This morning, a bleary-eyed me staggered into the drawing room and found the father watching a Hindi movie called Pyaar Kiya Jaaye Pyaar Kiye Ja on the Zee Classic channel. For a second, I was nonplussed as the scenes and acting thrummed with a familiarity I could not put a finger on. Then, it came to me.
In the late 1980s, I bid farewell to my childhood friends as our family upped sticks and moved to Abu Dhabi in the U.A.E. What a sensory overload the whole experience was, even before we left the country. For one, the flight was delayed by more than 8 hours, so my dad decided we'd rent a hotel room rather than risk Bombay traffic again. As far as I can remember, we'd never stayed in a hotel before so the simplest of things like Room Service took on the kind of childishly, charming sense of wonder that I'd give anything to tap into now. I don't recall anything of the room's layout or the view. Just the service and what I ate - Salt & Pepper bread sandwiches. Never having even imagined this combination in my wildest dreams, the palate went crazy. 30 years later, recalling this intense memory sliver of taste, I can't help but wonder just how tight our finances were (after considerable other expenses, mind) that only those sandwiches remained within our budget. I've tried to recreate this flavour a few times since but have always fallen short in some subtle way - the taste of that white bread, the pepper to salt ratio, the graininess of salt... it remains a weird milestone; the food at Hotel Samraj.
As you can imagine, my memories of TV shows from then are quite fuzzy. We're talking about some real pre-political correctness days because there are only two cartoon shows I can recall playing on Abu Dhabi TV. One was, I kid you not, Fat Albert, a show that has less than a snowball's chance in hell of making it past the idea conception stage today. The other was the wonderful Captain Majid, completely in Arabic, which I did not understand, leading me to simply make up dialogues. I still catch myself humming the whole theme song every now and then. The dramatic yet quirky style of football in that cartoon influenced me so much that school friends were thoroughly confused at my style of playing the game. Years later that I discovered that it was a Japanese show called Captain Tsubasa, dubbed into Arabic! Once we moved to Dubai, Channel 33 entered our lives, along with legendary shows like Street Hawk (great theme song), The Flash, The Crystal Maze, Blockbusters and Remington Steele (great theme song).
Back in Abu Dhabi, the bulk of TV watching would take place thanks to video cassettes. Whether it was movies or cartoons (Asterix, Rambo, TMNT, Thunder Cats, The Hulk, Care Bears), they would have to be rented from one of the plethora of VC Libraries around Al Nasr Street or recorded patiently from cassettes lent by friends. Being completely fluent in Tamil and reasonably so in Malayalam, it wasn't unusual for us to watch all kinds of movies in either of these languages. And, one of the earliest movies I enjoyed was Kadhalikka Neramillai. A thoroughly delightful, light-hearted rom-com, I must have seen it a dozen times over the course of our life in the Gulf. The song "Vishwanathan, Velai Vendum" was so jazzy, snazzy and groove-worthy, I instantly fell in love with it. It was a world apart from the Indian tunes I was used to. One of my favourite scenes of all time is a legendary exchange between Nagesh and Balaiah. What hilarity, what tension, what narration and what acting! Tchah!
At present, I have a plethora of entertainment options available at the touch of a button and spend most of my time scrolling through titles before picking up a book (my reading habit is a result of having few other avenues of entertainment back then). In the late 1980s, I was forced to make do. A friend and I spent almost every afternoon of one entire summer vacation watching Vishwathma on video cassette at his place. Seriously, we never tired of it. Watching scenes from Pyaar Kiya Jaaye today caused a dam-breach, leading to a flood of snapshots of life in the U.A.E. as well as this post.
Fun fact - 'Pyaar Kiya Jaaye' 'Pyaar Kiye Ja' means 'Keep on (or Carry on) Loving'. But the meaning of the original Tamil title means 'No time for love'. It seems a more prescient translation in the world of today where we seem to have all the time in the world... but none for love.
Song for the moment: Enna Parvai - Kadhalikka Neramillai
P.S: P K J is a remake of K N
P.P.S: Hat tip to the Anonymous commenter who caught the error in the Hindi film title. It has been changed.
In the late 1980s, I bid farewell to my childhood friends as our family upped sticks and moved to Abu Dhabi in the U.A.E. What a sensory overload the whole experience was, even before we left the country. For one, the flight was delayed by more than 8 hours, so my dad decided we'd rent a hotel room rather than risk Bombay traffic again. As far as I can remember, we'd never stayed in a hotel before so the simplest of things like Room Service took on the kind of childishly, charming sense of wonder that I'd give anything to tap into now. I don't recall anything of the room's layout or the view. Just the service and what I ate - Salt & Pepper bread sandwiches. Never having even imagined this combination in my wildest dreams, the palate went crazy. 30 years later, recalling this intense memory sliver of taste, I can't help but wonder just how tight our finances were (after considerable other expenses, mind) that only those sandwiches remained within our budget. I've tried to recreate this flavour a few times since but have always fallen short in some subtle way - the taste of that white bread, the pepper to salt ratio, the graininess of salt... it remains a weird milestone; the food at Hotel Samraj.
As you can imagine, my memories of TV shows from then are quite fuzzy. We're talking about some real pre-political correctness days because there are only two cartoon shows I can recall playing on Abu Dhabi TV. One was, I kid you not, Fat Albert, a show that has less than a snowball's chance in hell of making it past the idea conception stage today. The other was the wonderful Captain Majid, completely in Arabic, which I did not understand, leading me to simply make up dialogues. I still catch myself humming the whole theme song every now and then. The dramatic yet quirky style of football in that cartoon influenced me so much that school friends were thoroughly confused at my style of playing the game. Years later that I discovered that it was a Japanese show called Captain Tsubasa, dubbed into Arabic! Once we moved to Dubai, Channel 33 entered our lives, along with legendary shows like Street Hawk (great theme song), The Flash, The Crystal Maze, Blockbusters and Remington Steele (great theme song).
Back in Abu Dhabi, the bulk of TV watching would take place thanks to video cassettes. Whether it was movies or cartoons (Asterix, Rambo, TMNT, Thunder Cats, The Hulk, Care Bears), they would have to be rented from one of the plethora of VC Libraries around Al Nasr Street or recorded patiently from cassettes lent by friends. Being completely fluent in Tamil and reasonably so in Malayalam, it wasn't unusual for us to watch all kinds of movies in either of these languages. And, one of the earliest movies I enjoyed was Kadhalikka Neramillai. A thoroughly delightful, light-hearted rom-com, I must have seen it a dozen times over the course of our life in the Gulf. The song "Vishwanathan, Velai Vendum" was so jazzy, snazzy and groove-worthy, I instantly fell in love with it. It was a world apart from the Indian tunes I was used to. One of my favourite scenes of all time is a legendary exchange between Nagesh and Balaiah. What hilarity, what tension, what narration and what acting! Tchah!
At present, I have a plethora of entertainment options available at the touch of a button and spend most of my time scrolling through titles before picking up a book (my reading habit is a result of having few other avenues of entertainment back then). In the late 1980s, I was forced to make do. A friend and I spent almost every afternoon of one entire summer vacation watching Vishwathma on video cassette at his place. Seriously, we never tired of it. Watching scenes from Pyaar Kiya Jaaye today caused a dam-breach, leading to a flood of snapshots of life in the U.A.E. as well as this post.
Fun fact - '
Song for the moment: Enna Parvai - Kadhalikka Neramillai
P.S: P K J is a remake of K N
P.P.S: Hat tip to the Anonymous commenter who caught the error in the Hindi film title. It has been changed.
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