I’m glad that I don’t have to work on Saturday. It means a lot to me where I can spend my Saturday relaxing with the kids. For the past, one month, I have been spending my Saturday afternoon watching the Hindi movie from either TV2 or TV3.
Watching Hindi movie helped me to stay awake especially in a hot Saturday afternoon. The actors and actress are handsome and beautiful. Their movies are full of colors, wonderful songs and dances. Not only that, I also learnt something about their culture and tradition.
Sometimes I would be flipping between TV2 and TV3, but today, it was totally TV2. They were showing Baabul starring Amitab Bachan, Hema Malini, Rani Mukarjhee and John Abraham. The movie was about the Mili (Rani Mukarjhee) who moved to her in-laws house after she got married. This is part of the Indian culture when the girl married she said goodbye to her family, and started a new life with her new family.
Milli was very happy until her husband died in an accident. She changed from a happy person to a sad women and devoted her life to the memory of her husband.
She lost the zest to live, and when her father in law, Balraj (Amitabh Bachan) saw this, he wanted her daughter in law to be happy again. He approached Milli’s friend, Rajat (John Abraham) who still in love with Milli.
He brought back Rajat from Europe, and pushed them to be together as much as possible until Milil decided to accept Rajat as her husband. She only accepted that, after her father in law explained to her that he wanted to see her happy again. He further said what she had is not life, and he also said that he loves her like his own daughter.
On her wedding day, the father in law’s older brother came and disagreed with the marriage, as he viewed it as something against their culture and tradition. Hah! To make it more interesting, they had a brother who died at a young age, and his widow lived with their family. The older brother pointed out that the sister in law was happy, and didn’t need to find another husband. I like the replied from the widowed sister in law. “If wearing white and eating two times a day, is called happy, then I’m happy,” she said with a sad eye.
As usual in Hindi movie, they always have a happy ending. So was this movie where the older brother realized his mistakes and agreed to let the wedding proceed.
Eventhough, this movie didn’t have any suspend elements or twists, it was a good movie as it leave a message to those who still practicing and believing in this tradition. To me, it is an eye opener because if I don’t watch this movie, I wouldn’t know that there are still some people in India practicing this.
Talking about Hindi movie, my favorite Hindi movie is Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. No matter how many times I watched it, I will cry. Here, is the song from the film. Enjoy.
Today everything is back to normal. Hubby went back to work after taking the day off yesterday and left me with the kids. I have no complaint about that. It was a lovely time for us to spend our time at home together.
I thought that I was going to have a tough time to take care of Zaki, but he was such an easy boy to take care. He also didn’t lie down on his bed all the time. In fact, he went up and down the staircase making me worried that he might fall, and make it worse. If I compared his circumcision with what my brothers went through before, it was totally different.
When my brothers had their circumcision done, it was such big occasion for the family. The whole family and kampong folk celebrated their journey to manhood. My Bang Ngah was 12 years old while my abang Zahir was two years younger than Bang Ngah. To celebrate, there was a big feast where everybody in the kampong was invited.
The event started early morning. The kampong people would come dressing in their best dress and brought some food or cookie with them. The morning tea was served and later, the womenfolk joined my family members to cook foods for lunch.
While the kampong people prepared the food, my parent was at the hospital with my brothers. At that time, it was uncommon for boys to circumcise at hospital. Most of the kampong kids had theirs done in the traditional way. Hmmm... I don’t encourage any of the young boys to go through that.
Before noon, my brothers reached home, and they were helped by the men to the house. They were taken to their special bed in the living room. At the living room, the ceiling was covered with a special cloth and so did the wall surrounding the bed. I didn’t know what it was for, but it has something to do with our customs.
My brothers were then put side by side, and their sarongs were then tied to a string which was strung to the special cloth. This was done in order to avoid the sarong from hurting the newly cut skin.
They were treated like princes, and they were not encouraged to get out from the bed. Foods and drinks were sent to them. There were always someone with them, and at night time, there was music to keep them company.
It was not live band singing rock songs, but a violinist and his group singing folk songs. The group was led by an old man known as To Ki Jambut, and it was the main event where everybody was looking forward to. Not only people from my kampong came to the house, but those from the next kampong also came to watch the performance by To Ki Jambut.
Heh! I don’t know whether my brothers enjoy the music, but for one thing they can still remember the old man. Looking at what my brothers went through and what my kids went through, It was such a vast difference. We don’t have a big feast, no musician, no special treatment, no special place for them to sleep and the only common thing is the sarong still needs to be tied to avoid hurting the little birdie.
