent my own set of formulas and mixed with the modus operandi of baking a cake. And followed by vigorous internet search & tips taken from my mother, sister and friends including the YouTube one, the idea was well executed step by step with utmost care taken not to use any unidentified formula which could ruin the otherwise beautiful idea of baking.

I have to admit here that the baking method which I settled down with at last, was the one I found out in the internet first. This is a proven human psychology of a common man, that, as you look for something new in the internet, you tend to read the very first article you get your hands on, with your full concentration. The next 10 to 15 articles you browse are just for the sake doing a research, looking for any extra bit of info the first article might have missed. I, too, as part of the common men, fall into the psychology trap and did read down the first recipe with so much dedication that I actually mugged it up all. And the rest….. I just looked for the extra bit of twist to add to my already chosen  M.O. of baking. With all the later research gone in vain, I settled for the first one which I found the easiest.

And, after many dozens of burnt & under-cooked cakes making it to my failure list, finally, I was able to bake my masterpiece – the perfect chocolate cake in the world.. errrr….in my world.

My happiness didn’t last long. Mr. Husband declared that he won’t be eating anything that has come out of the oven that day or any day thereafter. In fact, he threatened me that he would go for a hunger strike if I blackmail him emotionally any more. Because ever since I inherited this habit of baking, he, despite being a bong, has started having nervous breakdowns seeing anything sweet nearby. He even held me responsible for the sudden increase in our monthly grocery budget, which I couldn’t deny less because apart from the ones that made it to our dinner table for the tasting ceremony, there were a lot many cakes, which only I knew, that went to the dustbin straight from the oven without even qualifying to our dog’s plate.

My brain started analyzing the data and did a quick math calculation which was way too fast for my general problem solving ability. Sometimes I wonder, if being intelligent is contagious or I can be good at numbers too, but only under extreme pressure. It was at that very moment I realized that it’s been almost two months since my mind conceived this idea and my oven has baked over 30 not-to-be-qualified-as cakes since then.

I was heartbroken! My man, who took a vow to stand by me in happiness as well as in sorrow, now doesn’t want to take a bite of my happiness.

Life. Period.

Anyways, two days gone by and I could not persuade him enough. Meanwhile, our wedding photographs & videos had arrived and it was meant for a celebration. Yes, they took four months to edit, crop, cut, copy, paste, stitch, sew, erase, rewrite & don’t know what more. So, I picked up Indo-Chinese food from a restaurant near my office which, I swear by god, has always been my one of the chosen take away places for my impromptu house parties. Yummy!!

Since, my stomach surrendered halfway through the dinner, my husband had to eat mine too. The extra schezwan did its thing and he got back his long lost sweet tooth. Much to his rescue, I acted spontaneous like a ninja and handed over him my perfectly baked Chocolate cake.

I was all smiles then, and I am all smiles now while writing this coz he ate the entire cake and even told me that

“I had baked the perfect Chocolate cake in the world….. errr in his world.”

Life. Period.

Xoxo.

May 18, 2017May 18, 2017 by Polashree Categories: Life as it comes, UncategorizedTags: #life, baking, calories, candid, chocolatecake, featured, funny, homemade, humor, humour, husband, relationships 5 Comments

What I want to do & What my life makes me do.

A big Hello to all the avid readers of word press, this is my first ever write up thing after high school. It’s not that I didn’t write anything of sorts, it was always halfway through. May be out of fear that what if my writing sucks and no one’s gonna like it. I bet, it still does. Every time I re-read what I write, I tend to change one word or the other in a hope to bring freshness out of it but end up changing the entire idea in such a way that I have to think hard what was I writing in the first place.

And also because after high school, like all other ordinary people, my life took a few roller coaster rides through college, through law firms, through corporate jobs and,

here I am, happily quit my job, getting a hand in my husband’s newly formed start-up and taking some ‘me’ time out of it.

Needless to say, I was a lazy pig out then, moving with the flow of life without even paused for a second to ponder about what I want from my life. Don’t get panicked coz I won’t start with the “I don’t know what I want to actually do with my life” thing because it’s so overrated that even a kid from school knows what shit he wants to do with his life, even if he doesn’t know what that mean. Like my 7 year old niece wants to become a hair dresser for barbie dolls !! and my friend’s 5 year old son wants to become a rickshaw puller with a helmet on !!

But on the contrary to the kids vision about life, teenagers or early twenties have a rather straight & linear expectations from life which is inversely proportional to age & time. The more you get tied up with career, love, marriage, property, children, etc., the less likely you follow your, then straight & liner, dreams.

I too had a dream, no…wait… two-three dreams, or let’s just say, I too had dreams to fulfill. But my dreams are a bit different from yours in a sense that they change with time, maturity & “what mood or phase am currently in”.

From a lawn mower mechanic to a nurse to a singer & dancer simultaneously, to a gynecologist to a model to fashion blogger to a chef including other unnamed things I wanted to do in my life. Not to mention that, once I wanted to be a full time housewife immediately after my wedding. I was so consumed by the perks of a housewife that I took one step ahead and started taking up cooking classes (that’s how the chef idea came to picture). Both my mom & mom-in-law got a panic attack with my decision of quitting my well paid corporate job so much so that they took it upon themselves to make sure I won’t.

Meanwhile, I too realized the never-ending job responsibilities of a housewife with zero leaves & no retirement plan whatsoever, which both my mothers’ complain to this date. It’s not that I run from taking up responsibilities, for I know all women have that extra dose of hormone inside her which enables her to function 24*7 for their families with a big smile. It’s just that I am a very lazy person at heart and I need regular doses of rest & vacations to feed my energy levels.

For a good amount of almost two years, they managed to keep me away from this forbidden thought. But a born rebel I am, I had to execute what I decided. Since childhood, I have lived my life my way, doesn’t necessarily mean that I was always right. Doing things out of rebellion has its own charm, the immediate peace & satisfaction you get out of it is something way beyond explanation.

Well, the cards were played and the undone was done. But faith has something else planned for me. My husband announced that he gonna be opening a startup soon and that he would need my support and wanted me to “join hand in hand with him” at his start up. Wait… support???

No. not financial, not emotional, not social or anything which I could have been able to give him at that phase of time. By the time I understood the hidden meaning of “Join hand in hand with him”, which meant “slog like a dog with him”, he had actually sorted out & set the boundary sphere of work for me.

Slog like a dog

Oh my husband !! How I wish to have spent time sipping afternoon tea in my balcony, watching all the typical Indian soaps & serials with my doggy, gossiping about the neighbor Aunt who has a soft corner for every young guy in our campus, and all the other unproductive things which a working woman would have loved to do.

So, here I am, (happily)^-1 quit my job, getting a hand in my husband’s newly formed start-up and taking (some)^-2  ‘me’ time out of it.

May 10, 2017May 16, 2017 by Polashree Categories: Life as it comesTags: #life, #metime, #workingwoman, corporatejob, featured, startups 11 Comments