Dum Maro Dum

My wife and I were waiting for one of us to fall ill so that we could do things that we could not do otherwise (nothing sleazy about it, I must clarify). An unusual and irrelevant opening note, I agree, but just hang on for a while and it will all start to make sense the further you read.


This is a story of my struggle and triumph. A struggle as a financially broken IT professional, as a husband and as a native of a country where Bollywood produces quality certified crap movies. I said financially broken IT professional because as an IT professional it is my inherent duty to whine about my paycheck. No matter how well we are paid, we always whine about how the others in the other companies get paid better than us. You’ll read about my struggle being a husband in a while and I complained about Bollywood because we (well, my wife did) decided to go for a Bollywood movie for recreation.

The day we had waited for had finally arrived. I had fallen sick. I ate crap and I suffered from food-poisoning for almost a week. God is the witness of how I felt, but what do God know? As I puked my guts out, with a grin on our faces and serene happiness in our hearts, we had already started planning about how we would spend the coming weekend. With a lot of thinking, debate and discussions between my wife and herself, we had decided to go for Dum Maro Dum – a Bollywood movie! I had no say, you could judge.

We had saved on food and alcohol for one person for a week because of my illness. We had saved enough money to embark upon to what we had dreamt of (so now you unravel the meaning of the opening note, huh?) You see, we IT professionals are paid handsomely to live a healthy life, but for entertainment and recreation, we have to resort to different kind of schemes – in our case – illness. The reason behind this is, ninety percent of our salary goes in paying EMIs and credit card bills for all the absolutely unnecessary expensive things that we buy.

On the fine Saturday morning, the following weekend, my wife had already called her mother, her young aunts, her friends and also Googled on what she should wear for the movie. Post brushing teeth and after I had finished preparing tea and breakfast for us (and other husbandly duties like cleaning the house and utensils), one by one, she tried all the dresses she had in her and my closet (yes, I do have a small section in my cupboard for my clothes!). A few dresses were not-so-good, not appropriate for the occasion, too tight, too loose, too old, too traditional, too hip, not-going-to-wear-it-for-a-movie-for-the-first-time and so on. And I had to judge! For the ones I said 'you look good', I got a reply 'but not great, right?' When I said 'great, awesome!', 'you are just saying it for the sake of it, aren’t you?' came the reply. After a lot of consultation and STD calls, the dress was finalized; I would let go and not talk about the hair-style emergency we had. When it was my turn, I simply said ‘yes’ and nodded to the T-shirt I was asked to wear.

Life is a struggle and you move forward fighting it with your head held up high no matter what. So I did, having dealt with one, moved on to face another: conveyance. Until I buy a car or get the two-wheeler I was promised as dowry, auto-rickshaw is the way to go. The domestic hardship of choosing the right attire for the right occasion can be dealt with, but dealing with auto drivers is the biggest challenge of all. I hate those sons-of-bitches. The first few ones that stop at your call turn you down like they have been asked to take you to a different country. The other ones ask you to write them down a fortune for that ride. ‘Twenty rupees extra hona’ said the one that came along, I respectfully said ‘fuck you’ and moved on to deal with another goon that was approaching. The sixth one agreed to take us “by meter” to our destination – the multiplex.

Did I mention about how I forgot to book the tickets online, in advance? I swallowed my fear and slowly, in a feeble tone said ‘I forgot’ when I was asked to keep the tickets handy. ‘I’m sorry, what? Did you say you forgot the tickets at home?’ exclaimed a very angry person who was almost ready to give up the marriage on that occasion. With the left over courage, I had to answer ‘I forgot to book the tickets’. I tried doing the cute eye-thing that that cat does in the movie Shrek, but it didn’t work. The ‘WHAT????’ that followed caused the entire universe suck around me into a small ball and all the people around us, including aliens and the spirits floating in the air, held me guilty as charged for the crime I had committed. When the situation was restored and peace prevailed, I was asked to go and get the tickets from the counter. I returned after a few minutes with a big smile on my face and two tickets in hand. I got treated as if I had just returned from my mission of killing Osama; we were a happy couple again!

‘WHAT THE…’ she said loudly when the title said Rio. ‘It’s in 3D, honey’, I said in reply barring all my teeth and handing over the red glasses. A triumph! I declared in my mind.

We still remain a happy couple.

Disclaimer: A special approval was granted by my lovely better-half for writing this blog on the condition of terming the character of the wife as fictional. No rickshaw drivers were hurt in the making on this blog.