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Sridevi was not just an actress, she meant different things to different people. Here’s how she enchanted the four-year-old me with her nau-nau chudiya.
Sridevi was indeed graceful, beautiful, zestful and a powerful actress. The whole of this week has been about mourning and remembering – discussing her life – movies, songs and even interviews.
I was digging up my memories and I found a few bangles.
I must have been around four when my aunt took my cousins and me to watch Chandini over the weekend for a night show at an old theatre. I have foggy flashes of the brown seats in the balcony and a crowd screaming, whistling and dancing. It must have taken me a while to love the scenic beauty, the chiffon sarees and adapting to melodies but it was the nine bangles on Sridevi’s hands that I instantaneously fell in love with.
I would’ve loved to copy her choreography and even her expressions. I was enchanted.
I even forced my mother to even buy me bangles of different colours, and suddenly pink was a favourite. I would wear a pink Ghaghara and rehearse a lot. Most of my concerts were to my dolls and books.
I didn’t know how to count. It was a riddle that I was decoding. I perhaps knew what four was but nine was way too complex. So I spent time watching her on VCR and I tried counting on the screen, many times- well, every time my parents played the movie. Counting was not simple. I thought maybe nau chudiya meant covering half the arms with bangles.
So I discussed my complications with my supervisors. My grandmother, a maths teacher, opened a few fingers and showed me the count. It reminded me of “twinkle twinkle little star” and five distracted minutes later, I was just reciting the rhyme.
With my mother I used a different tactic, I tried analysing the number of bangles on her when she was asleep. In fact, one day, out of pity she wore nine bangles and counted. But Chandini was wearing a lot more. Definitely, my mother didn’t know how to count, I inferred.
Finally, one day, when the whole house was napping in the mid-afternoon, I proceeded with my secret operation- I picked up my mother’s vanity case, picked as many bangles as possible. I was counting on my memory, vague recollections of the song and everything I was advised with. I was preparing for this day, all my life.
At the point, it occurred to me “Nau-Nau” in fact meant nine twice which had to mean infinity and maybe, my mother knew counting. So I dressed up with extra large-bangle decked hands – from my arms to my wrists.
Finally, with the mission accomplished, I grinned.
With the pride of successful and smart thinking, almost seeming like a bangled robot, I stood in front of the mirror sweating – it was performance time, the dance floor was ready. So as I balanced the colour scheme and sequence of bangles, I slowly tried moving a centimetre of my hands towards my face and even before a millimetre of me moved, I was captivated.
My mother counted twenty-five bangles on each arm: close enough to infinite, I assumed. I believed that Chandini had led me to learn how to count.
Image source: YouTube
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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