Day one:
It was Sunday night and we were feeling sort of bored after my aunt left for her home after a reasonably long stay. We are very much attached to their family. Naturally her departure created a kind of void soon after she boarded a bus to Ahmedabad, where she lives. We all went to see her off as the bus stop was next to our house and dragged ourselves back after bidding her adieu. As we reached back home, my husband suggested we watch the classic Telugu movie that he brought from his Vizag trip. I coaxed and encouraged my daughter also to watch the movie. She is in grade X and unfortunately due to the places we stayed owing to our jobs, we could not make her to learn reading/writing in her mother tongue, Telugu. She can communicate well though, but cannot understand traditional/old Telugu.
As for me, I must have watched this movie a dozen times since my childhood. I quickly narrated the synopsis of the movie to my daughter and assured her of great enjoyment. Thankfully she agreed and volunteered to do the needful. Thus started great Telugu classic movie "Mayabazaar" on our DVD player.
This version of the movie was the recent colour release. Just like Mughal-e-Azam in colour!! I was apprehensive of the quality but to my dismay, it was good! For the umpteenth time I was enjoying every bit of the movie and so was my daughter. My husband, as usual, enjoyed short naps while we kept ourselves engrossed. Both myself and my daughter thoroughly enjoyed Ghatotkach's character and his/his team's magical tricks. Though Shri Krishna was the pivot, yet, Ghatotkach was the hero of our Sunday night!! At around 1.00 am the movie came to an end and we too slid into the lap of sleep goddess, happily being a real part of Mayabazaar in our dreams :-)
Day two:
Monday - back to the grind!! ugh!! and sigh! too :-(
As a routine, my daughter called me at around 3.30 pm in my office to communicate that she has reached home safely after school, having lunch (most difficult task to get done from her in my absence). An important part of her communication was about preparing a school assignment in Hindi. She is herself good at languages and literature studies. The catch was the topic of assignment - an anecdote from Shri Krishna's life. She knows a few. But her ambition of 'being different' [(un)fortunately, induced by me] made her to send an SOS to me, alert me that it is now my assignment!! Phew!! Kids.....Okay honey! I have nothing to say but 'done'.
But by the time I reached home I completely forgot about my 'task' because my mind was preoccupied with my car's punctured tyre and the mechanic's advise to change the two front tyres, which means an unexpected big hole in my pocket/purse. To top them all, my domestic help's proceeding on reasonably long leave has set my brain into 'kitchen-clothes-cleaning' mode so perfectly that it refuses to think of anything else until restored to its previous state. Sigh!! Fair enough for my poor brain!! Anyways, as usual all of us huddled to place ourselves before the TV, with the TV remote shuttling between the man of the house (for IPL score) and the princess engrossed in her homework with a background score of her favorite TV soaps. I quickly had a fruit in order to suppress my hunger pangs, and joined them with a plateful of cluster beans to prepare for the next day's meal. After sometime I was gently reminded of my 'task' as my daughter brought in her assignment stationary. Now come on mom! think, think, think!! I suggested her half-a-dozen anecdotes from Bhagavata and Mahabharata. None seem to please her. Suddenly my eyes caught a glimpse of the DVD cover of 'Mayabazaar' lying near the TV, which we watched last night. Gotcha!! I said "why don't you write what we watched last night? That is also a Krishna Leela (Krishna's playful deeds)." Thus started my saga of narrating and dictating the entire story as a precis in Hindi. Ofcourse I enjoyed converting the movie scenes of Ghatotkach, deriving guidance and instructions from Lord Shri Krishna, spinning his magic and making the guards fall deep asleep, flying the sleeping princess Shashirekha along with her bed to his ashram (hermitage) to join her beloved childhood beau Abhimanyu the Pandava prince, then Ghatotkach changing himself into Maya Shashirekha (magically disguised princess), dancing and frightening her stupid would-be husband Lakshman Kumar, the son of Kaurava King Duryodhana and finally breaking the cruel plans of Kauravas, thus saving Shahsirekha's marriage, ........all these into a piece of Hindi literature. It yielded a two-page full length assignment. By the time I finished her assignment, I completed cutting half-a-kilo cluster beans, kneading flour for two kinds of parathas for the following days, and my husband finished his dinner and was fast asleep. Sigh! My daughter was also exhausted. Now the last piece of her mom's task was to decorate the assignment. I sketched a murli/banshee (flute-the musical instrument of Lord Shri Krishna) and a morpankh (peacock feather-worn by Lord Shri Krishna in his headgear) using colour pencils and plastic crayons. Finally, the assignment was complete!
Day 3:
I was a bit excited to know the result of her assignment and was eagerly waiting for her routine phone call. Obviously! Restless, after 4.00 pm I called up home only to learn that she has reached home safely, had lunch and fell asleep. Blame the scorching weather! Still curious, I could not stop myself from asking about her assignment and in her sleepy state her question was "what assignment"? Sigh again! Well, the good news was she got full marks for her assignment and also praise for bringing out a lesser known anecdote, that too expressed in good Hindi. I got to know the news after reaching home from work because she was fresh after a good sleep and less homework. The punch line was - "Mama .... I wish if we could summon Ghatotkach to our house whenever the maid went on leave .... he would spell magic, things would be done in a jiffy; myself and papa need not share all the uninteresting chores and ofcourse, you also need not stretch yourself." From Mahabharat to a movie and then to a school assignment, now....will Ghatotkach make his way to my home?
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