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This is a story of how I almost got married at the tender age, but missed my chance due to Pepsi and Karan Johar.
To understand this story, I first need to explain my relationship with these two things. Pepsi is my poison, that’s right? I never need to have alcohol, as Pepsi does the trick for me. The sugar rush from the drink hits my brain and sees me losing my inhibitions and displaying behaviour usually seen in individuals after 4 shots of Tequila.
Karan Johar on the other hand has an ever worse effect on me. Having grown up on a staple diet of his saccharine sweet movies, I am a die-hard romantic, who can’t resist a foot tapping number. In fact the song ‘It’s the time to Disco’ from ‘Kal ho na ho’ has a weird effect on my limbs and my hands and legs move on their own accord.
Having understood these nuances I now take you to a New Year’s party of 2004. A party will be too kind a name to give to this event where I was forced to go by a friend of mine. Hosted at a family friend’s house, this was a boring affair presided by parents where the high point of the evening was musical chairs. Aunties were eyeing their husbands strictly who were inconspicuously trying to move towards a small bar set up in the corner of the room. I had been prohibited to even touch Pepsi till the end of the evening adding to my moroseness.
After enduring the goings-on for a few hours during which I fell asleep twice, a ball dance for youngsters was announced. The next thing I know I had been pushed on the floor by the overzealous parental crowd and was dancing with a boy who was scared to death. He was managing to dance with me while keeping a two feet distance between us. For the next five minutes that he danced with me, he relaxed and the distance between us reduced to one point five feet.
From the few words he muttered I got to know that he was working in Australia and had come here to look for a suitable bride. I also saw his mother eyeing me with interest while pumping my friend’s mother for information about me. If the later account is to be believed out marriage was almost fixed. Once the dance ended I sneaked to the bar and had my glass of Pepsi.
And that’s when ‘It’s the time to Disco’ started to play. Suddenly much to the anguish of onlookers I was in the middle of the floor, head banging with a gusto. I was doing a mix of Bollywood dance, freestyle, salsa, break dance with a dash of bharatnatyam. My friend was desperately trying to pull me off the floor, but nothing was going to stop me.
Needless to say my prospective mother in law was horrified at the proceedings and was busily trying to hustle her son who had finally gotten interested in me, thanks to my dancing ability. He was looking amused instead of scared which was an improvement.
However much too soon the song ended and the effects of Pepsi wore off. Like a true drunkard I did not remember any of this event till it was recounted back to me.
Unfortunately I never got any details of that boy again, infact I heard the family moved out of the city. I do wonder why…..
Image source: friends dancing at a party by Shutterstock.
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
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